Capitalising on CSR-based partnerships in sports branding and sports sponsorship

The purpose of this article is to develop a toolkit for academics and practitioners, which elaborates on how strategic application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) may guide sports branding initiatives and sponsorship partnerships and lead to increased levels of brand capitalisation. Inspired by Shank's (2009) notion of the sports brand building process, i.e.: 1) brand awareness; 2) brand image; 3) brand equity; 4) brand loyalty, the interacting nature of sports brands exemplified by how sports brands at the corporate level interact with sports brands at the personal and product levels is integrated in the article. This is done to propose how these interactions may increase the effect of the work with strategic CSR on corporate sports brands.