ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 refers to the process that rights owners should undergo for the development of their sponsorship programmes. One key issue was highlighted; in order to maximize their revenue and/or reduction of expenditure via the recruitment of fee paying and/or resource supplying sponsors, rights owners would have to have all their potential sponsors lined up before deciding on a programme structure.This is clearly a dilemma as rights negotiations with individual sponsors are hinged on the placement of any one sponsor into a programme structure. For example title rights cannot generally work in a flat structure consisting of several sponsors and a two-tier structure might suit some sponsors’ requirements but not others. If a potential sponsor is wanting an agreement and there are still other potential sponsors to see, either in the same category or others, then the rights owner is faced with making either a decision too early and losing other sponsors, or too late and losing the first one. Some rights owners have rights that are in high demand and therefore have some negotiating power in order to manage such issues but the majority of rights owners do not and therefore need an approach that will maximize, rather than wholly solve, their dilemma.This chapter considers such an approach.
