Hur idrottsvarumärken påverkas av sponsring från bettingbolag : En jämförande deduktiv studie gällande de svenska elitfotbollsklubbarna och deras supportrar, samt klubbarnas CSR-arbete

Sammanfattning: Swedish football teams of today who are playing on an elite level get several tough tasks that they have to go through. It’s not like the good old days, when success on the pitch was everything that mattered. Now is the surroundings equally important. The sports profit interest today has added motivation to the football clubs to be operated equally, and that the brand and the sponsorships are portrayed as two essential factors. As a team, it’s not about working with your brand in any way you want, or collaborating with any given company. The teams need to think about where they came from, about their roots within the sports industry. Because of this they need to follow the laws and norms that are part of the industry. For several years, including right now, a lot of teams, particularly football teams, have been sponsored by gambling companies. Acquiring a sponsor like this is good in one way because it adds a lot of income for the teams. These sponsorships have become a hot topic within the general public especially since The Swedish Sports Confederation are outspoken about their opinions regarding how they feel that sports are supposed to promote good health and gambling is not included in that category. This creates issues in the various football teams because they need the capital that they gain from the sponsorships with gambling companies. However at the same time they need to keep their good brand/reputation that led to the teams gaining supporters in the first place. The purpose of this study is to look at how sponsorships from gambling companies affect the brand of the teams as well as examining what view the teams have on sponsorships from gambling companies. It also looks at the stance that teams have on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in other words, the values within the sport when new co-operations come into play for teams. We are utilizing the theories behind brand identity, brand meaning, brand response and brand relationship as the foundation for this case study. Combined, these theories build the brand equity theory, as well as word-of-mouth and brand identity transfer in order to measure the strength within the different brands. CSR-theories and sponsorships have also been used in order to prove the studies further. The research method used was triangulation, where 5 semistructured interviews with respondents from different football teams in the Swedish professional leagues have been conducted. A questionnaire has been completed by 416 respondents. These respondents are supporters for teams within the Swedish professional football leagues.The result of this case study shows that the supporters look negatively at the sponsorship cooperation between Allsvenskan/Superettan and Unibet. On the other end, the teams themselves see these sponsorships as positive. However the co-operation does not affect the image that the supporters have of the specific team's brand.