The Determinants of the Sports Team Sponsor's Brand Equity

Abstract

This research attempts to investigate the determinants of a sports team sponsor's brand equity and whether the proposed structural relationships vary across countries. Field data are collected from sports team fans in two Asian economies/countries, i.e. Taiwan and Indonesia. According to the findings, in general, team identification and perceived congruence between the sponsor and the sponsored sports team affect the sponsor's credibility, which in turn has an impact on the sponsor's brand equity. ‘Country’ moderates the above structural relationships. However, the effects of team identification and perceived congruence on the sponsor's credibility do not receive supportive evidence in Taiwan and Indonesia respectively.

The effect of simultaneous sponsorship of rival football teams

“…Because of the pre-tests we decided to change the word Fã (Fan) for Torcedor (Supporter), which is more popularly used in Brazil to refer to the relationship between a team and its fans. The sponsor's brand equity was operationalized using Yoo and Donthu's (2001) Overall Brand Equity scale, which has been widely used to measure firm brand equity around the world (Wang et al, 2011), and has already been translated to Portuguese and used in Brazil (Costa & Almeida, 2012). Finally, the experience with the sponsor was operationalized as a categorical variable: respondents were asked if they were, at the time of the research, or had been, clients of each of the sponsoring companies.…”

“…There is evidence in the literature that fans with high identification levels tend to show more positive reactions to sponsorship than fans that are less identified (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003;Sutton et al, 1997). The results of this high level of identification include higher rates of brand recognition and satisfaction with the sponsor, high degree of support for the sponsoring firm (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003), more frequent attendance to games (Fischer & Wakefield, 1998), greater likelihood of buying a sponsor's products (Madrigal, 1995) and increase in the sponsoring firm's brand equity (Wang et al, 2011). This suggests that team identification contributes to differentiating the sponsoring firm's brand, thus increasing its brand equity, leading to the formulation of the first research hypothesis:…”

“…The perception of fit between the sponsor and the sponsored entity, whether a sports event or team, can positively influence consumers' reactions and attitudes towards the sponsor (Roy & Cornwell, 2003), the sponsor's brand image (Koo et al, 2006), it's level of brand recognition (Koo et al, 2006), brand recall (Johar & Pham, 1999), brand attractiveness (Woisetschläger et al, 2010) and the firm's brand equity (Wang et al, 2011).…”

“…There is substantial evidence in the literature that fans with high levels of identification tend to show more positive reactions regarding the sponsors (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003;Sutton et al, 1997;Wang et al, 2011). The resultants of team identification include brand recognition, satisfaction with the sponsors, support for the sponsors (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003), more frequent watching of game broadcasts, greater volume of purchases of team-related products (Carlson, Donavan, & Cumiskey, 2009) and a greater chance of purchasing the sponsor's products (Madrigal, 1995).…”

“…More specifically, studies have shown that high level of team identification increase the sponsoring firm's brand equity (Wang, Cheng, Purwanto, & Erimurti, 2011) and positively modify fans perceptions regarding event-sponsor fit (Gwinner & Bennett, 2008). In addition, the perception of fit between the sponsor and the sponsored entity positively influences the sponsor's brand equity (Wang et al, 2011).…”