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Fan Loyalty in the Five Major European Football Leagues

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Fan Loyalty in the Five Major European Football Leagues FAN LOYALTY IN THE FIVE MAJOR EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES By Artur Simonyan Hovakimyan A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements to complete Honors in the Department of Marketing of the Cameron School of Business. Approved By: Examining Committee: Dr. James Hunt Faculty Supervisor Dr. Carlos Rodriguez Dr. Brian Kinard Dr. Lisa Scribner Chair, Department of Marketing Dr. Ulku Clark Honors Council Representative Dr. Katherine Bruce Director of the Honors Scholars College University of North Carolina Wilmington Wilmington, North Carolina April 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ 1 LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF GRAPHS ....................................................................................................... 5 LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ 6 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 9 1.1 Big 5 Overview ...........................................................................................................9 1.2 English Premier League ............................................................................................ 12 1.3 German Bundesliga .................................................................................................. 14 1.4 Spanish La Liga ......................................................................................................... 15 1.5 Italian Serie A........................................................................................................... 16 1.6 French Ligue 1 .......................................................................................................... 17 1.7 Competitiveness in European Champions League ...................................................... 18 1.8 Top Players .............................................................................................................. 19 1.9 Top Transfers ........................................................................................................... 19 1.10 Season Tickets, Single Tickets and Attendance ........................................................ 21 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................28 2 2.1 What is a “Brand”? ................................................................................................... 28 2.2 World´s Most Valuable Football Teams ..................................................................... 29 2.3 Fan Loyalty .............................................................................................................. 31 2.4 Motives of Attendance ............................................................................................. 32 2.5 Types of Fans ........................................................................................................... 34 2.6 Fan Loyalty Development and Drivers ....................................................................... 35 2.7 Social Identity .......................................................................................................... 36 2.8 Fans Image: BIRGing, CORFing & Blasting .................................................................. 37 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH HYPOTHESES .......................................................................39 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................................41 CHAPTER 5: RESULTS...............................................................................................43 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................53 6.1 Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 53 6.2 Managerial Implications ........................................................................................... 54 6.3 Limitations ............................................................................................................... 56 6.4 Recommendations for Future Research .................................................................... 56 CHAPTER 7: REFERENCES.........................................................................................57 CHAPTER 8: APPENDIX ............................................................................................64 8.1 Fan Loyalty Survey ................................................................................................... 64 3 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Premier League Logo ...................................................................................... 13 Figure 2: Bundesliga Logo ............................................................................................. 14 Figure 3: La Liga Logo ................................................................................................... 15 Figure 4: Serie A Logo ................................................................................................... 16 Figure 5: Ligue 1 Logo ................................................................................................... 17 Figure 6: Top 15 Transfers ............................................................................................. 20 Figure 7: Single Tickets EPL Pricing ............................................................................. 22 Figure 8: Bundesliga Season Tickets Pricing ................................................................. 24 Figure 9: La Liga Season Tickets Pricing ...................................................................... 25 Figure 10: Big 5 Attendance and Capacity Utilization................................................... 27 Figure 11: Most Valuable Football Teams ..................................................................... 30 Figure 12: Motives of Sports Events Attendance ........................................................... 33 4 LIST OF GRAPHS Graph 1: Big 5 Total Revenues ...................................................................................... 10 Graph 2: Big 5 Revenues by League .............................................................................. 11 Graph 3: Revenues Broken Down .................................................................................. 11 Graph 4: Media Rights Values ....................................................................................... 12 Graph 5: Average Attendance Big 5............................................................................... 26 5 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Responses by Nationality ................................................................................. 42 Table 2: Responses by Gender ....................................................................................... 42 Table 3: Responses by Age ............................................................................................ 42 Table 4: Descriptives of Main Reasons to be a Fan ....................................................... 43 Table 5: ANOVA H2 ...................................................................................................... 44 Table 6: Descriptives for Price Sensitivity across Loyalty............................................. 44 Table 7: ANOVA H3 ...................................................................................................... 45 Table 8: Descriptives for Engagement across Loyalty ................................................... 45 Table 9: ANOVA H4 ...................................................................................................... 45 Table 10: Descriptives for Attendance across Loyalty ................................................... 46 Table 11: Correlation between Loyalty and Expenditure ............................................... 46 Table 12: ANOVA H6 .................................................................................................... 47 Table 13: Descriptives for Loyalty across Nationality ................................................... 47 Table 14: Teams supported............................................................................................. 48 Table 15: Fan since the beginning .................................................................................. 48 Table 16: Fan of another team ........................................................................................ 49 Table 17: Attendance Company ..................................................................................... 49 Table 18: No Attendance reasons ................................................................................... 49 Table 19: Re-Attendance Factors ................................................................................... 50 Table 20: ANOVA.......................................................................................................... 50 Table 21: Descriptives for Attendance across Gender ................................................... 50 Table 22: ANOVA.......................................................................................................... 51 Table 23: Descriptives for Engagement across
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