Bridging the Gap: Bringing the World Down Under

Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, 16-19 July 2008

The 6th Annual Conference for the Sport Marketing Association will be held at the Marriott Surfers Paradise Resort and Spa on Australia’s Gold Coast, 16-19 July 2008. The conference will be hosted by the Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.

The SMA theme for the 2008 conference is Bridging the Gap: Bringing the World Down Under. The conference aims to bring together local and international sports marketing practitioners and academics to continue the discourse about the improvement of Sports Marketing practice and theory development.

This is the first time the Sport Marketing Association has decided to hold its annual conference outside the USA and we are very excited to have the opportunity to show off our wonderful country, our unique sports and our exciting and innovative research programs. 

This year we aim not only to hold some of the best and most stimulating conference sessions, but we also aim to entertain you and your families in typical Aussie style. In addition we have incorporated the conference with a one day Sport industry forum where we have invited the leading sport marketers from corporate and government sectors to discuss the relevant research opportunities and challenges that are facing them. We hope that the interactive forums for academics and practioners both inspire and enlighten you.

In recognition that these conferences are also about encouraging and supporting the new generation of academics, we will be hosting a graduate student doctoral consortia on one day where we encourage graduate students from both home and abroad to present their research to a panel of eminent sport marketing scholars for feedback and comment.

We hope you have already put the dates in your calendar and that you plan to stay with us for a while when you visit.  The conference and the venue are very family friendly so bring everyone to join in celebrating Sport Marketing Down Under 08.