Paper Title
Football Sponsorship and The Battle of Nike And Adidas In 2014 FIFA World Cup

Abstract
Football is a sport that millions of fans across the world enjoy. The merging of media and entertainment industries into the football industry created a big economy that makes football even more important. The brands, noticing the influence of football that appeals to the millions, aspire to benefit from it in order to promote their products and, therefore, compete to sponsor the teams. Today, the brands which sponsored the footballers compete with each other on the football field as well as the players themselves. This paper studies the sponsorship competition between the world�s two big sports brands, Nike and Adidas, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. For this purpose, a brief history of the world�s biggest football tournament, the FIFA World Cup and the conceptual framework of sponsorship is examined in the case of the competition between Nike and Adidas during the FIFA World Cup 2014. The sponsorship competition and on the global football market between Nike and Adidas is briefly analyzed in the paper. Although Nike is the leader in the global football market, Adidas, which was more successful in the 2014 World Cup, seems to be one step ahead of its competitor in terms of sponsorship. Keywords- Football , Sponsorship, World Cup, Nike, Adidas