Sponsoring a sports event is a powerful way for companies and networks to bring their brands to a passionate audience. But once the event is over, will the positive association stick? For a company taking over an event's sponsorship from a previous sponsor—or a network taking over from a previous broadcaster—the answer is "perhaps not," according to a recent paper by Edwin E. and June Woldt Cone Professor of Marketing T. Bettina Cornwell and coauthors Anna McAlister, Michigan State University, and Sarah Kelly and Michael Humphreys, both of University of Queensland. In a paper published in the Journal of Advertising, the team describes research showing that at the time of an event the percentage of consumers able to name its current sponsor was—in certain instances—as high as nearly 75 percent. But just six months later, instead of recalling the event's current sponsor, 79 percent of the same group recalled a former sponsor. So, what's a sports-minded company to do? "It's important to look at an event's sponsorship history," said Cornwell. "If your product is similar to the previous sponsor's, it's easy to imagine that people will confuse your brand with theirs." Download the study.