ATHLETES BEHAVING BADLY TEAM IDENTIFICATION AND THE OFF-FIELD BEHAVIOUR OF ATHLETES: EFFECT ON CONSUMER INTENTION IN TRADITIONAL AND NON-TRADITIONAL SPORTING CONTEXTS Benjamin Tarr Bachelor of Business Management Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations QUT Business School Queensland University of Technology 2020 Supervisory Team: Professor Larry Neale (Principal Supervisor) Associate Investigator and Principal Supervisor Director of Studies at the QUT Business School
[email protected] Dr. Louise Kelly (Supervisor) Associate Investigator and Supervisor Senior Lecturer at QUT
[email protected] Keywords Consumer Evaluations, Established Professional Sport, New Teams and Leagues, Sport Fan Behaviour, New Sporting Teams, Non-traditional Professional Sport, Off- Field Athlete Behaviour, Team Identification, Professional Sport Across Contexts, Athletes Behaving Badly Team Identification and the Off-field Behaviour of Athletes: Effect on Consumer Intention in Traditional and Non-traditional Sporting Contexts i Abstract Off-field behaviour by athletes has tended to attract significant attention from the press, fans, marketers and researchers. To date, academic research has primarily been confined to traditional sports and limited to off-field occurrences. This study questions whether fans react differently to off-field athlete behaviour based on their support for traditional or non-traditional sporting teams. Established professional leagues and teams are referred to as ‘traditional’, verses newer leagues and teams, often within regions where the sport does not have a traditional footprint, being referred to as ‘non- traditional’. The research extends team identification and social identity theory literature around how athlete behaviour interacts with team identification and consumer intentions on a comparative basis, in traditional and non-traditional sport settings.