CSR and Sport Events

This post is shifting away from CSR transparency and is focusing on how CSR is used for a mega-event.

As I was doing research for my dissertation I found a very helpful article in Sport Marketing Quarterly entitled "More Than Just a Game? Corporate Social Responsibility and Super Bowl XL". It explored the CSR activities executed by the National Football League (NFL) at its 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit, Michigan.

According to the article, the Super Bowl attracts more viewers and creates more revenue than any other single sport event. It is more than just a game however, it is a mega-event which heavily impacts its host city. Therefore, the NFL has taken serious actions towards investing in community outreach programmes in the host Super Bowl city.

These actions include, working with local organisations to develop programmes focusing on issues such as community rebuilding, the environment, youth outreach, and minorities. The article breaks down the Super Bowl CSR programmes based on Carroll's framework of corporate social responsibility, specifically the ethical and discretionary responsibilities, Carroll argues, corporations have towards society.

Carroll describes ethical responsibilities as behaviors and norms society expects businesses to follow which extend beyond what is required by law. Discretionary CSR are philanthropic activities businesses take part in that societies both expect and desire, but these expectations and desires are not as clear-cut as they are for ethical responsibilities. Therefore, executives must use their own judgements as to what discretionary responsibilities they should implement.

Two examples of ethical CSR initiatives executed at Super Bowl XL are:

• Emerging Business Program


• Super Makeover

The Emerging Business Program was launched in 1994 and provided local women and minority owned businesses the chance to participate in the Super Bowl business process through using their products and services. In Detroit, 750 firms were on its resource guide and approximately 250 firms received contracts worth an estimated $5.8 million.

The Super Makeover programme was an initiative to clean up Detroit. Actions included picking up trash, painting over graffiti, and removing weeds in pedestrian areas.

Many CSR programmes were also carried out which falls under Carroll's discretionary CSR responsibilities. Two examples of these are:

• Super Reading Program
• SuperBuild

The Super Reading Program encouraged children to read and use their local public libraries. It included a book drive which, partnered with numerous corporations, collected over 14,000 books and purchased 3,000 new books for the Detroit Public School system.

The SuperBuild programme partnered with Habitat for Humanity and built 40 homes which were shipped to Forth Worth, Houston, and College Station, Texas for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The big question is, what were the motivations for both these and other CSR programmes for this mega-event?

The article mentions a few reasons. For one, it was to prevent the NFL from being perceived in a poor light. Critics of mega-events argue that they have a negative social and environmental impact on host communities. They stress that money that goes towards the event could be used instead for improving education, health care, and/or the environment. By giving back to the local community through initiatives addresses such issues, the NFL is seen as working to improve such conditions and criticism is significantly lowered.

Another reason is, again, image motivated. By targeting women, minority and children through CSR initiatives, they are shaping the NFL's image as an organisation that cares about minorities, women and children and not just the bottom line.

Do these ulterior motives matter though? Yes, the NFL is concerned with pragmatics, but their CSR programmes have been judged to, in the long term, make significant improvements in many of the communities they are carried out in.

I personally believe that this is a good example of how CSR can benefit both the community and the organisation. The NFL, I believe, provides more than just sport entertainment. It motivates children to play sports, stay active and be healthy through both providing them role models, and through their community relations programmes. In return, the league benefits from increased fan loyalty, positive image reputation and increased profits from corporate sponsorship.