Fans club brand relationship: football passion

Abstract

Football fans are consumers with a special behaviour with their football club brand. Football is the most popular sport in the world. Demographically, organisations worldwide are becoming increasingly homogeneous. The main aim of this study is to explore why football fans are willing to do some kind of sacrifices in order to continue their relationship with their preferred club brand. Therefore, 97 telephone interviews (from a list of 123 potential respondents) were conducted with entrepreneurs, managers, students, lawyers, retired, employees (public and private), professors, athletes, coach. Participants were contacted in accordance with the procedures of snowball sampling type starting with finding the perpetrators of personal contacts that fit the profile request for the study: the main criterion of the integral elements of this first study is to be people who really like football, people who have the willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of their relationship with the football club brand and team. The findings of the first study reveal four major facets: passion/soul, be different, leave all behind, personal risk. The study contributes to knowledge in marketing field, as well as provides insights to brand managers.

Social Media Conversations About High Engagement Sports Team Brands

“…Yet it is arguable that sports brands are amongst the most prominent of social media users, which has resulted in metrics and measures of social media performance being created (for example, Peters et al, 2013). This undoubtedly reflects the visibility and power of sports brands, not least for the way in which consumers often passionately engage with them (Cayolla and Loureiro, 2014). In utilizing social media platforms such as Twitter (Parganas et al, 2015), Facebook (Waters et al, 2011) and Instagram (Anagnostopoulos et al, 2018), sports brands have simultaneously encountered new opportunities, but new challenges too.…”

The deployment of professional football clubs’ eSports strategies: a dynamic capabilities approach

“…Success in these two areas remains a challenge for them as they must interact with a widening variety of stakeholders, and primarily the fans. As pointed out by Cayolla and Loureiro (2014), the more fans are involved with the football club brand, the more they will be willing to make sacrificesand notably financial ones. In this respect, Cleland (2009) argues that professional football clubs' management 'has to be constantly responsive to changes in technology and popular culture ' (p. 430), in order to fulfil fans' needs.…”

Communicational management of Football clubs: Analysis of communication departments from LaLiga

“…However, this does not hinder that, even at a professional level, it is affected in general by an almost chronic state of bankruptcy and conflict, derived from an irrational management of its resources (Chadwich and Hamil, 2010). Nevertheless, football overcomes its original function of game or entertainment, shifting into a source of identity and consumption (Crawford, 2004) and it is in this area where we focus our research, since the reference considered for its elaboration are centred in the study of the strategic management of corporate communication in football clubs, in the management of its resources and intangible assets (López Triana and Sotillo, 2009;Alcoba López, 2010;Araújo, De Carlos and Fraiz, 2014;Cayora and Correia Loureiro, 2014;Coombs and Osborne, 2012;Crolley, 1999), in the planning and execution of a corporate identity (Capriotti, 2013;Sanahua Peris, 2012) and in the configuration of a specific reputation (Villafañe, 2001;Hopwoodk, 2005), besides the role of the communication director as integrator of all messages issued and as representative of publics before the organization (Mut Camacho, 2013; Boyle and Haynes: 2014; Boyle: 2013), in a long term bet based on strategical planning and a respectful development with their groups of interest.…”