HOW CONSUMER ATTITUDES SHAPE BRAND EQUITY?: A COMPARISON OF BAYERN MUNICH AND BARCELONA FOOTBALL CLUBS' FANS

Abstract

In recent years, developments in the sports industry have made it possible for professional football clubs to be accepted as brands and to be managed from this perspective. The main purpose underlying the brand management efforts of club managers is to create “brand equity”. The creation of brand equity in professional football clubs and the importance of fan attitude in creating brand equity attracts great attention from both academics and practitioners in many countries. In the research, some evaluations are provided in terms of fan attitudes and brand equity to improve inadequate strategies such as the increase in competition in the field of sports, the weak connections between the fan and the club, the emergence of club debts, and the inadequate brand strategies. In this respect, an investigation of the effect of fan attitude on brand equity in terms of professional football clubs constitutes the basis of the research. In the research, a comparison was formulated based on F.C. Bayern Munich and F.C. Barcelona. The findings state that consumer attitude had a positive effect on the brand equity of the club. It is an important effect for the literature to reveal how consumer attitudes affect brand equity in such a big market rather than general consumer goods.

Keywords

• Consumer attitude
• Sports consumers
• Brand equity

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