FTX, Gazprom & Co : How do (global) crises affect the discourse around sponsorship in sport?

Context & relevance Numerous studies have shown that we are living through an era characterized by simultaneous crises (e.g. Hanelt et al. 2016). In its Global Risks Report (2023), the World Economic Forum even coined the term polycrisis to refer to the current crises which condition the crises to come and that a sum of global crises constitutes a whole which strengthens itself continuously. Among the well-known examples are the permanent climate crisis, as well as the Ukrainian conflict which, in addition to the suffering in Ukraine, has led to a worsening of global poverty, since, according to the report, the cost of basic foodstuffs and energy has skyrocketed. These crises have changed ordinary life, since they encapsulate all areas of daily life. One of the areas affected are daily leisure activities, such as professional sports consumption and its financing thanks to sponsoring. A first example is the restitution of the naming rights to FTX Arena to Miami-Dade County after the cryptocurrency exchange platform filed for bankruptcy. FTX obtained the naming rights to the Miami Heat grounds for $135 millions for the period 2021-2040 (Pereira 2023). In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, another example that emerged is the split between the football club Schalke 04 and its long-running main sponsor, the Russian energy provider Gazprom, which had been supporting the football club that had accumulated €15-20 million of debt per year until 2022. Finally, the example of the Tottenham Hotspurs demonstrates the effects the COVID health crisis had on professional sport. According to the media, the pandemic has prevented the sale of the naming rights in value of £25 million to the new stadium (Dixon 2020). Objectives and methods The goal of this research proposal which is part of a multidisciplinary and multilingual research project financed by the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region is to analyze how the supporters of professional football clubs react to the implication of sponsors in such a context of crises, whether it be shirt sponsors or naming rights. The accent falls on the sponsors whose reputation has always been the target of criticism, but that have also sparked a rebound of discursive positioning following the crisis. In order to do this, we are relying on a multilingual pilot corpus of tweets compiled by the MSH Dijon. The tweets have been collected via an API on the basis of hashtags (e.g. #S04 #GAZPROM) and accounts (e.g. @s04), annotated and studied thanks to TXM which enables a critical analysis of discourse. Expected results On the basis of the results of previous studies on the acceptance of sponsor names (especially Bach et al. 2022; Gerhardt et al. 2021; Koch et al. 2022), we are expecting that global crises reinforce the criticism beyond countries and languages. A case in point is the unanimously positive response of Schalke 04 fans after the split with the Russian energy provider Gazprom. A decision which was welcomed by political and economic decision-makers.