If sports sponsorship is perceived as so important in developing client relationships, why do so few companies set relationship marketing objectives when sponsoring sports?

Historically, a company's or individual's main priority for sponsoring sports tended to be based on personal objectives. More recently, studies have found that corporate objectives are now stated as the lead priority, followed by marketing objectives, then media objectives, and finally personal objectives. However, anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that while stating broad qualitative corporate aims of “enhancing corporate image”, in practice many organisations use sports sponsorship to entertain key clients. Although corporate entertainment is often stated as meeting a corporate objective, it could be seen as meeting a marketing objective, built into a strategy for developing meaningful relationships with corporate clients. The aim of this paper is to examine whether companies do use sports sponsorship for client relationship development, and whether these companies state they are setting corporate, marketing or relationship building objectives. A review of the evidence gathered from a range of prior studies was undertaken, enhanced with a new empirical investigation into the stated objectives of sponsors of a Welsh Rugby Football Club. The study has found that while sports sponsorship is perceived as playing a key role in developing client relationships, few companies set relationship marketing objectives when sponsoring sports.