Recent decades have seen enormous increases in sponsorship and a corresponding change in how events are perceived by sponsors. There has been a shift by many large companies from seeing sponsorship as primarily a public relations tool generating community goodwill, to regarding it as an important part of the marketing mix. sponsors as partners in sport events: It's important for sport event managers to identify exactly what sponsors want from a sport event and what the sport event can deliver for them. The sponsors needs may be different from those of the host organisation or the sport event manager.