The relationship between sponsorship objectives and sport team reputation among sponsor companies: An exploratory study focusing on sponsors of a Japanese professional women’s volleyball club

ABSTRACT This study explored the relationship between sponsorship objectives and sport team reputation from the perspective of companies. Our data were based on a questionnaire sent to sponsors of Victorina Himeji, which is a professional women’s volleyball club in Japan. One hundred ninety-four companies completed a survey about sponsorship objectives, sport team reputation, and sponsorship satisfaction. We conducted factor analysis, cluster analysis, t-test, and a two-way analysis of variance to examine the research questions. The results demonstrated that sponsorship objectives were composed of three factors (marketing objectives, corporate objectives, and team involvement). They were classified into a “highly valued” cluster and a “lowly valued” cluster. The t-test showed that the “highly valued” cluster was significantly higher than the “lowly valued” cluster in all variables except for spectator-orientation. Furthermore, comparing sport team reputation of each cluster with sponsorship satisfaction showed that the more satisfied the sponsorship of both clusters, the higher the sport team reputation. This study concludes that sponsorship objectives are important for both sponsors and sport teams.