The Link between Brand Equity and On-Field Performance in Professional Sports: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

This research explores the relationship between brand equity and on-field performance in professional sports. Based on data from 1,781 German soccer matches, the result of this exploratory study suggest a positive but diminishing impact of brand equity on performance; that is, increases in brand equity stimulate on-field performance more at lower levels than comparable improvements at higher levels of brand equity. The findings help managers and marketing executives of sports clubs justify financial branding investments to their shareholders. However, they also call for a careful evaluation of investments to achieve high levels of brand equity.

Keywords

brand equity on-field performance functional relationship sport marketing exploratory study

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amato

C. H.

, Peters

C. L. O.

, & Shao

A. T.

(2005). An exploratory investigation into NASCAR fan culture. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 14, 71–83.

Anderson

E. W.

, & Sullivan

M. W.

(1993). The antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction for firms. Marketing Science, 12, 125–143.

Bagozzi

R. R

, & Warshaw

R R.

(1990). Trying to consume. Journal of Consumer Research, 17, 127–140.

Bauer

H. H.

, Sauer

Í. Å.

, & Schmitt

(2005). Customer-based brand equity in the team sport industry: Operationalization and impact on the economic success of sport teams. European Journal of Marketing, 39, 496–513.

Baumeister

R. F.

, & Steinhilber

(1984). Paradoxical effects of supportive audiences on performance under pressure: The home field disadvantage in sports championships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 85–93.

Bennett

R.J.

, Bratton

W. Á.

, & Robson

P. J. A.

(2000). Business advice: The influence of distance. Regional Studies, 34, 813–828.

Berger

, & Pope

(2011). Can losing lead to winning? Management Science, 57, 817–827.

Biscaia

, Correia

Á.

, Ross

, Rosado

Á.

, & Maroco

(2013). Spectator-based brand equity in professional soccer. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 22, 20–32.

Bloom

(1999). The performance effects of pay dispersion on individuals and organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 42, 25–40.

10.

Boyle

Â. Á.

, & Magnusson

(2007). Social identity and brand equity formation: A comparative study of collegiate sports fans. Journal of Sport Management, 21, 497–520.

11.

Bozdogan

(1987). Model selection and Akaike's information criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions. Psychometrika, 52, 345–370.

12.

Bühler

A. W.

(2006). Football as an international business-An Anglo-German comparison. European Journal for Sport and Society, 3, 25–41.

13.

Cable

D. M.

, & Turban

D. B.

(2003). The value of organizational reputation in the recruitment context: A brand-equity perspective. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 2244–2266.

14.

Cohen

, Cohen

, West

S. G.

, & Aiken

L. S.

(2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

15.

Collins

C J.

, & Stevens

C K.

(2002). The relationship between early recruitment-related activities and the application decisions of new labor-market entrants: A brand equity approach to recruitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 1121–1133.

16.

Datta

, Ailawadi

K. L.

, & van Heerde

H. J.

(2017). How well does consumer-based brand equity align with sales-based brand equity and marketing-mix response? Journal of Marketing, 81, 1–20.

17.

de Menezes

(2013). Transfer news: Steven Gerrard says he turned down move to Bayern Munich to stay at Liverpool - and wants Luis Suarez to do the same. The Jndependent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/transfer-news-steven-gerrard-says-he-turned-down-move-to-bayern-munich-to-stay-at-liverpool-and-8744709.html

18.

Deloitte. (2017). Annual review of football finance 2017: Ahead of the curve. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-annual-review-of-football-finance-2017.pdf

19.

Dixon

M. J.

, & Coles

S. G.

(1997). Modelling association football scores and inefficiencies in the football betting market. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series C (Applied Statistics), 46, 265–280.

20.

Dobson

, & Goddard

(2001). The economics of football (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Edeling

Á.

, Hattula

, & Bornemann

(2017). Over, out, but present: Recalling former sponsorships. European Journal of Marketing, 51.

22.

Erdem

, & Swait

(2004). Brand credibility, brand consideration, and choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 191–198.

23.

Fader

P. S.

, & Hardie

B. G. S.

(2007). How to project customer retention. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 21, 76–90.

24.

Garen

(1984). The returns to schooling: A selectivity bias approach with a continuous choice variable. Econometrica, 52, 1199–1218.

25.

Gladden

J. M.

, & Funk

D. C

(2002). Developing an understanding of brand associations in team sport: Empirical evidence from consumers of professional sport. Journal of Sport Management, 16, 54–81.

26.

Gladden

J. M.

, & Milne

G. R.

(1999). Examining the importance of brand equity in professional sport. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 8, 21–29.

27.

Gladden

J. M.

, Milne

G. R.

, & Sutton

W. A.

(1998). A conceptual framework for assessing brand equity in Division I college athletics. Journal of Sport Management, 12, 1–19.

28.

Goddard

, & Asimakopoulos

(2004). Forecasting football results and the efficiency of fixed-odds betting. Journal of Forecasting, 23, 51–66.

29.

Hair

J. F.

Jr. , Black

W. C

, Babin

B. J.

, & Anderson

R. E.

(2010). Multivariate data analysis: A global perspective (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

30.

Judge

G. G.

, Hill

R. C

, Griffiths

, Lutkepohl

, & Tsoung-Chao

(1998). Introduction to the theory and practice of econometrics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

31.

Kahn

W. A.

(1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33, 692–724.

32.

Keller

K. L.

(1993). Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing, 57, 1–22.

33.

Kerr

A. K.

, & Gladden

J. M.

(2008). Extending the understanding of professional team brand equity to the global marketplace. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 3, 58–77.

34.

Kesenne

(2000). Revenue sharing and competitive balance in professional team sports. Journal of Sports Economics, 1, 56–65.

35.

Kilduff

G. J.

, Elfenbein

Ç. Á.

, & Staw

Â. Ì.

(2010). The psychology of rivalry: A relationally dependent analysis of competition. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 943–969.

36.

Kimpakorn

, & Tocquer

(2009). Employees’ commitment to brands in the service sector: Luxury hotel chains in Thailand. Journal of Brand Management, 16, 532–544.

37.

Kraus

S. J.

(1995). Attitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 58–75.

38.

Lee

J. W.

, Miloch

K. S.

, Kraft

, & Tatum

(2008). Building the brand: A case study of Troy University. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 17, 178–182.

39.

Locke

Å. Á.

, & Latham

G. P.

(1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance (1st ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

40.

Madrigal

, & James

(1999). Team quality and the home advantage. Journal of Sport Behavior, 22, 381–398.

41.

Mol

M. J.

, & Birkinshaw

(2009). The sources of management innovation: When firms introduce new management practices. Journal of Business Research, 62, 1269–1280.

42.

Mooi

Å. Á.

, & Ghosh

(2010). Contract specificity and its performance implications. Journal of Marketing, 74, 105–120.

43.

Petrin

Á.

, & Train

Ê.

(2010). A control function approach to endogeneity in consumer choice models. Journal of Marketing Research, 47, 3–13.

44.

Pinnuck

, & Potter

(2006). Impact of on-field football success on the off-field financial performance of AFL football clubs. Accounting & Finance, 46, 499–517

45.

Rivers

, & Vuong

Q. H.

(1988). Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models. Journal of Econometrics, 39, 347–366.

46.

Robinson

M. J.

, & Miller

J. J.

(2003). Assessing the impact of Bobby Knight on the brand equity of the Texas Tech basketball program. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 12, 56–59.

47.

Ross

S. D.

(2006). A conceptual framework for understanding spectator-based brand equity. Journal of Sport Management, 20, 22–38.

48.

Roy

D. P.

, & Graeff

T. R.

(2003). Consumer attitudes toward cause-related marketing activities in professional sports. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 12, 163–172.

49.

Shannon

J. R.

(1999). Sports marketing: An examination of academic marketing publication. Journal of Services Marketing, 13, 517–534.

50.

Shaw

M. E.

(1981). Group dynamics: The psychology of small group behavior (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

51.

Shuv-Ami

Á.

, Thrassou

Á.

, & Vrontis

(2015). Contemporary sports club branding: Empirical findings on basketball and value-based conceptual constructs. The Marketing Review, 15, 503–524.

52.

Smith

A. C. T.

, & Stewart

(2010). The special features of sport: A critical revisit. Sport Management Review, 13, 1–13.

53.

Tokuyama

, & Greenwell

T. C.

(2011). Examining similarities and differences in consumer motivation for playing and watching soccer. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 20, 148–156.

54.

Uhrich

, & Koenigstorfer

(2009). Effects of atmosphere at major sports events: A perspective from environmental psychology. International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, 10, 56–75.

55.

White

(1980). A heteroskedasticity-consitent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity Econometrica, 48, 817–838.

56.

Wright

P. M.

, Smart

D. L.

, & McMahan

G. C

(1995). Matches between human resources and strategy among NCAA basketball teams. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 1052–1074.

57.

Yang

, Shi

, & Goldfarb

(2009). Estimating the value of brand alliances in professional team sports. Marketing Science, 28, 1095–1111.