Il Relationship Marketing negli eventi sportivi professionistici: il ruolo dei promotori e degli organizzatori

The aim is to propose an innovative approach to relationship marketing strategies, directed to the establishment, maintenance and reinforcement of the relationships with stakeholders involved in recurrent professional sport events. Compared to previous studies focused on strategies implemented by the organizer of a sport event, in this study the emphasis is on marketing strategies adopted by both "promoters" and "organizers". The former are actors promoting sport competitions of which they hold commercial rights (e.g. UEFA promoting European Football Championship); the latter are actors internal or external to promoters participating in all activities related to the organization of a single edition of a recurrent sport event (e.g. organizing committee of a single edition of the European Football Championship). Based on literature on sport event marketing and extensive analysis of documents regarding several professional sport events, it is discussed the importance of the coherence and integration among marketing strategies implemented at both levels. Specifically, it is highlighted that marketing strategies implemented by organizers should be framed within the wide and complex range of long-term initiatives undertaken by promoters; indeed, as clearly emerged from the study, the promoters have a prominent role in marketing strategies as their actions go beyond a single edition of the event.