IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Corporate sponsorship in sports - EngExam.info
IELTS Writing Task 2 Sample Essay corporate sponsorship in sports

IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Corporate sponsorship in sports

Some companies sponsor sport as a way to advertise themselves. Some people think it is good, while others think there are disadvantages.
Discuss both views and give your opinion

It is true that many enterprises fund sport teams or clubs with the aim to get publicity for themselves. Although many individuals consider this practise (1) right and correct like any other promotional material, others seem to be more sceptical. Despite this, it seems to be noticeable that the benefits behind this marketing tool far overweight (2) the negative sides.

Even though the primary aim pursued by the company sponsors is to increase their visibility, there are several social positive effects as a result of this practice. First of all, nobody would have any interest in sponsoring this kind of activities without a rise in turnover due to it. We live in a materialistic society, where most healthy activities would never be promoted for free. This means that, even if the primary aim (3) of the sponsors is advertising themselves, these companies play a significant role in encouraging people to join sport clubs and to live an active lifestyle. For instance, private companies like Rolex are essential for many football teams which could not even remain on the market (4) without their financial help.

Yet, some drawbacks concerning this practice should be taken into account. Among them, one seems to be the most relevant: the disparity of performances which can result in some cases: whenever the funds in favour of the involved sport team are modest and, by contrast, the company sponsor makes a great profit by advertising itself this way, the trade itself can be seen as unfair. However, this mainly depends on the negotiation skills of the counterparts (5).

In conclusion, whether funding sports as a way to create publicity for themselves is right or not, it is still a controversial issue. However, it is worth sharing the opinion that sponsors are almost always necessary to allow many sport clubs and teams to stay on the market.

309 words

The commentaries are marked in brackets with number (*). The numbered commentaries are found below. The part in italics is taken from the text, the word underlined is the suggested correction. Words in (brackets) are the suggested addition to the original phrase or sentence.

  1. Practice— ‘practise’ is a verb, the noun is ‘practice’ — I have taken the liberty to correct this mistake in the rest of the essay. A similar case is advice(noun) and advise(verb). See the full list of tricky words in English.
  2. the benefits behind this marketing tool far outweigh the negative sides — ‘overweight’ is an adjective with a different meaning.
  3.  ‘primary aim’ is used twice in the same paragraph. Consider paraphrasing it.
  4. For instance, private companies like Rolex are essential for many football teams which could not even remain in the sports without their financial help. — ‘market’ does not fit very well to describe sports environment such as football. I would advise using something different. A more general ‘sports’ would do better, or a figurative ‘game’, e.g. ‘they wouldn’t be able to stay in the game’.
  5. Paragraph three is slightly underlength and the idea there is insufficiently developed. Consider expanding it, adding supplementary arguments or increasing its size otherwise.

This writing is of very good quality, even though there are some minor shortcomings that could be easily rectified. Both grammatical and vocabulary structures are of considerable level.

Body paragraph two seems underdeveloped. The idea could be expanded further. The essay is over 300 words long. While this is not directly punished, writing a longer essay almost inevitably entails more mistakes. To be fair, this does not seem to be the case in this particular essay, but one should always keep this in mind.