With the rise of commercialization and digitalization, sports sponsorship has become an increasingly common marketing channel. However, a major challenge remains: the goals behind companies' decisions to sponsor sports clubs are often unclear. This study investigates the objectives of companies that sponsor football clubs in the Swedish Allsvenskan. It also examines how these goals relate to sponsorship contract duration and the level of engagement required. In addition, the study explores how companies measure and evaluate the effectiveness of their sponsorships.

To guide the analysis, a theoretical framework is applied that includes Brand Equity, Relationship Marketing, Commitment-Trust Theory, Return on Investment (ROI), and the A-ERIC model. The study adopts a triangulated methodology combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Surveys were used for the quantitative part, while the qualitative data was collected through a semi-structured interview with an expert in sports sponsorship. The quantitative sample consisted of 85 companies sponsoring Allsvenskan football clubs.

The findings show that company objectives vary considerably and suggest that sponsorship is not always driven by business logic alone. In many cases an emotional connection motivates the decision to sponsor a football club. The quantitative analysis found no statistically significant correlations between goals, contract length, measurement methods, and engagement levels. However, the qualitative insights suggest that such relationships should exist. Overall, the results indicate that the size of the company and the scale of the sponsorship investment have a greater influence on these dynamics. Notably, a large proportion of companies reported not measuring or evaluating their sponsorships at all.