ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a trip back in time to the birth of sports marketing in the United States and its gradual expansion to Europe. It is concerned with the Europeans’ somewhat tentative approach to the emerging field of sports management. This hesitation can be explained by a very different institutional landscape, which was not dominated by commercial professional sport as in North America. The chapter provides a much more open and international perspective, showing how globalization affects the marketing strategies of sports organizations such as federations, private companies, leagues, event organizers, sponsors and even cities and countries. It illustrates this using the examples of China and Qatar. Interest in sports marketing has been fuelled by what has been happening in sports business. In 1998, France became world football champion, bringing “sport and its markets” into the spotlight.
