Joe Pinsker’s article, “Is There Room for Sports to Get Even More Commercialized?

”,

was written in response to the amount of advertisements and sponsorships involved in the “Big

Four Leagues.” He speaks to multiple professors, from different Universities, to help explain all

of the different ways that sponsors are brought into sports nowadays. Through media, arenas,

uniforms, etc. Pinsker uses ethos including specific examples and rhetorical questions when

talking about the different types of advertisements and how sports will continue to tie sponsors

into their game.

Pinsker has several credible sources throughout his article that bring in the use of ethos.

Kirk Wakefield, a professor of retail marketing at Baylor University, says “When games began

being broadcast on radio and then TV, then the opportunity for sponsorships took off.” When we

watch sports on television, live from our own homes, we often get interrupted with commercials

and advertisements. Every time that these show up on television, sports are given money from

that company. This is how the major sports leagues make most of their money, in order to

maintain their facilities’, team’s, and staff. Wakefield talks about the fact that without “This

game is brought to you by…” before every event, we would not have that event. Jim Kadlecek, a

professor of human performance and sport business at the University of Mount Union, explains

that there is a high competition between different companies in order to get the most recognition.

One way that researchers have tried to determine the effectiveness of sponsorship recognition, is

by waiting outside of stadiums/arenas, to ask fans what companies and brands they remember

seeing and/or hearing the most. All brands wanted to know how they could get their name out

there with the help of these leagues and often asked the question of “ How can we be part of the

game, and not just a static sign on the scoreboard?”

 There are many specific events that Pinsker mentioned in the article, telling about the

different ways that teams have incorporated sponsors into their game. One example is, the

Chicago White Sox when they bumped their starting time to 7:11 to sponsor 7-Eleven every time

an announcement stated the game time, the team would make money. Major League Baseball’s

second-oldest stadium, Wrigley Field, is named for a chewing-gum company. Another example

is the effectiveness of patches and logos on athlete’s uniforms. One specific league that is big in

jersey sponsorship is Nascar. Kadlecek, the University of Mount Union Professor, continues to

explain the effectiveness of someone’s favorite player wearing a certain brand, and how fans are

“unusually loyal” to the product and company, and more likely to look into the sponsor. With

jersey sponsorship being so effective with Nascar, the question is why is only one of the four

major sports leagues beginning to go down that path? And one of the main reasons is that these

four leagues use media as one of their biggest sources of income when they sign with a

broadcaster, so many of them don’t feel the pressure to find more ways to recognize their

sponsors. Another reason or almost a bit of a concern for the leagues, is what comes after the

jersey’s? Sutton says, that this is the end of the line. “If you put it on the uniform, the only thing

left is the skin.” Many teams find ways to support their sponsors by incorporating the companies

or logos into their stadiums. An example of this is when Brooklyn Ebbets Field advertised the

name of the cigarette company Chesterfield by lighting up the “H” and “E” in the word

“Chesterfield” when there was a hit or error in the game. Other stadiums and arenas use contests

and games during timeouts or brief intermissions that are sponsored by specific companies to

appeal to fans in a more active way.

 In Pinsker’s article, he uses rhetorical questions, not for the audience to specifically know

the answers to but to give them something to think about when reading and learning about sports

sponsorship. Some questions that he used are “When it comes to corporate sponsorships, what

will American sports look like in three years? What about 10? What surfaces will be left? This is

where many companies and teams must think about what else they can do to continue with their

advertising. They are already using the media, stadiums, and beginning jersey advertisement, but

what can be used next? This is something that people need to begin thinking about now,

considering that sponsors are what keep sports up and running. Even the professor’s that Pinsker

spoke with, incorporated the use of rhetorical questions into answering some of his own

questions. Kadlecek said “Each team has to look at, ‘How do we generate revenue for us,

specifically?” This question tells the readers to think about what was previously talked about in

the article and the different ways that teams were working with sponsors, and think about ways

to further promote the team as well. Kadlecek also mentioned how companies use rhetorical

questions to speak to their “partnerships”. A question that many brewing companies ask is “But

Will It Help Me Sell Beer?” By companies asking this question, teams and their partners have to

think about more than just their sports team but this “new team” that they have just signed on to.

Pinsker uses ethos including specific examples and rhetorical questions in his article to

talk about the different types of advertisements and the ways that sports will continue to tie

sponsors into their game. He uses specific examples to back up his ethos and bring up the

different uses of the media, stadiums, and jersey advertisement. The rhetorical questions that

both him and his sources ask allow the reader to stop and think about what their future of

sponsorship and sports may look like before reading a little more into it further into the article
itself. In the next few years, it is expected that we see some big chances in the sports industry

and they choose to continue with their sponsorships, and possibly even change some of our

favorite sports team’s names.

Sources:

Pinsker, Joe. “Is There Room for Sports to Get Even More Commercialized?” ​The Atlantic​,

Atlantic Media Company, 13 June 2016,

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/future-corporate-sports-sponsorhip/486569

/.