Hoek et al. (1993) found that managers of sponsoring firms assumed that
sponsorship improved consumers’ attitudes toward the company or its
products. However, their assessment is limited to intuition and informal
feedback. In some respects, a sponsor can be perceived as an ally of the
identified fan by supporting something that he or she believes is important.
This is consistent with McDonald’s (1991) belief that those who are
interested in a particular event or sport may feel favorably disposed toward
sponsoring companies. We propose that the favorable bias highly identified
fans have toward other in-group members will extend to organizations
supporting the favored team through sponsorship: