Fan Identification, Brand Community Identification, and Oppositional Brand Loyalty towards Sponsors of a Rival Sports Team: The Mediating Role of Schadenfreude

Abstract

Empirical evidence confirms that brand loyalty is broadly understood in the context of positive side i.e. supportive loyalty compared to negative side i.e. oppositional loyalty. However, theoretically positive (supportive) loyalty cannot be explained exclusively without considering negative (oppositional) loyalty. This study, therefore, examines brand loyalty using a triadic approach combining both negative and positive loyalty in the cycle of love and hate relationship. Specifically, the study examined the influence of fan and brand community identification on oppositional brand loyalty towards sponsors of a rival team in sports industry. A survey cross-sectional research design was adopted, through collecting data using semi-structured questionnaire from 228 highly identified fans of two giant sports teams in Tanzania namely Simba Sports Club and Young Africans Sports Club. The collected data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), and findings revealed that fan and brand community identification have a strong positive significant influence on oppositional brand loyalty towards sponsors of a rival team when mediated with schadenfreude. Therefore, business firms should take precautions when embarking on sponsorship of highly competing sports teams. Finally, this study adopted a quantitative approach, hence further studies that adopt a qualitative approach is recommended to get a naturalistic picture of subject under the study. Additionally, a comparative study is recommended to compare level of resistance loyalty exhibited by fans of each team.

Lurk or De-Lurk?

“…This result is a reflection of the misconception that increasing fanaticism on social media will increase the degree of OBL, and so clubs must take into account to adopt good behavior towards the content posters created by the club in a way that limits the negative effects of the phenomenon of sport fanaticism. At the same time, this study is an extension of previous studies that investigated the role of fans' behavior in OBCs in general (e.g., Al-Thunayan, 2014;Ashour, 2020;Dalakas & Melancon, 2012;Hickman & Ward, 2007) and with OBL towards sponsors of a rival club in specific (e.g., Amani, 2019;Dessart et al, 2015;Kumar & Nayak, 2019;Olson, 2018;Popp et al, 2016;Ramírez et al, 2019;Xiabing et al, 2015).…”

“…Moreover, OBL is participant of the OBCs who refuse or resist suggestions for usage brands from competitor companies (Ewing et al, 2013). As a result, OBL is a psychological phenomenon in which a person expresses appreciative behavior toward his or her preferred brand while displaying hostile conduct toward competitors or rival brands (Amani, 2019). Participants who have OBL have a high level of commitment to their preferred brand, as well as a deliberate resistance and animosity towards rival brands (Kuo & Hou, 2017).…”

“…Although, many football clubs strive to achieve oppositional brand loyalty on the OBCs (Liao et al, 2020), this type of loyalty may lead to adverse consequences in the field of sport specifically, as a result of the appearance of some bad behavior from the fanatical fans (Amani, 2019;Popp et al, 2016). So, the present study relied also on the theory of reasoned action (TRA), which explains that user's behavior is governed by their intentions to do the activity, which are generated through the two items of their attitude and their subjective norms (Song et al, 2021), to investigate the moderating role of the sport fanaticism between brand community identification and oppositional brand loyalty.…”

Positive and Negative Behaviors of Oppositional Loyalty in Online Communities

“…Schadenfreude refers to the malicious pleasure when competing brands or customers of competing brands encounter misfortune [35]. Previous research showed that confrontational loyalty hurts competitive teams' sponsors, and schadenfreude has a moderating effect on confrontational loyalty, community identification, and fan identification [17].…”

“…Confrontational loyalty behaviors between competing brands are also widespread in other industries, including beverages [10], smartphones [11], [12], automobiles [13], [14], video cards, microprocessors [15], fashion, sports, tourism, media, entertainment [16], football clubs [17], and online games [18]. Notably, in the mobile internet environment, it is easy for individual confrontational behaviors to escalate to group antagonistic behaviors [19], [20], producing a more comprehensive range of influences.…”