Risk Analysis And Prevention Of Corporate Sports Sponsorship Research

We study the risk of sponsorship by enterprises in sports activities. We have mainly adopted literature review, combining theoretic study and practical examples and logic reasoning as our research methods, used exchange theory, ambush marketing theory and risk social theory as guidance to analyze the behavior of enterprises in the process of sports sponsorship activities.In the context of global economic integration, with the growing competition among enterprises, the traditional marketing methods have been unable to meet their own development and external communication needs, more companies have chosen to sponsor sports activities as their best marketing platform, and among sponsorship activities in sports, sports sponsorship has become one of the main activities carried out by sponsors. Sports sponsorship has now been integrated into marketing strategies by many companies all over the world, which has brought great economic benefits in their brand and product promotion. It should be recognized though, that although sports sponsorship has brought in substantial profits, uncertainties such as those happen in the process of the Sports Development, high cost of the sponsorship and failure to fulfill contracts by some event organizers are likely to bring some risks and adverse effects, due to the fact that corporate sports sponsorship at sports events had occurred before their start.Through analysis of the background, motivation and efficiency of sports sponsorship, our research show that there are both opportunities and risks in the course of corporate sponsorship of sports events, and oftentimes there are highly rewarding opportunities along with high risks. In China, the high risk of implementing sports sponsorship activities by enterprises is closely related to the development stage and level of our sport industry, and is affected by many uncertain factors. Currently, sponsorship of sports events are observed with the following issues: too small scale, low level in organization and implementation, lack of marketing foundation, lack of professional intermediaries and sports sponsorship managers, a large number of covert marketing activities and inadequate understanding of sport sponsorship risks, which have caused some impact to corporate sponsorships of sports events in China.Through research, we find that the ways in identifying the risk of sports sponsorship mainly include survey, environmental analysis, listing risk categories and learning from past experiences. We analyzed the major risks faced by enterprises and corresponding causes. The study shows that the main risks include targeting risk, default risk, intermediary risk, media risk and competition risk. Effective management of risk is the main purpose of this study. On the basis of risk identification, our research suggests that the risk management of sports sponsorship should be carry out from the following aspects: clear strategic positioning of sports sponsorship, good planning of event sponsorship programs; strengthening the awareness of the contract and flexibly using risk transfer measures; assessment of the operational capacity of agencies and strengthening cooperation with the professional intermediaries to resist risks; concerning highly about risks of transmission media and building enterprise information exchange platform; carrying out human rights maintaining activities through continuous innovation to improve competitiveness to reduce the risk of loss. It is worth noticing that enterprises should be active in the risk assessment of sports sponsorship and make efforts to find opportunities through risk management.