While athletes have been building and leveraging their brands for many years by introducing brand extensions, research on sport brand extensions has primarily focused on factors that influence the success of team-related extensions. However, as there is potential risk involved when introducing brand extensions, it is important for athletes to understand how consumers respond to extensions they may introduce. Through the use of self-administered web-based surveys this study provides the initial examination of this topic by exposing participants (n = 292) to hypothetical brand extensions and investigating factors that may influence perceived fit and attitudes toward athlete brand extensions. Partial least squares path modeling suggests that athlete prestige had the most significant effect on fit and attitudes for a brand extension that is considered to be a fit with an athlete’s image, while athlete attachment had the most influence on fit and attitudes for a brand extension with low perceived fit.

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While previous research focused on social media and student-athletes, there is a lack of knowledge about positive functions of social media use for student-athletes, especially personal branding purposes. Thus, this study aimed to explore how student-athletes perceive and use social media for personal branding purposes. A total of 11 student-athletes at a Division I university participated in semi-structured interviews. Considering the exploratory nature of the study, a qualitative inquiry and a phenomenology approach were employed to grasp an overall understanding of student-athletes’ personal branding via social media. The self-presentation theory was adopted to help understand student-athletes’ use of social media. Emerging themes included benefits and barriers of social media use, social media strategies, and concerns about negative consequences of social media. Findings from this study shed light on the importance of increasing awareness and knowledge of the concept of personal branding via social media for student-athletes. These findings also call for more effective social media training or education programs that can foster student-athletes’ positive attitude toward social media use for personal branding.

The study advances brand association research into participatory sports (i.e. fitness) by examining health club related dimensions and extending research into the United States (US). Data were collected from health club members (n=148) at a branded US fitness facility. Factor and regression analyses used specified brand association dimensions and revealed a predictive model of brand loyalty. Findings and discussions will assist fitness managers in brand-building, marketing strategies and member retention.

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