Welcome to the first issue of 2001. This edition moves slightly away from the usual format to take advantage of an interesting collection of submissions. Rather than just including one interview, this issue provides two of what have proved to be a very popular feature. In the first, David Hudson, a researcher from De Montfort University who has done a lot of work on the marketing of professional football in England, speaks to Brian Phillpotts.

Phillpotts talks about marketing initiatives that he has been involved with in positions with Newcastle United Football Club, the Football League and his upcoming appointment with the English Premier League. At a time when much of professional sport worldwide appears to be awash with money, Philpotts’ insights should prove to be of great interest.

The second interview takes just the opposite point of view. Rather than featuring a practitioner involved in selling a product, Carlos Illa, Sponsorship Manager of Telefonica, one of Spain’s largest multinationals, discusses what he looks for when putting together a sponsorship deal. The interview, conducted by Spanish academic Carlos Campos, is particularly interesting with respect to the way Illa and his colleagues use sport sponsorship as a major component of Telefonica’s transnational marketing initiatives.

In combination, the two interviews illuminate what is involved in building sponsorship agreements, from the point of view of a major sport property and a global sponsor.

The two interviews are followed by research articles that also have a common theme, the work of North American scholar James Gladden from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In the first paper, Gladden and his colleague, University of Michigan’s Richard Wolfe, investigate the extent to which a sponsored sport property and a sponsoring corporation project consistent images. Focusing on the world of US collegiate sport, Gladden and Wolfe argue that while “image matching” is a concept that sponsors should embrace when deciding on what to sponsor, it is one that few sponsors take into account. In the second paper, Gladden continues his work on image and perception, exploring the relationship between brand association and brand loyalty in professional sport. Working with Dan Funk from the University of Houston, the paper presents an examination of variables that sport marketers might want to take into account when seeking ways to promote fan loyalty.

The Industry Analysis comes from John Tripodi, a Franchise Manager for Mars Confectionery of Australia / New Zealand. Tripodi reviews sponsorship’s underlying principles and outlines what he feels are some of the key points that marketing practitioners should take into account when constructing sport sponsorship agreements. Finally, I would like to remind readers that the next issue will be the first Special Issue of the International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, titled Transnational Marketing and Sponsorship.

Thanks to all who submitted articles to Guest Editors Dave Andrews and Mike Silk. It promises to be a very informative edition. Until then, enjoy this issue.

John Amis, PhD

Editor

March 2001