Proceedings of the 12th International Academic Conference, Prague

UNDERSTANDING THE FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCCER TEAM IDENTIFICATION AND ITS IMPACTS ON TEAM SPONSORS: AN EVIDENCE FROM THAILAND PREMIER LEAGUE

DISSATAT PRASERTSAKUL, TITIPONG RERNGRITTIRONG

Abstract:

Sponsorship expenditures have increased dramatically in the past decade worldwide. The amplified investments are associated with the effectiveness of sponsorship as a marketing communication tool. The most common form of sponsorship is in sport, which relates to sponsoring sport teams, associations events or even athletes. This study was conducted in the professional sport sponsorship setting by investigating antecedents and consequences of team identification. Even though previous studies examined a variety of factors influencing team identification and its outcomes; for example, team identification was found to influence consumers’ intention to purchase the products from sponsoring companies, there is few research combines antecedents and consequences of team identification into one study. This study proposes a model to investigate the determining factors and the outcomes of sport sponsorship. Whilst soccer is reported to be the most popular sport in the world and also in Thailand, questionnaires were collected from 400 fans of professional soccer teams in Thailand. The hypotheses in the proposed model were tested using regression analysis. The results indicated that team attractiveness, similarity, and awareness significantly influenced team identification, and team identification in turn affected sponsor identification, attitudes toward the sponsor, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with the sponsor. From a practical perspective, both sponsors and sport team marketers should have a firm understanding of when and how sponsorship works to maximize its value

Keywords: Sport marketing, team identification, sponsorship, soccer team

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