TY - JOUR

T1 - Agency constraints and possibilities: Athletes manoeuvring between the logics of community, market, profession and corporation in their quest for individual sponsorships

AU - Wagner, Ulrik

N1 - (Ekstern)

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - The purpose of this qualitative study is to add a sociological dimension to sponsorship research, which is otherwise dominated by marketing research. This paper analyses how world-class but often not well-paid athletes from time-consuming endurance sports like rowing and triathlon seek individual sponsorships as a strategy to improve their financial situation. With regard to theory, an institutional logics perspective is adopted in which logics both provide tools for individual actors as well as representing agency constraints. To understand how athletes cope with the encounter between sport and business, insights from micro-sociology are employed. The findings indicate that various roles are performed, that sponsorship commitment is an issue of finding a balance between ‘gameworthiness’ and integrity and that the quest for an individual sponsorship is deselected as an option by some athletes. These insights are used to sketch out the paradox of sponsorship commitment, where time-consuming sponsorship engagement as a solution to athletes’ financial problems may potentially undermine their professional identity, which is characterised by the quality of their craft – the quality that simultaneously makes the athlete a market asset.

AB - The purpose of this qualitative study is to add a sociological dimension to sponsorship research, which is otherwise dominated by marketing research. This paper analyses how world-class but often not well-paid athletes from time-consuming endurance sports like rowing and triathlon seek individual sponsorships as a strategy to improve their financial situation. With regard to theory, an institutional logics perspective is adopted in which logics both provide tools for individual actors as well as representing agency constraints. To understand how athletes cope with the encounter between sport and business, insights from micro-sociology are employed. The findings indicate that various roles are performed, that sponsorship commitment is an issue of finding a balance between ‘gameworthiness’ and integrity and that the quest for an individual sponsorship is deselected as an option by some athletes. These insights are used to sketch out the paradox of sponsorship commitment, where time-consuming sponsorship engagement as a solution to athletes’ financial problems may potentially undermine their professional identity, which is characterised by the quality of their craft – the quality that simultaneously makes the athlete a market asset.

KW - Accounts

KW - Commercialisation

KW - Institutional logics

KW - Paradox of sponsorship commitment

KW - Strategic interaction

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85046816281&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1012690216643953

DO - 10.1177/1012690216643953

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85046816281

VL - 53

SP - 213

EP - 233

JO - International Review for the Sociology of Sport

JF - International Review for the Sociology of Sport

SN - 1012-6902

IS - 2

ER -