Toward Team or Player? How Trust, Vicarious Achievement Motive, and Identification Affect Fan Loyalty

Abstract

This study extends literature on the effects of fan identification on fan loyalty, and antecedents that trigger such effects. This study incorporates trust, a key relationship marketing construct, in the sport industry. The relationship between trust and two other critical antecedents of sport fan loyalty, identification and vicarious achievement motive, is examined from the perspectives of both fan-player and fan-team. The results show that antecedents from distinct perspectives influence loyalty differently. Team identification (fan-team level) is the major determinant of fans’ repatronage intention, with trust in the team as the key driver. However, player identification (fan-player level) has an indirect effect, which must go through team identification to repatronage intention. Therefore, sport organizations are recommended to invest a substantial part of their resources on activities that generate long-term effects, such as trust in the team and team identification, rather than on short-term strategies such as attracting star players.

Emotional Attachment, Performance, and Viability in Teams Collaborating with Embodied Physical Action (EPA) Robots

“…This is, in part, because the positive attributions associated with the team are not limited to other team members but can instead extend to objects that represent the team (Branscombe & Wann, 1991). This is because, in part, objects are often strong representations of the values, norms, and beliefs associated with teams (Wu et al, 2012). These objects are branded with logos, colors, or images that invoke strong emotional bonds derived from identification (Smith, Graetz, & Westerbeek, 2008).…”

A longitudinal study of team-fan role identity on self-reported attendance behavior and future intentions

“…For example, Trail et al (2005) found that role identity (TII) was correlated (r = .396) with conative loyalty (measured by four items: likelihood of attending future games, purchasing the team's merchandise, buying the team's clothing and supporting the team), whereas found that role identity (TII; β = .33) predicted the probability of purchase intention (3 items: attend another sporting event, buying additional products, and spending more than 50% of the fan's spectator sport budget on the team). Wu et al (2012) explained 25% of repatronage intentions (attending games, watching games on TV, and purchasing merchandise) and Shapiro et al (2013) found 19.4% shared variance in a single item of attendance intentions and role identity (TII). Based on these results, we propose the following hypothesis:…”

“…Within sport consumer behavior literature, the importance of role identity as a fan of a particular team (called team identification when using the TII historically) has been shown to be related to behavioral intentions relative to a team (conative loyalty), explaining anywhere from 10.9% of the variance to 25% of the variance (Wu et al, 2012;Yoshida et al, 2015). However, not all measures of conative loyalty were the same.…”

“…Typically research has either tried to predict attendance intentions (Bodet & Bernache-Assolant, 2011;Gray & WertGray, 2012;Harrolle, Trail, Rodríguez, & Jordan, 2010;Matsuoka, Chelladurai, & Harada, 2003;Shapiro, Ridinger, & Trail, 2013;Trail, Anderson, & Fink, 2005;Wang, Zhang, & Tsuji, 2011;Wu, Tsai, & Hung, 2012;Yoshida, Gordon, Nakazawa, & Biscaia, 2014;) or has inappropriately measured past attendance and attempted to 'predict' it with measures taken afterwards (Bee & Havitz, 2010;Heere et al, 2011;Kwon, Trail, & Anderson, 2005;Laverie & Arnett, 2000). In addition, there have been economic models that attempted to predict attendance with limited success as well (Baade & Tiehen, 1990;Greenstein & Marcum, 1981).…”

Factors Affecting Brand Loyalty in Football: An Application on “The Big Four” Football Clubs in Turkish Super League

“…In addition, Torlak et al (2014) investigated the relationship among the identification level of the supporters with the football clubs, quality perception toward the licenced products of the clubs and purchasing intentions, and determined that identification level was more effective on purchasing intention than it was on quality perception of the supporters. On the other hand, Wu et al (2012) seperated identification in two parts which were identification as a fan-team level and identification as a fan-player level and determined that team identification was the major determinant of fans' loyalty intentions, however, player identification had an indirect effect on fans' loyalty intentions. In addition, Stevens and Rosenberger (2012) determined that fan identification, following sport and involvement positively influenced fan loyalty.…”