Leveraging Brands in Sport Business represents an important milestone in the sport marketing literature. This book provides welcome academic treatment to a term now ubiquitous, and therefore both used and abused in marketing parlance. Pritchard and Stinson have done an admirable job assembling a top-flight team of authors representing multiple countries and perspectives. The breadth and depth of coverage in Leveraging Brands in Sport Business provides a unique contemporary exploration of a complex phenomenon. While clarifying many issues in my mind, I believe its most useful contribution will be in laying groundwork for questions not yet posed, much less answered. Leveraging Brands in Sport Business is a welcome addition to my professional library.

– Mark Havitz, Professor and Chair, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada

So much about branding today in most industries is an ability to build a connection with a consumer that sports brands have done successfully for decades. In Leveraging Brand in Sports Business, Pritchard and Stinson provide a comprehensive look at the ways in which brands can successfully weave their way into the consumers’ lifestyle. The book provides essential foundations in brand management but in a sports context. This book is a valuable resource for sports business practitioners but also for mainstream brand managers seeking to align with or leverage the equity in a successful sports brand.

– Paul Swangard, Woodard Family Foundation Fellow and Managing Director, Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon, US

With this book, practitioners, students and academics will find key contributions from international experts on sport marketing and management, with an emphasis on building a better understanding of theories and best practices. As a business developer for the ATP World Tour and director of one of the top Sport Management Program in Europe, one of the critical aspects of my work concerns finding ways to create and renew competencies for students and event organizers. In a world in permanent transformation, the Sport Business domain has become an ecosystem with specific stakeholders like fans, media, sponsors, suppliers, athletes, cities and politics sharing key resources for sport organizations. In this complex environment, I consider this book an incredibly helpful new reference for our learning and professional activities.

– Lionel Maltese, Professor, Aix Marseille University and Director, International Sport & Event Management Programs, Kedge Business School, France

Dr. Mark P. Pritchard serves as professor of Marketing in the College of Business at Central Washington University. Having earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, Dr. Pritchard was the founding Director of the NWCSB and has held faculty appointments in marketing in Canada, Australia, Singapore, France and the United States. His research concentrates on issues in services marketing and specializes in the area of brand loyalty and repeat purchase behavior in the sport and tourism industries. Recent research and instructional interests have focused on the role of personal ethics and social responsibility in shaping a winning brand team.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Stinson is Chair of the Department of Management and Director of the Northwest Center for Sport Business (NWCSB) at Central Washington University. With a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Oregon, Dr. Stinson has primarily researched the influence of intercollegiate athletics on athletic and academic fundraising to colleges and universities. Other research interests include donor decision-making, non-profit fundraising, and social marketing in sport.