Energy at the fair: County fair sponsorship patterns from the energy sector in the United States

County fairs are a common feature in the American social landscape. As with many local social institutions, companies and other organizations have a chance to sponsor county fairs. These sponsorships help put on the fairs and give organizations an opportunity to advertise and signal to the local community their involvement. In this paper, we review the small literature on the motivations and effects of sponsorships and then turn to a set of empirical questions. First, we examine the distribution of sponsors from the energy sector and compare the sponsorship patterns of traditional fossil fuel companies and those of firms working in the renewable energy sector. Our sample of US counties covers counties with active fossil and or renewable energy sectors. We also collected all counties in several states and all state-wide fairs. Second, we use a national survey to examine perceptions of sponsorships and support for companies that do or do not sponsor county fairs. Finally, we leave the fair and catalog and compare how large fossil fuel and renewable energy firms display community engagement efforts on their websites to understand how communities may perceive companies, as well as to provide a lens on the extent to which these companies prioritize community-level investments. By and large, we find that renewable energy has a decidedly lower sponsorship and community engagement presence compared to fossil fuel companies.