Table 1 Summary of thematic analysis of focus groups
Theme | Sub-theme | Description |
|---|---|---|
Sporting experiences | Personal experiences | Sport evoked feelings of pride, nostalgia, and competitiveness, and was closely tied to community, family and friends. |
Ubiquity and pervasiveness of marketing | Increased marketing integration and effectiveness | Due to sophisticated marketing techniques using integration and technology, marketing is more persuasive now than ever before. |
Role of unhealthy commodities in sport | Commercial benefit of sponsorship | Businesses engaged in sport sponsorship to sell products, build brand reputations and associate with the positive attributes of sport |
Effectiveness of marketing and sponsorship | While individuals rarely noted their own susceptibility to marketing, certain groups such as children were more readily influenced. | |
Contradictions of unhealthy commodities and sport | Deep and inherent contradictions between the healthy messages of sport and the potential negative health outcomes of fast food, alcohol and betting. | |
Unhealthy habits associated with viewing sport | Consuming fast food, alcohol, and placing bets were all common experiences associated with or around watching elite sport. | |
Perceptions and opinions on restricting sports sponsorship and sport-related marketing | Mixed support | The appetite for restricting unhealthy commodity sponsorship depended on the perceived harm, exposure to children, marketing techniques used, and the ability of sports clubs to survive. |
Reduce exposure over complete restrictions | For alcohol and fast food, reducing exposure of marketing was preferred over complete restrictions, while there was more support for removing gambling from sport altogether. | |
Survival of sport | Opposition to reducing unhealthy commodity sponsorship often came from concern that elite sport would lose income and become unviable. | |
Rights and responsibilities | Joint responsibility | Governments had the responsibility to protect children from harmful products, sports associations should act in the best interests of the community, and companies should not market harmful products where children will be exposed to them. |
Complementary approaches | Reducing exposure of marketing through sport sponsorship should be combined with other approaches to support healthy choices. | |
Visible policy coherence | Governments should act on sport sponsorship to be in line with their other messages and actions on unhealthy eating, alcohol and gambling. |