Brand community integration in a niche sport: a league-wide examination of online and offline involvement in minor league soccer in North America

Brand community integration, participation and commitment: A comparison between consumer-run and company-managed communities

“…Brands that can count on communities where members have strong feelings of integration enjoy many benefits, such as higher customer satisfaction (McAlexander et al, 2002;Judson, Devasagayam, & Buff, 2014;Clark, Black, & Judson, 2017), enhanced brand (Stokburger-Sauer, 2010;Millán & Díaz, 2014) and organizational identification (Rosenbaum & Martin, 2012), greater loyalty (McAlexander et al, 2002;Madupu & Cooley, 2010;Millán & Díaz, 2014;Martin et al, 2015;Kim & Lee, 2019), higher brand equity (Chou, 2014), enhanced purchase intention (McAlexander et al, 2002;Rosenbaum & Martin, 2012;Warren & Brownlee, 2013;Kim & Lee, 2019) and higher consumers' willingness to brand patronage (Rosenbaum & Martin, 2012).…”

“…The motives that prompt individuals to participate, brand community participation itself, and individuals' willingness to sustain a brand community, are also under-investigated. Specifically, although scholars have shown that brand communities which combine an online with an offline presence that permit members to engage in both virtual and face-to-face relationships (Black & Veloutsou, 2017;Lin, Wang, Chang, & Lina, 2018) are more likely to enhance members' feelings of integration in the brand community (Warren & Brownlee, 2013), no research has to date examined whether the determinants and outcomes of brand community participation do vary depending on who initiates and manages the community. This is of importance for managers, who see all brand communities, and particularly the brand communities that they initiate and manage, as a powerful brand engagement tool.…”

The Progressive Involvement of Youth in Niche Sport: The Perspective of Youth Participants and Their Parents

“…However, participation in niche sport is often expensive compared to mainstream sport, as many niche sports require specialized equipment to participate (e.g., cycling, triathlon, rowing, equestrian). Although recent research has been published on niche sport (e.g., Cohen, Brown, & Peachey, 2012;Warren & Brownlee, 2013), this work has focused on exploring the unique aspects of marketing and sponsorship in this context, not youth sport progression. However, alternate sporting clubs, such as those in which children can try a number of conventional and niche sports in one place provide unique factors that influence take up and maintenance of participation (Allender, Cowburn, & Foster, 2006).…”