Fan loyalty is the loyalty felt and expressed by a fan towards the object of his/her fanaticism. Allegiances can be strong or weak. The loyalties of sports fans have been studied by psychologists, who have determined several factors that create such loyalties. Fan loyalty can be threatened by team actions.

Underpinning psychology

Fan loyalty, particularly with respect to team sports, is different from brand loyalty, in as much as if a consumer bought a product that was of lower quality than expected, he or she will usually abandon allegiance to the brand. However, fan loyalty continues even if the team that the fan supports continues to perform poorly year after year. Conrad uses the Chicago Cubs as an example of a team with a loyal fan following, where fans spends their money in support of a poorly performing team that (as of 2008) had not won a pennant since 1945 or a World Series since 1908. If you were born in Connecticut in the late 1970's and somehow decided to become a Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Red Wings fan, you're a bandwagon fan! (Dennis McInnis) ^[1]

Several psychologists have studied fan loyalty, and what causes a person to be a loyal fan, that sticks with a team through adversity, rather than a fairweather fan, that switches support to whatever teams happen to be successful at the time. These include Dan Wann, a psychologist at Murray State University, psychologist Robert Passikoff, and B. King.^[1][2]

They attribute it to the following factors:^[1][2]

entertainment value

The entertainment value that a fan derives from spectating motivates him/her to remain a loyal fan. Entertainment value of team sports is also valuable to communities in general.

authenticity

This is described by Passikoff as "the acceptance of the game as real and meaningful".

fan bonding

Fan bonding is where a fan bonds with the players, identifying with them as individuals, and bonds with the team.

team history and tradition

Shank gives the Cincinnati Reds, all-professional baseball's oldest team, as an example of a team where a long team history and tradition is a motivator for fans in the Cincinnati area.

group affiliation

Fans receive personal validation of their support for a team from being surrounded by a group of fans who also support the same team.

Measurements and indices of fan loyalty

A Fan Loyalty Index was compiled from a survey of Major League Baseball fans in April 1997, and printed in the Forecast newsletter. Fans were asked to rate their hometown teams on each of four scales. The index ranged from the Chicago White Sox at the top, with a loyalty index of 132, to the California Angels at the bottom with a loyalty index of 73. The index was scaled such that the mean loyalty index was 100, as scored by both the Colorado Rockies and the Pittsburgh Pirates.^[2]

If you were born in Connecticut in the late 1970's and somehow decided to become a Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Red Wings fan, you're a bandwagon fan!

Passikoff studied the loyalties of U.S. sports fans towards all Major League sports in the summer of 2000, finding that loyalty to Major League Baseball scored the highest, followed by the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League.^[2]

Threats to loyalty

Shank observes that fan loyalty in the U.S. is perhaps higher towards sports teams than any other form of consumer loyalty to goods and services. However, loyalty can be threatened. Fan loyalty towards professional level sports is beginning to erode in the U.S. as a consequence of continual threats to uproot a franchise and to move it to a new town. Shank considers that this is perhaps the reason behind the increased popularity of amateur athletics. School and college teams do not threaten to move away from the fans in order to obtain a better deal on their sports stadium. Athletes in school and college athletics are not traded to and from other teams and do not move around in search of better contracts (although they do, of course, sometimes leave their schools and colleges early for professional contracts).^[2]

Some professional sports teams have taken measures to combat this erosion. The Nashville Predators employ customer relationship management techniques to collect information about the demographics and psychographics of their fans. Their loyalty programme involves a loyalty card that is swiped through a card reader in kiosks at the entrances to team events. The team can gather data on the fans, and the fans are rewarded by collecting points that are redeemable against tickets, merchandise, and concessions. The vice president of ticket sales for the Predators, Scott Loft, is quoted by Shanks as observing that "90 percent of sports teams either don't care or don't bother to find out any information about their fan base", however.^[2]

References

1. ↑ ^{a b c}
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f}

Further reading

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