Sport marketing, meeting needs and commercial exploitation

Matt Bourn of Braben PR has recently blogged about the messages that came out of last week's Sport Marketing 360 conference in London. This is what he wrote:

1. The next 48 months offers huge potential for sports marketing and sport has an important role in pulling the country out of the recession.]
2. Manchester United is said to have 300 million fans, the same as Disney. Disney monetises every single one of those fans in many different ways – film, DVD, TV, merchandise. Manchester United does not yet. So do the Red Devils have a successful business model?
3. FIFA has a much higher profile than the IOC with the youth market. Why? Because of the video game, not the sport itself.
4. Advice to all sports rights holders: Don’t sell rights, create benefits for your sponsors.
5. More advice to sports rights holders: Remember, brands have a powerful role to play in marketing the sport for you.
6. A view from a sports rights holder: Sponsorship is about a true partnership – offer unique content, unique opportunities for fans.
7. In defence of sponsorship: There has been much debate this year focusing on the credit crunch, banks and corporate sponsorship which has led to the defence of sponsorship as a valued marketing medium. Does more need to be done?
8. Advice from an Olympian to potential sponsors: understand (and enjoy) the sport, don’t lose faith in an athlete’s performance, training comes first and remember - activate the sponsorship.
9. More advice from an Olympian: sponsorship is evolving and it is a platform for doing something good
10. It’s not just brands that benefit. The global nature of sport has seen cities and countries using it to promote themselves on a global scale – Dubai, London, China – this will continue.

In the light of Sport Marketing 360, are we to conclude that sport marketing has now come of age and has a significant role to play in sport, especially as it has benefits for all associated with sport? Or is there still a pervading sense that sport marketing is nothing more than a focus for using sport for commercial purposes and that it is essentially exploitative and cynical?