| The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze strategic marketing in a national sport organization, the Football Association of Finland (FAF). The main focus is marketing to corporate sponsors. The embedded focus in this research is sponsorship as a part of corporate marketing functions.;Results show that the organization has sponsorship services to support every element of the traditional marketing communication mix of businesses. The marketing concept adopted, however, is mainly product and selling oriented. The organization has been effective in acquiring sponsorships, and there is a tendency to customer orientation.;Based on the literature and on case studies of FAF and two corporate sponsors, a conceptual framework for sponsorship strategies and types of sport organizations is developed. The conceptual framework is applied to Finnish sports. The suggestions for future research are made in the end of the thesis. |
