Sport sponsorship decision making in a global market An approach of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Seungbum Lee University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA, and Stephen D. Ross University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the decision making factors of sport sponsorship in the global market context using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Design/methodology/approach – To facilitate AHP hierarchy construction, three criteria level factors and a total of 13 sub-criteria level factors were identified though literature review, expert panel review and pilot test. A total of 410 email accounts from global corporate sponsors were contacted three times to request on-line survey participation. Findings – AHP local weights showed that sport team factors were far more important decision making factors than the country factors and environment factors. AHP global weights showed that media exposure opportunity was the most influential factor followed by sponsorship fit, team image and fan base strength. Originality/value – This study, the first to utilize AHP in sport sponsorship literature, examined sport sponsorship in the global market context by contacting corporate sponsors. Keywords Sponsorship, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Marketing, Global market, Sports Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Globalization as a topic of investigation has long been one of the dominating academic trends in social science, and sport marketing has not been immune from this trend. However, academic attention devoted to the better understanding of sport sponsorship as a form of global marketing has been rather negligible (Amis and Cornwell, 2005; Santomier, 2008). The matter of “whom to sponsor” in a global market still remains a challenging practical and academic question. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to identify the decision-making factors affecting sport sponsorship in a of global market context. The research question developed for this study asked when a global corporation is given an opportunity to sponsor one particular professional sport team outside of its domestic market, what factors do decision makers identify and consider as most important before selecting a sponsorship partner? One important assumption of this study is that corporate sponsors have enough financial resources and manpower. That is, the corporation must be ready to employ the sport sponsorship, and, thus the remaining question is only a matter of whom to sponsor. To examine this research question, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a mathematical tool specialized in decision science, will be used to present the best decision-making model. In academia, one of the interesting issues of sport sponsorship is that, sometimes, corporate sponsors tend to make sport sponsorship decisions without specific professional aims (Tomasini et al., 2004), and some corporations have failed to execute The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-678X.htm Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal Vol. 2 No. 2, 2012 pp. 156-168 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2042-678X DOI 10.1108/20426781211243999 156 SBM 2,2