Turning Consumers into Supporters: Understanding Loyalty Through Football Teams

Sammanfattning: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the fans’ perspective of sport team loyalty and the reasons why brand loyalty is extremely high within sports. Methodology: This paper uses a qualitative research method with both primary data and secondary data. The literature review with previous research was collected by secondary data whereas the primary data was collected by six semi-structured interviews in order to study the fans’ perspective. Findings: The findings of this paper show that brand community, brand heritage, and brand identity were all vital aspects of the strong loyalty displayed towards football teams. Furthermore, a fourth aspect was identified which was referred to as brand internalisation and was defined as the sway the brand holds over the fan, or consumer, in everyday life. Brand internalisation was also shown to be of great importance for the strong loyalty amongst football fans. Original/value: The originality of the paper is the focus on understanding the drivers behind the supporter’s strong loyalty. Previous research within sports branding have focused more on brand equity and brand extensions whereas this paper takes a new perspective from the supporters and their motivation for the strong loyalty towards sport teams. Keywords: Brand loyalty, Brand community, Brand heritage, Brand identity, Brand internalisation, Sports branding Paper type: Research paper