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The objective of this research is to understand and compare the perceived brand positioning of two football megabrands (Adidas and Nike) for a specific social group, the registered amateur football players in France, using the social representation theory (SRT) as the theoretical framework and the free word associations as the main method.

A survey was conducted through face-to-face questionnaire among a convenience sample of registered amateur football players in France (n = 362) and for which 52 percent chose Adidas and 48 percent Nike.

Findings demonstrated that Adidas and Nike have a different perceived brand positioning for the registered amateur football players in France. Adidas is perceived as more typical and positioned “inside the football ground” through main characteristics of its football goods for training and competition. Nike is more positioned “outside the football ground” through their sportswear goods for daily life and fashion.

The interest of this research is to be primarily inductive and focus on a specific group (membership of registered amateur football players) to understand the perceived brand positioning in the football market. The method allows activating the belonging with this group (higher level of practice with these brands) by using the SRT method of free word associations. Thanks to this original approach, results could help managers of Nike and Adidas reinforce their brand positioning and gain market share, as well as build their specific brand community like both megabrands did for the runners in France.

Consumers are increasingly looking beyond products, and are expressing concern for the respect of societal values. This paper analyses how football organisations and governing bodies in Europe are adapting their marketing strategies to reflect these concerns. 'Ethical charters' or 'ethical codes of behaviour' need to be redefined under close scrutiny from shareholders and stakeholders. Whether it is a deliberate decision or a forced change, football organisations must respond to simultaneous commercial and political pressures.

The goal of this research was to explore career patterns of senior marketing managers in the best European football clubs (SMMEFCs).

The data came from the LinkedIn profiles of current and past SMMEFCs. Firstly, the optimal matching algorithm was used to determine clusters of pathways leading to a first SMMEFC position based on the main activity of the employing organisation. Secondly, these patterns were compared in terms of variables depicting the career paths, clubs and managers. Finally, the evolution of the post-SMMEFC careers was analysed.

People in their first SMMEFC positions are mainly male with a university degree in business and marketing, and with a predominantly functional experience in marketing. There are five ways to become an SMMEFC: through business (40% of the sample), football (32%), other sports (11%), marketing and communication (11%), and media (6%). As the majority of SMMEFCs come to their positions from outside the sporting world, the specificity of the football industry is not a serious obstacle. Instead, the careers are bounded by functional marketing experience. Among the individual sequences leading to a first SMMEFC position, only around half of the football cluster may be considered traditional careers. Football, and sports in general, seem attractive for post-SMMEFC career development for the majority of managers coming from all pathways.

The study is the first one to quantify career patterns in professional sports management. It provides new insights about marketing careers and practice in European club football.

Since the appearance of Simon Rottenberg's seminal paper on the baseball players' labour market in the Journal of Political Economy (1956), the literature on the economics of professional team sports has increased rapidly, fuelled by major changes in the restrictive rules which had pervaded these sports, themselves a consequence of battles in the courts and the collective bargaining arena. These changes have not been limited to North America, to which most of the literature relates, but also apply to Western Europe and Australia in particular. This monograph surveys this literature covering those various parts of the world in order to draw out both theoretical and empirical aspects. However, to argue that the existence of what is now an extensive literature “justifies” such a survey on professional team sports clearly begs a number of questions. Justification can be found in at least two major aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain evidence about the scope of the determinants of the willingness to pay (WTP) of the residents in a Spanish city (A Coruña) for keeping a professional football team (Deportivo) competing at the highest level. Apart from the individual socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and their attitudes as football fans, the authors try to know the influence on the WTP of factors such as the general economic conditions and the plausibility of the team disappearance.

The value of the intangible benefits associated with the team existence is derived from the application of the contingent valuation method (CVM), using two surveys conducted in 2003 and 2012, respectively, with the aim of obtaining information concerning citizens’ behaviour and attitudes towards a professional football team.

The consumption of public goods generated by the local football team is relatively inelastic to the sport success and general economic situation, but the value assigned by residents to those goods depends on these factors. Of the two components of the WTP, the non-use value is especially sensitive to changes both in the Spanish economic conditions and in the quality of the public goods generated by the football team.

This is the first study that applies the CVM to a football team controlling for both the general economic conditions and the team sport success and, as such, it provides interesting insights into the nature and scope of the determinants of individuals’ WTP in a CVM setting.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether consumers’ attitude toward sporting goods retailers depends on who engages in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and where CSR takes place. The study aims to replicate previous findings on football teams (Kulczycki and Koenigstorfer, 2016) for for-profit sporting goods retailers by looking at how organization size and proximity of the supported cause to the retailers’ headquarters interact with consumers’ motive attributions for CSR (philanthropic vs profit).

In total, 200 participants took part in the experimental study. The study applied a between-participant design manipulating both the proximity of the supported social cause (local vs distant CSR) and the size of the organization (small- vs large-sized organization) and measured perceived motives for CSR as independent variables. Attitude toward retailers was the dependent variable.

The results of regression analyses showed that perceived philanthropic motives increased attitude toward retailers. This relationship became stronger for large-sized sporting goods retailers, in particular when they engaged in CSR activities at distant locations. For small-sized retailers, the proximity of CSR did not impact on the relationship between motive attribution and attitude toward the retailer.

Large-sized retailers are encouraged to take particular care that consumers perceive CSR activities as philanthropy-driven, especially when supporting social causes at distant locations.

The study replicates previous findings and shows that not only for sports teams, but also for sporting good retailers, CSR can increase consumer attitudes even when the consumer population at the organization headquarters’ location does not directly benefit from CSR.

To understand the football industry in its entirety, a supply chain management (SCM) approach is necessary. This includes the study of suppliers, consumers and their collaborations. The purpose of this study was to present a business management model based on supply chain management.

Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 12 academic and executive football experts. After three steps of open, axial and selective coding based on grounded theory with a paradigmatic approach, the data were analysed, and a football supply chain management (FSCM) was developed. The proposed model includes three managerial components: upstream suppliers, the manufacturing firm, and downstream customers.

The football industry sector has three parts: upstream suppliers, manufacturing firm/football clubs and downstream customers. We proposed seven parts for the managerial processes of football supply chain management: event/match management, club management, resource and infrastructure management, customer relationship management, supplier relationship management, cash flow management and knowledge and information flow management. This model can be used for configuration, coordination and redesign of business operations as well as the development of models for evaluation of the football supply chain's performance.

The proposed model of a football supply chain management, with the existing literature and theoretical review, created a synergistic outcome. This synergy is presented in the linkage of the players in this chain and interactions between them. This view can improve the management of industry productivity and improve the products quality.

The purpose of this paper is to provide better understanding of potential foreign customers or satellite fans' perceptions of professional‐football brands, as this constitutes a necessary step toward setting up an internationalisation strategy to create a global professional‐sport brand.

Twelve semi‐directed individual interviews with French satellite fans about how they perceive the English Big Four brands of Arsenal Football Club (FC), Chelsea FC, Liverpool FC and Manchester United are conducted.

The paper found the common and specific features of each club's brand equity and the typical fans' perceptions of the clubs, which constitute major dimensions upon which the clubs are differentiated in the customers' minds. It also identified such key antecedents to building strong professional‐sport brand equity in the French market as the fit between the image, the values or both of the foreign club and the local club a fan supports.

The main limitation is the size of the sample, even if the saturation‐semantic criterion is applied.

This paper emphasises the need for professional‐sport clubs not to underestimate the need for strategic‐marketing steps different from those used at home before implementing foreign marketing operations and constitutes a first step toward future research into the analysis of the perceptions of potential foreign customers or satellite fans in broader contexts.

Although many studies have dealt with the perception of local professional‐sport brands, this paper represents one of the first empirical studies of the perceptions of professional‐football brands in a foreign market.

This paper examines the literature relating to tribalism and considers its existence and its relevance to the marketing of sport. Tribal marketing is not a feature of the philosophy dominating today's sports marketing programmes. It is suggested, however, that more focus be placed on the interactions and relationships of groups of sports spectators as tribal members, and this paper presents factors that should be considered by the sports marketer to encourage and facilitate tribalism.