Predicting Behavioral Loyalty through Community: Why Other Fans Are More Important Than Our Own Intentions, Our Satisfaction, and the Team Itself

Abstract

A consumer's loyalty to a specific sport team is longitudinal in nature. This longitudinal study examines the effects of consumers' attitudinal constructs (team identification, associated attachment points, consumer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions) on behavioral loyalty in the context of a professional soccer event. To test the proposed relationships, the authors assess the impact of consumers' self-reported measures (Time 1) on actual attendance frequency in the first half (Time 2) and the second half (Time 3) of the season. The results indicate that fan community attachment is the only construct that can predict attendance frequency over a longer period of time while team identification, satisfaction and behavioral intentions are not significant predictors of attendance frequency throughout the season. The theoretical model and results reinforce the importance of fan community attachment toward longitudinal attendance frequency and add new insights into the predictive validity of some of the attitudinal marketing measures in the field of sport management.At the very essence of each professional sport team's existence is the objective to acquire and maintain the support of a devoted fan base that will consume the team's service on a consistent basis. Fan consumption not only drives attendance but is also at the heart of media consumption, merchandise sales, and sponsorship. As such, the development of a fan base that is willing to consistently repurchase the product or service is crucial to each professional sport team. This is particularly challenging within the sport setting, because unlike most entertainment properties (e.g., movies, theater, etc.), sport teams cannot guarantee a quality performance. Fans might be disappointed after a game if their team loses or performs poorly. Therefore, understanding the process behind repeat purchases and what is driving this phenomenon has played a central role in academic research in sport marketing over the last few decades.Within sport management, there has been a plethora of research delving into the psychological processes behind sport consumption. Most of this work has been rooted in attitude theory, which suggests consumers' cognitive, affective, and conative responses to a specific object influence their consumption behavior (Eagly &

Introducing branded communities in sport for building strong brand relations in social media

“…Empirical studies have revealed several positive aspects of brand communities including increases in brand involvement, brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth behaviour and customer support to community members (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006;Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). Also in the sport setting, managers increasingly recognize the crucial role of brand communities for key aspects such as team identity (Yoshida, Heere, & Gordon, 2015) and game attendance (Katz & Heere, 2014). Pongsakornrungsilp and Schroeder (2011) further reveal that community members play an active role in building stronger relationships with the club online.…”

"This is why we play"

“…Researchers have studied factors that affect purchasing behavior of sports fans [48,58,63], including psychometric properties and fan motivation. A few studies also build predictive models of fan loyalty [4,72]. Bee and Havitz [4] suggest that fan attraction, involvement, psychological commitment, and resistance can be predictors of fan behavioral loyalty.…”

“…Dolton and MacKerron [11] estimate that the happiness that fans feel when their team wins is outweighted by the sadness that strikes when their team loses by a factor or two. Yoshida et al [72] build regression models based on attitudinal processes to predict behavioral loyalty. The potential influence of mobile technology on sports spectators is also examined from different angles [23,34,57].…”

“…However, it remains an open question how team performance in games relate to user activity in online sports fan communities. Previous studies find that fans react differently to top teams than to bottom teams based on interviews and surveys [12,53,72]. In particular, Doyle et al [12] find that fans of teams with an overwhelming loss to win ratio can be insensitive to losses through interviews.…”

“…It is important for professional teams to acquire and maintain a strong fan base that provides consistent support and consumes team-related products. Understanding fan loyalty is thus a central research question in the literature of sports management [12,13,51,72]. For instance, "bandwagon fan" refers to a person who follows the tide and supports teams with recent success.…”