Abstract:

The football World Cup this summer in Germany is, together with the preceding qualifying games, one ofthe largest competitions in the world. Its importance is enormous -it has a huge impact on productivity and media behaviour, as well as consumption, eating habits and how the day is divided. This means that substantial amounts of money are spent on TV rights, media coverage, advertising, promotion, sponsoring and merchandising. But what do these investments generate? We’ll resist the temptation to discuss who will win, although there is of course the well-known saying that football is a game with two teams of eleven players which lasts 90 minutes, at the end of which the Germans are the winners. Instead, we will immerse ourselves in identifying the role of research surrounding leisure and this tournament. What is happening? What do the advertisers want? We will look more closely at the activities of a few agencies specialising in sports and sponsorship research. What are their identifying features? And we will discuss what can we learn from research: will the twelfth man be reached and with what result?