Sponsorship sales is not only a sport, but an institutional business as well: evidence from two professional football clubs in Latin-America.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of institutionalization, legitimacy, learning behaviors, and other organizational characteristics on the efforts made by sport clubs signing sponsorship contracts. An exploratory comparison of two professional football clubs, playing in the First Division, of Costa Rica and Chile was performed. Using a narrative methodology, the Costa Rican team was analyzed through observation during a two-year collaboration period, and the Chilean team was analyzed through in-depth interviews and an analysis of the historical literature. The analysis revealed that organizational behaviors impact the clubs’ amount of sponsorship contracts and multi-season contracts. It also revealed that institutionalization and legitimacy work as a first latter in the relationship, and that by themselves it should be considered a marketing tool. Additionally, it was observed that both learning behaviors and resource seeking strategies contribute to successfully sign sponsorship contracts, but a baseline level of legitimacy and institutionalization should exist. Drawing on Institutional Theory, Ecology, and Organizational Learning a clear role model was evidenced within the ecosystem of two professional football clubs, each on a different Latin American country. These behaviors, which up to our knowledge has never being analyzed before, yielded and sustained legitimacy, while showing a direct effect on sponsorship single-season and multi-season contracts.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-SA

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