Impacts of losing a sponsor in the sporting industry : Finnish ice hockey: Case study HIFK-Jokerit

Abstract

This research will be introducing one real life case from the scenario; what happens when sponsors decide to step back and breach the contract and how it will affect economics of sport. The effects and spillovers will be researched from the league, team, fans, and reputation of sports and also from economics perspectives. More over the research questions are (1) How wide are the affects to the economics of a certain sport industry or team when losing a sponsorship, and how they will be adjusted? (2) Which is considered to be more important in the particular sporting industry; the sporting or business objectives? (3) What are the future prospects of the ice hockey industry in Finland from the sponsoring perspective? Research will be made by using mainly secondary data, covering the literature and sponsors’ annual reports, but also primary data will be included by interviewing the relevant participants regarding the case. The interviews are analysed based on the patterns and compared to the existing literature.

So far the existing literature does not present any other researches that would be made about this manner. The analysis are able to show how the industry starts to suffer, if the sponsors cannot be replaced. Both the literature as well as the analysis are supporting this statement. The research also brought up the importance of the sporting objectives, which were unified between the literature and analysis.