Source Attractiveness and Credibility in Minority Sports Advertising

Sport has become a highly commercialised business, in recent times sports have utilised considerable corporate sponsorship and advertising opportunities (Slack, 1998), to improve their welfare and popularity. “Today, sport is a big business and big businesses are involved in sport” (Slack, 1998, p1). Major spectator sports produce many marketable opportunities (Slack, 1998), however, the analogy the rich get richer and the poor get poorer summarises the dilemma faced by minority sports relative to major sporting networks. Whilst major sports’ power has increased over the past two decades, minority sports are still struggling with minimal funding and capabilities, thus widening the capabilities gap between major and minority sports (Zuleeg & Whyte, 2007; Wolfe et al, 1998).