139-154, doi: 10.1177/0193723514541283. In elite sports, commercialization implies a focus on market-oriented ideals, business-like management structures and sponsorship activities (Dubal, 2010). 1, pp. Our review illustrates that the effects on fans of elite sport commercialization have mainly been studied in men's elite football, especially in English top-division contexts (14 of 42 papers are related to the English Premier League). Commercialization of sports results in an industry that provides revenue for national and local economics through event revenue, taxes, employment and sponsorship. Fritz etal., 2017). 205-226, doi: 10.1123/jsm.22.2.205. At this stage, at least three important observations about the literature can be drawn: The literature has often highlighted that commercialization has negative consequences for fans. 39 No. Commercialisation. While fans and other major stakeholders traditionally have been local, teams and athletes increasingly seek to internationalize their fan bases to expand commercially (e.g. Sponsorship in sport. From the time when education started its first phase of commercialisation, the responsibilities of the teacher too, have been compromised. The findings are important for both scholars and practitioners as commercialization has been heavily debated among fans, media, and clubs, and as it is only in recent decades that scholarly attention has focused upon this topic. This is because these tourist fans have not been loyal to the teams for long. 2, pp. Rohde, M. and Breuer, C. (2017), The market for football club investors: a review of theory and empirical evidence from professional European football, European Sport Management Quarterly, Vol. * Dos Santos, M.A., Moreno, F.C., Guardia, F.R. However, commercialization may also encounter severe resistance in elite sports service ecosystems. 14 No. 279-297, doi: 10.1177/1469540517747094. (2011), Divided loyalty? While different methodological perspectives are generally positive, the results show that conceptual studies, and to a certain extent qualitative studies, seem to be more focused on the negative effects on fans (Table8). 4, pp. Thus, studying other contexts with different background and traditions of sport is important to gain an holistic understanding of commercialization. Dubal, 2010). 159-169, doi: 10.1108/02651339710170230. Thus, it is important to include a variety of databases to obtain a valid foundation for analysis (Tranfield etal., 2003). 3) Some sponsorship (for example, alcohol, fast food) gives a bad image of sport 4) Generous sponsorship is only available to the elite few. * Chanavat, N. and Bodet, G. (2014), Experiential marketing in sport spectatorship services: a customer perspective, European Sport Management Quarterly, Vol. * Dixon, K. (2014), Football fandom and Disneyisation in late-modern life, Leisure Studies, Vol. However, as research on commercialization is remarkably scarce outside Europe, for instance in North America and, or Asia, it indicates that commercialization may not cause the same types of tensions and resistance in these contexts as in Europe. * Merkel, U. Those reactions span from the formation of a negative attitude towards the involved businesses or clubs to a complete boycott of the sport itself (e.g., Crompton 2014; Howard 1999), which ultimately widens the gap between the sports fans on the one side and . Here, commercialization is defined as the prioritization of financial revenues among organizations and actors, such as teams, athletes and or sponsors in elite sports service ecosystems (e.g. Considering the multitude of sports, types of fans and geographical contexts, future studies are likely to find more examples of how commercialization positively influences dimensions of being a fan by using a larger variety of theories and concepts. In some sports, such as franchise-driven American elite sports leagues, professional boxing, professional cycling and Formula One, commercial ideals and structures have been present for a long time. 2023 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media, All Rights Reserved. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. - advertising. 1, pp. All the above-mentioned concepts refer to how financial ideals become more important to organizations and actors intertwined in the service ecosystems of elite sports. 402-419, doi: 10.1108/03090569910253251. 227-242, doi: 10.1080/16184742.2012.679949. 28, pp. 341-358. Rahman, M. and Lockwood, S. (2011), How to use your Olympian: the paradox of athletic authenticity and commercialization in the contemporary Olympic games, Sociology, Vol. This will bring in more fans, improve the profitability of local sports clubs, which in turn helps the local economy and revives community spirit when the team is performing well. In addition, surveys are the most used method for collecting data (11 articles). (2011), Foreign fandom and the Liverpool FC: a cyber-mediated romance, Soccer and Society, Vol. the heritage of the sport or the team, fan emotions can be intensified. Commercialisation. These papers often use critical approaches to commercialization, regularly using concepts such as commodification (e.g. 13 No. 3, pp. fans of teams in WNBA and, or tennis players in WTA respond to increasing commercialization. However, there is a general shortage of quantitative studies to test the specified relationships on larger samples. One main site that elicits fan emotions is the arena. 33 No. Granados etal., 2011). Dixon, 2014; Kennedy, 2012). In addition, new sponsors may be perceived as a threat to existing fan identities, while sponsors that have remained with the team for a long time may be seen as an important part of fans' identity. Sporting events, teams and even individual players wear logos on uniforms and appear in television advertising. Study Paper 2 - Media, Sponsorship and commercialisation flashcards from Josie Phillips's QE class online, or in Brainscape's iPhone or Android app. 1, pp. * Torchia, D. (2016), An alternative football club in a liquid modernity: FC United of Manchester, Culture and Organization, Vol. (1987), A child's Christmas in America: Santa Claus as deity, consumption as religion, The Journal of American Culture, Vol. 229-252, doi: 10.1080/01639620590905618. UEFA Champions League, The Olympics). 2, pp. and Branscombe, N.R. In addition, modernization and globalization are often related to commercialization, as they highlight that a commercial logic motivates organizations and other actors to modernize and globalize to gain financial revenues (Backman and Carlsson, 2020). How Do You Use Toothpaste to Remove Scratches How Much Do Music Video Directors Get Paid? * Hognestad, H.K. American Football etc.). A categorization of the reviewed articles is important to provide an overview of the topic (Tranfield etal., 2003). Wakefield, L.T. 199-217, doi: 10.1108/SBM-06-2013-0013. (2012), New league, new market and new sponsorship: an exploratory study of attitudes towards shirt sponsorship in Major League Soccer, Soccer and Society, Vol. With increased exposure of the game comes increased participation. 23 No. Hungenberg, E., Slavich, M., Bailey, A. and Sawyer, T. (2020), Examining minor league baseball spectator nostalgia: a neuroscience perspective, Sport Management Review, Vol. They provide needed publicity and create and maintain spectator interest among large numbers of people. Rimi Bowl, Pepsi Super Bowl, Ligue 1Uber Eats). 89-96, doi: 10.1007/s12599-014-0315-7. Therefore, ideals related to this heritage may be prone to collide with intensified commercialization (Numerato and Giulianotti, 2018). 29 No. 13 No. 407-418, doi: 10.1016/j.smr.2018.06.001. 6 No. Therefore, in line with Garca and Welford (2015), future research must delve into other types of elite sports and other geographical settings to understand how commercialization affects fans to elite sports. 3, pp. Uhrich and Benkenstein (2012) surveyed German football fans and show how fans and their behaviours remain fundamental for evoking fan emotions. Yet, some themes have received considerably more attention than others. 8 No. 22 No. Their money, time and passion are the cornerstones for this intensified commercialization. (2009), The order of logics in Swedish sportfeeding the hungry beast of result orientation and commercialization, European Journal for Sport and Society, Vol. Thus, is it fair to conclude that fans respond to and are affected negatively by an increasing commercialization of elite sports? Sports teams are businesses like any other and they need to make money to survive. Here, commercialization threatens fans' existing involvement with the sport entity (e.g. 363-376, doi: 10.1016/j.smr.2017.08.007. Rose, M., Rose, G.M., Merchant, A. and Orth, U.R. We then categorized the papers based on empirical contexts: the type of sport studied, the geographical focus, and the gender balance (Table 3). The structured review shows that the impacts of commercialization on fans relate to four different themes. 2, pp. Commercialization contributes to tensions between the local and the global, for instance, between fans and local teams, and fans and foreign teams living in the same area (Evans and Norcliffe, 2016). An analysis of fantasy football involvement and fan loyalty to individual national football league (NFL) teams, Journal of Sport Management, Vol. For instance, 16 articles are related to impacts on Fan Behaviours, while only 4 articles deal with impacts on Fan Emotions. The planning phase focuses on assessing the relevance and limits of the specified topic. 3293-3310, doi: 10.1177/0042098011422395. Gordon, K.O. and Backhaus, C. (2013), Fans' resistance to naming right sponsorships: why stadium names remain the same for fans, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. Studying Spanish and German football fans, Behrens and Uhrich (2019) observed that fans may be sceptical of newcomers. 443-460, doi: 10.1123/JSM.2013-0327. 465-486, doi: 10.1177/101269000035004002. (2003) comprising three main stages: planning, conducting, and reporting. 1, pp. 1-21, doi: 10.1080/02614367.2012.667819. The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of commercialization and how the different aspects of commercialization generate varying results (see Table7). While more research is needed on fans to other team sports, focusing on more individualized elite sports, such as motor sports, tennis, golf and athletics, can also make substantial contributions to the literature, as they represent sports with other types of fan communities and traditions. Lee, S., Kim, Y. and Heere, B. 43 No. 217-239, doi: 10.1080/14775085.2013.846228. * Andon, S.P. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. 736-757, doi: 10.1002/mar. Table6 highlights aspects of commercialization found in the review, as well as the main conclusions reached in the studies on how fans respond to commercialization. This review set out to investigate how research has studied how fans are affected by intensified commercialization. Ticket prices, refreshments and team shirt prices have all gone up at the same time more and more advertising space is sold around the stadium and television rights are sold for almost every game. . * Numerato, D. and Giulianotti, R. (2018), Citizen, consumer, citimer: the interplay of market and political identities within contemporary football fan cultures, Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. There is an inclination towards critical perspectives and critical theorization (10 papers) focusing on commercialization and its negative impacts on fans. Commercialisation is about media exposure for the sport. He has also co-edited books on events for Routledge and Edward Elgar. 55-66, doi: 10.1108/13555851011013155. 606-621, doi: 10.1123/jsm.25.6.606. 33 No. 22-34, doi: 10.1080/14610980008721860. Instead, the reviewed papers show the many different aspects of commercialization, such as sponsorship, business-like management, and modernization of stadiums. In European contexts and in a competition like the Olympics, elite sports often have close associations to ideals of amateurship and local connectedness. and Shapiro, S.L. 25, pp. 34 Nos 17-18, pp. 25-49, doi: 10.1080/16184742.2013.865248. For this review, commercialization, fans, and elite sports are the main concepts. These types of brand extensions are discussed as sports organizations' activities going beyond the core product of the team to generate more revenues, for example, marketing branded merchandise to extend the fan experience (Abosag etal., 2012). (2006), Sports versus all comers: comparing TV sports fans with fans of other programming genres, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Vol. 14 No. 17 No. and Shani, D. (1997), Attitudinal constructs towards sponsorship: scale development using three global sporting events, International Marketing Review, Vol. Social media is an increasingly important platform for consumers and for brand-consumer interactions (Stieglitz etal., 2014), as well as for fan-to-fan and fan-to-team interactions (Wakefield and Bennett, 2018). 23, pp. Table2 highlights the methods used in the research to date. 3, pp. Stewart, B., Smith, A. and Nicholson, M. (2003), Sport consumer typologies: a critical review, Sport Marketing Quarterly, Vol. 17 No. One of the spirits of sport is to develop healthy life style. * Delia, E.B. Numerato and Giulianotti, 2018). Globalization not only impacts the way in which sports are conducted and organised but also how they are perceived and what they mean in today's world . 124, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.03.040. The six former databases contain a wide scope of articles, and the two latter databases specialize in elite sports and leisure research. Several examples highlight that many fans are sceptical of the increasing commercialization of the elite sports service ecosystem (Numerato and Giulianotti, 2018; Woisetschlger etal., 2013). * Kennedy, D. (2012), Football stadium relocation and the commodification of football: the case of Everton supporters and their adoption of the language of commerce, Soccer and Society, Vol. We use the term football for European style football (soccer). 87-100, doi: 10.1111/j.1542-734x.1987.1001_87.x. 18 No. We identified four outcome variables in our review: Fan Identity, Fan Attitudes, Fan Emotions and Fan Behaviours. 5) Performers, teams and events can be manipulated or exploited to suit the sponsor. Sposnorship. 21 No. (2017), Marketization impact on the relationships between supporters and football clubs, International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol. Bauer, H.H., Stokburger-sauer, N.E. Ritzer and Stillman (2001) study the modernization of baseball stadiums and how this affects fan emotions. 33, pp. 121-134, doi: 10.1080/16138171.2009.11687833. According to commercial ideals, having a modern stadium is deemed fundamental. 3, pp. 1, pp. This rise in commercialisation has almost become part of the modern game, but it is important to remember it has positive and negative effects on the sport, the players and the fans. 2, pp. They found that if fans identify strongly with a team, it reduces the likelihood that fans switch to a competitive brand (Parganas etal., 2017). psychological and behavioural loyalty (Bauer etal., 2008). He specializes in consumer behaviour, with a wide empirical focus in areas such as sports, financial services and consumer privacy. As they did not focus on how the process of commercialization affects fans, they were excluded. Having split loyalties, Hognestad (2012) argues that Norwegian fans can have favourite clubs both locally and in other leagues (so-called poly-supporter). While local culture, norms, and history may still play a role, Petersen-Wagner (2017) argues that commercialization drives an individualization of fans. Thanks! Para enviarnos tus inquietudes, ideas o simplemente saber ms acerca de Cuida Tu Dinero, escrbenos. There are many forms of media to show sports such as social media, radio, TV and newspapers. 37 No. and Casper, J.M. 5, pp. NHL Winter Classic). However, as Snyder (2019) suggests, it is important to consider excluding articles that, based on a detailed evaluation, do not meet the scope of the review to make the review more trustworthy. 18 No. All fans want to see their team succeed and are not fussy about the sponsor's logo on the team shirt or billboards around the ground. 1-20, doi: 10.1080/16184742.2019.1643384. 2, doi: 10.1108/SBM-05-2014-0025. 167-182, doi: 10.1080/14660970.2013.776466. Gantz, W., Wang, Z., Paul, B. and Potter, R.F. Apart from commercialization of elite sports, studies have as well examined its impacts on tourism (Swanson and Timothy, 2012), music (Moore, 2005) and to cultural customs (Belk, 1987). Fahln, J. and Stenling, C. (2016), Sport policy in Sweden, International Journal of Sport Policy, Vol. 9 No. It is exemplified in this review process by the strict criteria for including papers that explicitly addressed the impacts of commercialization on fans. In total, 134 articles were retrieved. Quantitative papers, on the other hand, often find both positive and negative responses among fans. 7, pp. Studies on fan identity, attitudes and emotions portray more varying effects. Liang, Y. Subcultural capital and the commercialization of a music scene, Examination of women's sports fans' attitudes and consumption intentions, Citizen, consumer, citimer: the interplay of market and political identities within contemporary football fan cultures, A model for the generation of public sphere-like activity in sport-themed Twitter hashtags, Linking sport team sponsorship to perceived switching cost and switching intentions, The football supporter in a cosmopolitan epoch, Your Neighbors Walk Alone (YNWA): urban regeneration and the predicament of being local fans in the commercialized English football league, Deep fan: mythic identification, technology, and advertising in spectator sports, Support your local team: resistance, subculture, and the desire for distinction, The postmodern ballpark as a leisure setting: enchantment and simulated de-McDonaldization, International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, Literature review as a research methodology: an overview and guidelines, The order of logics in Swedish sportfeeding the hungry beast of result orientation and commercialization, Sport consumer typologies: a critical review, Business and Information Systems Engineering, Globalization, commercialization and individualization: conflicts and changes in elite athletics, Souvenirs: icons of meaning, commercialization and commoditization, The ball may be round but football is becoming increasingly Arabic: oil money and the rise of the new football order, How value is disrupted in football fandom, and how fans respond, An alternative football club in a liquid modernity: FC United of Manchester, Football and community empowerment: how FC Sankt Pauli fans organize to influence, Towards a methodology for developing evidence-informed management knowledge by means of systematic review, Exploring customer-to-customer value co-creation platforms and practices in team sports, Physical and social atmospheric effects in hedonic service consumption: customers' roles at sporting events, The determinants of stadium attendance in elite womens football: evidence from the UEFA Womens Champions League, Sports fan experience: electronic word-of-mouth in ephemeral social media, Handbook of research on the impact of fandom in society and consumerism, in, Diehard and fairweather fans: effects of identification on BIRGing and CORFing tendencies, Fans' resistance to naming right sponsorships: why stadium names remain the same for fans, Conceptualization and measurement of fan engagement: empirical evidence from a professional sport context, The effects of attitudes toward commercialization on College students purchasing intentions of sponsors products, The uniqueness of sport: testing against marketing's empirical laws, Building global football brand equity: lessons from the Chinese market, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, If we build it, will they come? (2016), If we build it, will they come? First, it will assess the view that modern sport was a lagged by-product of the . Kerr and Emery, 2011; Richardson and Turley, 2006), Commercialization elevates the importance of fan attitudes towards sponsors (Lee etal., 1997; Parganas etal., 2017), Commercialization of teams, leagues and overarching structures impacts fan attitudes towards sport entities as well as other fans (Rouvrais-Charron and Kim, 2009; Behrens and Uhrich, 2019; Chanavat and Bodet, 2014; Jensen etal., 2012), Commercialization impact emotional arousal and emotional attachment among fans (e.g. Again, commercialization is neither good nor bad it simply is what it is. References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the review. Noticeable reactions by fans in response to increased commercialization may be protests against their clubs (Merkel, 2012), as shown with the European Super League (Panja and Smith, 2021), and some fans may even abandon their team and, or sport (Giulianotti, 2002). franchise teams) or to make the team a marketing platform, Global sport events, such as The Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, becoming Mega-Sport-Events (MSEs). For instance, in a study on former fans of NHL teams, commercialization is brought up as a reason for the de-escalation of fandom (Hyatt and Foster, 2015). 1, pp. Regarding the theoretical frameworks applied, many papers did not use one overarching theoretical framework. * Nash, R. (2000), Contestation in modern English football, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 22 No. This procedure yielded 84 articles whose abstracts matched the scope of the review. A detailed list of areas, processes and activities that exemplifies the intensified commercialization of elite sports, Summary of methodological foundation and methods used in the literature, Note(s): 2 papers combine geographical contexts, The analytical themes and content in the literature, Commercialization and, e.g. 1487-1510, doi: 10.1108/EJM-03-2012-0140. In some contexts, fans may also perceive their sport, team, or athlete to be taken over by commercial ideals, which shifts the roles of fans to more passive consumers (e.g. As indicated, the service ecosystems of elite sports are increasingly influenced by commercialization (Laurell and Soderman, 2018).
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