Articles in this issue:

  • Justin Graeber and Angeline Close Scheinbaum

    The aim is to advance the understanding of how brand-property congruence and articulation strategy influence the perception of jersey sponsorships and how consumer-level factors such as team identification affect sponsorship outcomes. Different types of fi t and sponsor categories were tested to determine the most effective type of fi t as determined by outcomes of attitude toward team and sponsor, sponsor patronage, and perceptions of team and sponsor social responsibility. With a pretest (n=154) and two experiments (n=169, n=172), results indicated sponsors with a functional-based fit...Read more

  • Christopher Schneiders and Claudio Rocha

    Drawing upon the technology acceptance model, the aim of this study was to describe the effects of technology innovations in Formula 1 (F1) on fans’ satisfaction and commitment to consumption of F1 as a TV product, controlling for identification with F1 and specific teams and drivers. We surveyed F1 fans (N = 449) contacted via web-based forums. Results of a structural equation modeling showed that positive perceptions of technology innovation lead to satisfaction with F1 as a TV product, which in turn leads to commitment to consumption. Highly identified fans are committed to consuming...Read more

  • Doosik Min

    Nonprofit sport clubs encounter various challenges, including limited resources and a competitive environment. It is therefore vital to implement strategic management in order to ensure that the services provided to members are of top quality. Th is study explores the importance of service quality in determining perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty, specifically for nonprofit sport clubs in Germany, collecting data from 24 sport clubs (N = 427). The findings of the study indicated that (1) service quality has a major impact on perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty, which...Read more

  • Nataliya Bredikhina
    Katherine Sveinson
    and Thilo Kunkel

    Times of crisis impact the careers and brand management of athletes. Th e COVID-19 pandemic serves as the research context as we explore how athletes react, cope with, and respond to external disturbances through modifications in their personal brand management. We employed a qualitative approach, drawing on semi-structured interviews with elite athletes (N=15). Th e themes were verified by reviewing participants’ Instagram posts. The findings show that the COVID-19 context has created unique challenges for athletes’ careers and personal branding, including emotional distress,...Read more

  • Bo Li
    Olan Scott
    Stirling Sharpe
    Sarah Stokowski
    and Qian Zhong

    Media coverage of the Winter Olympic Games provides an invaluable opportunity for athletes to promote themselves to a global audience that otherwise would not be reached through regular calendar events. An important element of athlete promotion occurs during press conferences when athletes speak to global media after winning a medal. The purpose of this study was to investigate how Olympic medalists presented themselves in front of the media aft er achieving Olympic success. A thematic analysis was conducted using press conference transcripts from 307 Olympic medalists during the 2018...Read more

  • Michael L. Naraine
    Jordan T. Bakhsh
    and Liz Wanless

    Social media has become an important frontier in the sport sponsorship paradigm (Dees, 2011), offering brands a powerful mechanism to stimulate consumer engagement (Vale & Fernandes, 2018). Despite this potential, the extent to which social media content, as part of a sport sponsorship’s leveraging activities, can yield consumer engagement behaviors is unknown. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of integrating sponsors into the social media posts of sport organizations on fan engagement. A total of 13,542 Instagram posts from four professional sports teams were...Read more