Naming rights of sport facilities in Lithuania: the owners and customers perspective

Taking into account the fact that the sports sector continues to grow and also has a growing part of the leisure industry, business entities increasingly include sports sponsorship in their marketing strategies (DeSchriver & Jensen, 2003). Recently one of the most popular forms of such sponsorship is the acquisition of the naming rights to the sports facilities (Boyd, 2000). The main problem of this study is what are the benefits of acquired naming rights to sport facilities received by the business entities and what is the customers attitude towards the naming rights holders? The following research methods were used: 1) semi structured interview with three individuals directly involved in purchasing the naming rights (a qualitative research); 2) customer’s survey (n=208) of the three arenas during the basketball competition (quantitative research); 3) statistical data analysis. The research results showed that arena customers fully recognizes and knows the purchaser of sport facilities in Lithuania. Customers are likely to buy products and services from the brand that contribute to the maintenance of sports facilities. Companies that purchased Lithuanian arenas naming rights increased the name awareness. The main advantage of the naming rights that such form of brand advertising and promotion provides significant visibility in various media.