A managerial approach to corporate sports hospitality: The case of Belgian football

Matteo Balliauw, Thomas Verlinden, Lisa de Croocq, Aline Fobe and Tomas van Den Spiegel

Working Papers from University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics

Abstract: Corporate Sports Hospitality (CSH) is a relationship marketing tool whereby customers and other stakeholders are invited by a company buying CSH from a club to attend a sports game. The CSH product involves premium seating and optional services such as catering. Little academic research about the CSH industry has been performed in the past. Moreover, this industry has been perceived to be in decline, especially in times of economic downturn when companies need to justify every cost expenditure. This paper quantifies the added value of CSH. A case study from the highest division in Belgian football (soccer) shows that, although the market is smaller than in the American major sports leagues, CSH returns account for an important share of club revenues. Through Porter’s Five Forces framework, we show that a club experiences the strongest competitive impact from substitutes and other clubs in the league. Since CSH is often managed on an ad-hoc base and the literature offers no formal CSH management process for companies and clubs, information is gathered to build such an effective process. It allows both clubs as well as CSH buying companies to define their objectives and measure their performance in a quantitative way through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Not only return on investment, but also return on other objectives matters. We moreover argue that measuring the output through these KPIs and improving the process according to feedback loops are crucial for successful CSH. To improve CSH attractiveness, sufficient attention should be given to technological and managerial innovations.

Keywords: Luxury seating; Venue revenues; Management process; Sports marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2018-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-knm and nep-spo
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ant:wpaper:2018008

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