Managing Official Sponsorship Rights in the Face of Ambush Marketing

A long time sponsor of FIFA, National American Brewing Company (NABC) is fresh off a wildly successful 2014 Men’s World Cup activation when scandal rocks FIFA’s leadership group and casts a shadow on all involved. As the optics get worse and pressure mounts from media, fans, and internal stakeholders, NABC has a decision to make, one that may shape the future of their sponsorship portfolio and directly impact their business for better or worse. Students are tasked with conducting a cost benefit analysis on both sides of the issue, and creating a management recommendation to senior leadership outlining both the company’s path forward, and a communication plan to execute it. Learning opportunities abound from this real world case touching business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sponsorship management.

This case study places the student in the role of a Coca-Cola Classic marketing executive challenged with determining if the brand should engage in ambush marketing around the 2015 Super Bowl, based on the critical analysis of the legal, ethical and practical business environment. The second component of the case study challenges the student to recommend an ambush marketing plan using the range of tactics provided.

For nearly a century, owners of U.S. professional sports teams have lobbied respective governmental bodies for public subsidies to build stadiums and arenas across the country, using franchise relocation as leverage. Myriad justifications have been used as a defense for the public subsidization of this private enterprise, ranging from the economic impact of capital intensive projects to the psychic regional benefit of being a host city to a professional sports franchise. But do these justifications hold up under increased scrutiny? In this case, students are placed in the position of the Mayor of Oakland as she is faced with a dilemma regarding publicly subsidizing a new Raiders stadium. Students will examine the issue through the lens of multiple key stakeholders, and will ultimately have to decide whether the city should utilize public funds to keep the Davis family happy and the Raiders in Oakland, or withhold funding for public good and risk the franchise relocating elsewhere.

Throughout the 20th century, football grew to be America's new pastime - and as the sport's popularity grew, so did the NFL's fortunes. From early league leadership to the Pete Rozelle era, the NFL successfully warded off rival league challengers and became the preeminent economic juggernaut of the American sports landscape. But as the NFL's financial dominance has grown, so has its risk exposure to certain elements of its 20th century business model. In this case, students will work to understand the NFL's monopolistic business model and how it has fueled the NFL's financial windfalls over the past several decades. Students will also gain an understanding of the history of rival football leagues in America in order to analyze the question facing the modern NFL management team: is its business model vulnerable to disruption by a handful of well-funded rival leagues set to start play in 2019?