Sport, Sponsorship and Marketing

Abstract

BBC television and subsequently the commercial channels followed a cross-section of British sports in the 1950s and 1960s. As football, tennis, boxing, motorsport and cricket developed a wider TV audience, many of the teams and individuals involved gained increasing amounts of corporate sponsorship, that were not always beneficial. Debate resounded around the offices of sporting organizations, lamenting the loss of the ‘True Amateur’ and the spirit of the ‘game’. Commercialism was not simply influencing the way in which sports were presented, it was altering the financial and organizational structures, both of the participants’ involvement and the administration. Now, everyone had to deal with ‘The Sponsors’.