The Sponsorship Collaboration - A Game On Equal Terms? A qualitative study of gender-influence in football sponsorship collaborations

Sammanfattning: Corporate interest in sponsorship is continuously increasing globally and sport is receiving the largest portion. In Sweden, a country ranked as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, 46 % of elite athletes are women but only 20 % of sport sponsorship resources are allocated to this group. While previous research on women in sport found women to be restricted in the sport arena, adjusting to the prevailing male norm, sponsorship literature has illuminated how a corporation can benefit from, and use sponsorship. The few studies that have connected the two research areas have studied single aspects of sponsorship collaborations influenced by gender. Lacking in research is still a holistic perspective of the sponsorship collaboration in relation to gender to further understand which aspects and why they influence the possibilities of women's clubs in obtaining and maintaining sponsorship collaborations. In order to isolate aspects influenced by gender in sponsorship collaboration and set a direction for future research in the field a qualitative multiple-case study on elite level in Swedish football was undertaken. Interviews with nine football clubs; four women-only, three men-only, and two with men and women's teams, and nine football sponsors, were undertaken in relation to sponsorship collaborations. These showed that gender is foremost influential in the pre-phase and the start-up phase of a collaboration. Furthermore, aspects such as personal influence, continuous collaborations, and untargeted measurements that previously were favouring men to obtain and maintain sponsorship are still related to gender but either one can experience the benefits. Gender per se was however not found to influence the management of the collaboration or evaluations, foremost related to the possibilities of maintaining sponsorship.