Effectiveness of sponsoring the video assistant referee system: a comparative exploratory study Alonso Dos Santos, Manuel Video assistant referee Sponsorship Congruence Sports advertising Recall Sport management Purpose – This study explores the effect of video assistant referee (VAR) sponsorship on spectator response and compares it with advertising and conventional sponsorship. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment with 809 subjects is conducted by analyzing 20 oneminute video clip stimuli from a Premier League soccer game divided into four formats: two formats of VAR sponsorship, advertising, and conventional sponsorship. Findings – The results show that the indicators of recall, credibility, and perceived congruence improve when the VAR sponsorship format is used. Originality/value – This is the firstmanuscript to examine the effectiveness of a newtype of sponsorship:VAR sponsorship. This manuscript provides metrics that will guide practitioners on whether to use this type of sponsorship. 2022-10-04T11:58:02Z 2022-10-04T11:58:02Z 2022-09-21 journal article Alonso Dos Santos, M... [et al.]. (2022), "Effectiveness of sponsoring the video assistant referee system: a comparative exploratory study", International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. [https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSMS-05-2022-0107] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/77170 10.1108/IJSMS-05-2022-0107 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional Emerald