en in the contemporary period is referring to a major corporate enterprise. In the earlier days of sports sponsorship, however, individuals and groups of individuals frequently provided the underwriting necessary to stage a sports event or a sports team. Such individuals and groups were referred to more frequently as patrons than as sponsors; however, the function they performed was that of sports sponsorship. Throughout the history of sports sponsorship, also, governments have fulfilled the role of sports sponsorship. The formative years of the Professional Golfers Association tours, as an example, relied heavily on municipal sponsorship for both prize money and the underwriting of operational expenses. In the contemporary period, both municipal and regional governments sponsor both sports events and sports teams through the development of the physical facilities required or through the provision of financial guarantees that enable sports authorities, organizing committees, or sports teams to generate the capital required to develop such physical facilities (Mandell, 1989). Increasingly in countries such as the United States, however, governments tend to participate in such funding as is required to stage an Olympics, which means that Olympics organizing committees also must generate massive amounts of money from non-governmental sources.
Given its suitability as a method of global communications, commercial sports sponsorship now represents a major worldwide industry. In 1993 by way of illustration of this point, worldwide commercial sports sponsorship expend
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