Does football sponsorship improve company performance?
研究足球赞助对公司财务绩效的影响，使用推特数据作为工具变量解决内生性问题，发现赞助更像慈善而非商业投资，提醒股东和管理层审慎评估赞助交易。
Research question: This paper investigates how football sponsorship influences the financial performance of sponsors. We suggest a new instrumental variable (IV) to avoid endogeneity.Research methods: We use an IV regression framework combined with a fixed effects model. The number of tweets containing both team and sponsor names are collected to use as the IV.Results and findings: We analyze top European leagues. Our results show that football sponsorship is more charity than commercial investment. The analysis of determinants of becoming a sponsor and sponsorship amount shows that companies owned by individuals are more likely to become a sponsor.Implications: Shareholders should be aware of sponsorship deals, and senior management should analyze the financial assumptions of such projects carefully.