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Purpose - The article analyses different sponsorship strategies of professional sports teams and sponsors from Germany and Spain. Since sport is still a young industry, companies are increasingly interested in it, especially since it is growing rapidly, both at the professional and spectator levels. Because very little research has been done so far, the article is based on interviews with experts from the professional sports industry. These people are the most knowledgeable about the industry and place a high value on the interviews conducted. The authors attempt to better understand the current situation of sponsorship within the industry. Design - This research follows the interpretivism approach with a qualitative method of collecting primary data. On this basis, an inductive approach was used, to investigate the interpretations of the people with whom the interview was conducted. The chosen research strategy consequently was based on expert interviews. Findings - The interviews it became clear that there is one main problem that all teams have to face and that still discourages companies to join the industry, a lack of trust and knowledge. A governing body or federation could possibly solve that problem. Nevertheless, there are other important results stated in this paper that could also lead to a better understanding of the industry and situation at hand. Value - The provision of theoretical evidence on possible new sponsorship strategies for electronic sports teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional football clubs are special businesses since their performance is deemed from two different objectives: success on the field and success in business performance. Thus, efficiency levels can be measured by means of the sport performance from matches played or the financial performance from financial statements. Moreover, economic growth becomes a good indicator of company dynamic behaviour, by measuring the capacity of a company to improve its financial and commercial possibilities. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to assess the level of financial performance of Spanish football clubs and the relationship thereof with the target for growth based on a parameter of revenue. Efficiency measurements were analysed using a benchmark procedure developed by Charnes et al. (1978), data envelopment analysis (DEA) and also productivity levels by calculating the Malmquist productivity index based on DEA scores. Sustainable growth figures were also calculated using the Higgins (1977) model considering the measure of real growth to be the increase in the revenue for each period analysed. From a sample of Spanish professional football teams in the 2000–1 to 2002–3 seasons, our findings show that only a small number of clubs show improvements in technological change and in approaching the efficiency frontier. Moreover evidence was found that those clubs with the smallest difference between both growth ratios (real and sustainable) prove to be more efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Medicine & Science of Physical Activity & Sport / Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte is the property of Revista Internacional de Medicina y Ciencias de la Actividad Fisica y del Deporte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Universitas, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas is the property of Universidad Politecnica Salesiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is twofold; first, to investigate the relationship between team results in the first weeks of a competition and team results at the end of the season, and second, to analyse whether this relationship differs according to the teams' budgets. The sample consisted of the results of the Spanish Football League during the 2002-2003 to 2006-2007 seasons. The dependent variable is the performance achieved by the teams in the first five matches of the competition. The conclusions of this study are as follows: first, the team results in the first five weeks of competition have an important impact on the final results at the end of the season for the teams with the lowest budgets and second, this relationship is not significant in teams with the highest budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sporting performance of professional football teams has often been assessed considering their results in the major regular competition, namely the national league. Here, we show that evaluating league performance without controlling for extra games played in other competitions might produce misleading results. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, we assess the performance of Spanish professional football teams in the League controlling for the extra games played in the King's Cup, Champions League and UEFA Cup. Results show that assessing performance omitting extra games underestimates teams' true performance in the League, the more extra games played leading to greater bias. Consequently, the multioutput nature of football must be considered when assessing team performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the current financial situation of Spanish professional football. Different financial ratios are used in order to classify the financial position of the different teams. The study has been split between clubs in First or Second division. We also analyze the relationships between the size of market, team payrolls, and team performance. We demonstrate the financial problems created by the arms race that clubs have started for getting the most talented players for trying to get the best possible sporting outcome. The new Spanish Law for companies in financial distress has implied that nine clubs are technically insolvent and under administration. We have searched for possible explanations of that situation. Nevertheless, our financial variables do not explain the likelihood that a club goes into administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the first exhibition tour of professional boxers in Spain in 1911. The scandal produced by their exhibition caused boxing to be banned in Madrid. After being abandoned in Madrid's streets with no money, the boxers were required by the Barcelona sportsmen as great sports figures before returning to their home countries. Their vicissitudes allow us to understand, first, the conditions in which these international boxing troupes worked as pioneers of professional sports. In addition, it shows the development of the concept of sport in Spanish society, which was similar to that of other Mediterranean nations. The intellectual middle classes promoted sport as a tool for regeneration and democratisation. This progressive view clashed with the elitist and conservative beliefs held by the first sportsmen, arising from the high industrial class of Barcelona. Madrid's economic and political elites also used the supposed violence of boxing to reject any Europeanisation and defend national traditions – specifically bullfighting. Through the study of this specific case, we can observe the interrelationships of social groups within their progressive integration into international sport networks developing at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions often reflect implicit biases. Ethnic, racial, and gender traits are associated with stereotypes that may influence the decision-making process. Previous research shows that referees' decisions in men's professional sports are often biased in favor of racial and nationalistic in-groups. This study examined if similar biases exist in women's professional sports. Additionally, this study analyzed the potential influence of the gender composition of referee teams on rapid decisions. We gathered data on referee foul calls in women's professional basketball in Spain, 2014–2019 and defined important decisions (fifth fouls) and stressful situations (one-possession matches). The main finding is that out-groups based on racial (i.e., Black players) and nationalistic (i.e., foreign players) criteria did not differ in number of foul calls received. In stressful situations, foreign players actually received fewer fouls than Spanish players. Similarly, there was no evidence of bias due to the gender composition of referee teams: foul calls did not differ between all-male and mixed teams. Implications for race and nationality as dynamic social constructs within ethnocentric and social identity theories are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Bayesian regression model for the number of goals scored by players in the Spanish football league during nine seasons is fitted. The model handles overdispersion in such a way that individual footballers ability for scoring may be estimated regardless of the number of minutes played, the position in the field and the team in which they play. Additionally, the posterior predictive distributions of the fitted model allow to obtain an estimation of the performance of any player in each season with reference to the number of goals scored, locating that number as a quantile in the expected distribution of the goals scored by this player in this season. The results show how the model awards the fact that defenders and midfielders score goals because it does not expect that they score many goals and evaluates a forward more strictly in relation to the expected number of goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]