Reinventing Sponsorship through Design Thinking - the case study RB Leipzig

The development of sponsorship in soccer has been remarkable in the last decades. Considering the potential in digitalization, new media, new technologies and internationalization new innovative approaches need to be find to continue this successful story in a dynamic and changing business world. Design thinking is an effective and strong method to generate innovative ideas, based on the characteristics and needs of the user. There exists no literature applying the method in the field of sponsorship. This dissertation provides a reframed theoretical design thinking model tailored to a three-hour workshop in the field of sponsorship. The model focuses on idea generation and prototype creation. Moreover, the dissertation discusses the model in a case study with the soccer club RB Leipzig. The author’s results provide evidence that design thinking is also an effective method in the field of sponsorship in soccer. Although the given time constraints numerous innovative ideas could be generated and first rapid prototypes could be discussed. Even without previous experience with design thinking, the attendees of the workshop could apply design thinking and provide satisfying and surprising results. This demonstrates, that design thinking is a suitable method to find innovative sponsorship approaches helping clubs to exploit existing potential and continue the success of sponsorship.