Alignment of EuroLeague sponsorship strategy

Abstract

In the present-day sponsorship has become for many sport companies the most important way of generating income for a sport company, apart from other activities like the broadcasting of the sport events, the ticket sales, the merchandising… The purpose of this thesis is to understand the current path that the Partnership department is following when choosing its partners, to understand the objectives and goals they need to achieve and if those are in line with the ones that EuroLeague has. The first part of this thesis is literature review, mainly examining the theory of sponsorship and the importance that this activity has had from its beginnings until today, and particularly its importance for sports and for events. In the second part the author presents EuroLeague, a breve history of the company based on the selling model the company has been following from its creation until today, as well there are presented the current numbers and selling strategy that the Partnership department is conducting, the actual numbers and the Objectives and Mission of the company together with an study of the partnering brands to study their alignment with the company. In the last part the solutions about the current brands alignment and the EuroLeague strategy are presented together with the new trends in partnership strategies, and with some examples to show best practices.