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The study aims to identify critical factors that influence football fans’ support of their favorite team by examining the impact of social responsibility, brand credibility and team brand equity on patronage intentions of professional football teams.

An online survey collected data from 331 football fans of the Persian Gulf Premier League (PGPL) in Iran. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings revealed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is able to influence brand equity, brand credibility and patronage intentions. Also, brand equity and brand credibility were found to be positively related to patronage intentions. In addition to that, the findings show that brand equity and team credibility partially mediate the relationship between CSR and patronage intentions.

The findings provide valuable insights to sports teams/club managers aiming to attract new fans and retain current ones by investing in CSR and enhancing brand credibility and equity. Strategies to integrate CSR into relationship marketing and brand management are outlined.

This study empirically highlights the critical role of adhering to CSR and the effects of brand credibility and equity in enhancing patronage intentions among football team fans.

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss a framework (the Revised Model of Sport Consumer Behavior – R-MSCB; Trail, 2019) to accomplish the following objectives. (1) Provide a framework for sport marketers and sport organizations to use in their own market research. (2) Designate the processes needed to generate results and knowledge that sport organizations, sport marketers and associated corporate partners can use to improve marketing campaigns. (3) Provide suggestions for analytic techniques and measurement constructs/instruments that will facilitate market research within the sport industry.

The author created a 140-item questionnaire for the pre-survey and a 50-item questionnaire for the post-survey. The pre-survey was given at the beginning of the season, and the post-survey was given at the end of the season. The research group has generated a sequence of 13 studies and has collected pre-survey responses from over 7,800 people across 4 continents, 8 sports and 13 teams (data collections), with more teams still planned and over 2,000 post-season survey responses with data collection continuing.

This project, with its 13 studies, will provide sport organizations with the theories/frameworks, knowledge and processes to do their own market research in a more effective and efficient manner and will show sport organizations how to understand the complexities of sport consumer behavior, the motivations behind it and how it varies extensively across individuals. The author will show sports organizations how to collect data from their consumers using valid and reliable measures and constructs that will allow them to segment their consumers, how to effectively market to those segments and how to establish long-lasting relationships that make a satisfied and loyal customer.

This paper provides the framework and guidelines so that sport marketers and researchers can identify specific variables, constructs and relationships that will further their own objectives when attempting to explain sport consumer behavior. Using their own market research, they can implement the results/output in association with the Communications Strategy Model to create more effective and efficient marketing and communications campaigns and consequently drive key performance indicators (KPIs) and improve revenue streams.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how to generate innovative work behaviors among Millennial and Generation Z sport employees and its impact on their career satisfaction and psychological well-being.

The authors used structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among predictors of job engagement, innovative work behaviors, career satisfaction and psychological well-being. The model was tested across managerial sport employees of Division I athletics departments (N = 224).

The highlights of the study include job engagement's positive relationship with innovative work behaviors and the positive influence of innovative work behavior on career satisfaction and psychological well-being.

These findings signify the importance of considering job engagement and innovative work behaviors to develop a positive work experience for Millennial and Generation Z sport employees. Doing so is thought to be a critical step in cultivating an organizational competitive advantage via younger generations of sport employees.

This study aims to identify the determining factors of perceived altruism and attitude toward an inclusive sponsorship activation, as well as the impact of these variables on the attitude toward the sponsor.

Online survey data were obtained from 1,228 respondents from France, the UK and South Africa. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results show that the cause-brand fit has a strong positive impact on the perceived altruism toward the motivations underlying inclusive activation, while skepticism toward advertising has a very weak negative impact. In return, perceived altruism positively influences the attitude toward inclusive activation and sponsor attitude. Furthermore, this attitude toward inclusive activation is positively influenced by involvement in women’s soccer and France men’s national football team identification. The attitude toward inclusive activation also positively influences the attitude toward sponsor attitude. However, contrary to what had been advanced, identification with the France women’s national football team and the nationality of the respondents (French, British or South African) had no impact on the attitude toward inclusive activation, while the perceived importance of the cause had very weak impact on attitudes toward inclusive activation.

This study highlights the potential benefits of investing in inclusive sponsorship activations, particularly with respect to their positive impact on consumer attitude toward sponsor attitude. It also highlights the importance of establishing, in advance, a strong association between the brand image and the cause supported, so that the motivations underlying the inclusive activations are perceived as more altruistic.

In a dynamic, continuously evolving sports landscape, social media have become an indispensable tool for sports organizations to cultivate meaningful connections with fans. The rapid pace of technological advancements has elevated these digital platforms from a supplementary role to a pivotal position within strategic management frameworks. The existing literature explores how football clubs can utilize social media, but analyzing social media strategies within the context of football leagues is lacking. The absence of comparative studies benchmarking clubs across different geographical regions while simultaneously analyzing multiple social media platforms is especially noteworthy. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of social media engagement is undertaken within esteemed football leagues spanning Europe, South America and North America.

Drawing on relationship marketing and employing content analysis as a methodological tool, the study examined 10,772 posts from the official accounts of eight football leagues on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Across the leagues, the findings reveal that content quality drives engagement more than frequency. In addition, several format combinations were identified that facilitate engagement and Instagram emerged as the top social media platform for generating fan engagement.

This is one of the first empirical studies focusing on optimizing the use of social media to amplify fan engagement across various geographies and social media accounts and formats simultaneously.

Football exists and evolves in a dynamic ecosystem, displaying a massive and multidimensional influence on most contemporary societies, and football has grown into a significant industry with a plethora of stakeholders. This research is the first to comprehensively identify the key industry stakeholders and their distinct value, from the individual club perspective, and to conceptualise and test their interrelationship toward the development of a corresponding framework of club benefits.

The study applied a multilevel approach to collect and verify qualitative data. It initially developed a preliminary conceptual framework, which was first validated by an expert panel and was subsequently extensively tested in the Cyprus-specific context, which offered fertile ground for such a study. The empirical stage rested on 41 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with very high-ranking individuals from the top nine football clubs, as well as with key industry stakeholders.

Though the examined industry is partly in line with international norms, it is also highly affected by unique characteristics that alter the various stakeholders' role, producing (even negative) value of varied typologies that is directly linked with the industry's financial, sporting, cultural and social conditions.

The research ultimately presents scholars, practitioners and policymakers with a systemic and comprehensive understanding of the individual club stakeholder value offerings, delivers a tested framework as a tool for social and business management and prescribes future avenues for research, governance and practice.

Extant studies on the subject are either partial or focus on individual stakeholders and evidently lack requisite scientific comprehensiveness. The current research bridges this significant gap in knowledge by exhaustively identifying the key industry stakeholders, explicating their relative social, economic or other value in the individual club perspective and developing a value-based stakeholder framework.

Humans care about things. The truth of this claim is obvious, yet scholars who have evaluated student interventions and outcomes in higher education have largely neglected how student values might inform their experience with those interventions and outcomes. This chapter will rely on a philosophical conceptualization of a particular type of value known as “caring” to explore what students value as they weigh various collegiate decisions. Elaborating on findings from a qualitative study of 143 college students from eight American universities, I will summarize previous findings related to what students cared about, how those cares were structured, and what the cares and structures meant for students' pathways through college. The categorical and theoretical patterns I share demonstrate how students approached values in ways that have not typically been considered by scholars or institutional administrators. After summarizing my previous findings, I offer a conceptual argument for a “dialectical” approach that considers the mutually formative interaction between student and institutional values. The practical result of naming and understanding the dialectic realities of values in higher education is the opportunity for institutions to use their relatively greater agency to help individual students pursue what is worth pursuing without reducing the agency of those students. Thus, the dialectic places necessary boundary lines on both the institution and the student while also clarifying the opportunity to help students develop moral expertise and navigate their collegiate pathways successfully.

The purpose of this research is to explore how one unsanctioned community sport organization (CSO), AM Hockey, sought to acquire legitimacy in a highly institutionalized minor hockey marketplace at various points in its organizational life cycle.

This study was guided by instrumental case study methodology. Twenty (20) AM Hockey stakeholders from a variety of roles (e.g. executives, program directors and coaches) were interviewed. Document analysis was also utilized to supplement the interviewees. Internal and public documents reflective of the CSO's creation and growth were obtained.

Findings revealed that the CSO had to navigate distinct phases of evolution including the Building, Growth, Competition and Stabilization phases. Although the four life cycle phases identified in this study share similarities with the phases identified by Lester et al. (2003), findings indicated that institutional work mechanisms must be understood in their context as they can vary over the life cycle of an organization. Therefore, start-up sports organizations must approach the pursuit of legitimacy as a continual process rather than something acquired and defended through maintenance work.

Developing legitimacy remains a central challenge for CSOs that seek to deliver alternative sport programming, yet it continues to be understudied. Ultimately, the long-term viability of an unsanctioned CSO in a federated sports system relies, in part, on its ability to continually determine the actions needed to achieve legitimacy within its environment.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.

To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.

We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.

The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.

The purpose of this study was to compare four different consumer pathway models based on identity theory, attitude/loyalty theory, lifestyle theory and hierarchy of effects theory, each with associated instruments measuring connection to the team.

The authors did a two-study analysis, first collecting data from people aware of an NFL team (N = 218) and then an MLS team (N = 209) to determine which connection item performed better.

The authors found that the Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom based on the hierarchy of effects theory and its associated interest measurement item performed better than the other three frameworks and items. The Interest item shared the most variance with games attended, games intending to attend, games watched via media and games intending to watch via media.

The Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom represents the entire consumer spectrum from non-aware consumers all the way up to die-hard sports fans. This pathway will allow sport marketers to track their consumers from initial awareness of the product or service all the way through the brand relationship to ultimate loyalty.