Corporate reputation and sponsor - sport congruence : a survey of amateur field hockey players

Abstract

Sport codes are consistently competing for corporate sponsorship Rands. Amateur sport is an untapped channel that bypasses most of the media clutter experienced by companies that sponsor professional sporting events, codes or teams. In this study amateur field hockey participants are used as a research platform. Amateur field hockey is lacking in any large corporate sponsorships. This study explored the relationship between the corporate reputation of five selected companies and the perception of how well that reputation matches up to the sport of hockey. The target population was school and university hockey players in the Pretoria area. The survey was completed through the use of a self-administered questionnaire. The results indicate that there was a weak positive relationship between corporate reputation and perceived congruency. This suggests that the greater the impression of corporate reputation is amongst hockey players the greater the perceived sponsor congruence will be. The respondents have a positive attitude towards MTN as a possible sponsor - not surprising given the profile of the respondents.