Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / Each year, companies spend more money on sponsorship, and consequently the importance of sponsorship as a marketing communication tool has increased significantly. As a result, answering the question of how effective this investment is for a company has become increasingly important. Previous research of analysing the measurement of sponsorship effectiveness has been inconsistent. This research study analyses the relationship between key variables which measure sponsorship effectiveness, namely: brand awareness, corporate image, and purchase intention. In addition, the influence of the variable sports involvement on the other variables has been measured. The data was collected using a questionnaire during the international soccer federation (Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA) World Cup 2010 which was the first international sports event of this dimension on the African continent. This, in conjunction with the fact of inconsistent findings of previous research and the increasing importance of sponsorship for companies, contribute to a unique and new era of sponsorship research. Findings of this research indicate that consumer involvement has a direct positive effect on the perceptions of corporate image, as well as on consumers‟ purchase intention of sponsors‟ products. Purchase intention is also favourably influenced by brand awareness and corporate image of consumers. These findings are to a certain extent different than the results of Ko, Kim, Claussen and Kim (2008: 79-94) who conducted a similar study during the FIFA World Cup 2002. Consequently, this is a further indication that findings concerning sponsorship effectiveness research are inconsistent. The geographical area of data collection also has an influence on the results. In the case of South Africa, it was possible to observe that the different socio-demographic variables, gender and ethnical background had an impact on responses to the different research variables.

The hosting of the FIFA Football World Cup has been perceived in South Africa both as a challenge of accelerated social, economic, and spatial transformation, and as an opportunity to showcase the nation’s ability to successfully provide the structures and capacities for one of the biggest sports tournaments in the world. The thesis of ‘festivalisation’ sees mega-events (like the Football World Cup) as a form of translocal dynamics which is embedded in the context of increased inter-urban competition in the era of globalisation. This paper aims at investigating some effects of such globalised forms of festivalisation (Häußermann and Siebel 1993) on the urban sphere in South Africa. The focus is on identifying key actors and key topics in relation to urban governance in the host cities. The method applied is a mix of various strands of discourse analysis, since every approach has its shortcomings and a combination might point out directions of how to systematically link these perspectives in future research. To a certain extent, the path presented here remains methodologically explorative. Still, the paper shows that an analysis of language-based communication, or more specifically, an approach that takes media representations as a point of entry to the field of urban dynamics, might produce insights otherwise overlooked, and thus adds a critical angle to the study of urban governance.