'Matching' the club to the sponsor : perceptions of Australian Football League club sponsorship managers

Corporate organisations spend significant amounts of money on sponsorship in an attempt to achieve distinct marketing and overall business objectives. There is strong support within the literature that a corporate organisation will be more attracted to sponsoring a sport organisation when there is a ‘match’ between the characteristics of the organisations. This capacity to ‘match’ characteristics has been investigated predominantly from the corporate sponsors’ perspective. The focus of this research is to identify this organisational ‘match’ from an Australian Football League (AFL) sponsorship manager’s perspective. A series of semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with the sponsorship/marketing managers from seven Melbourne-based AFL clubs. Arising from this, the importance of ‘organisation match’ as a precursor for sponsorship was determined. Results indicate that AFL sponsorship managers believe that presenting their team as an organisational ‘match’ with a potential sponsor is extremely important, providing scope for better synergies and greater strategic partnerships. This is strongly aligned through the off-field culture that the team portrays as well as the on-field success that the team has. Sponsors seeking sport organisations that have clearly defined and communicated images and brands can therefore attain a source of competitive advantage in competitive sponsorship markets.