It presents a research agenda for future research and emphasizes a need to integrate the interests of several stakeholders when managing the impacts of elite sport commercialization. (2003)). PDF Title: Commercialization of sport Tuesday, 21 April 2020 Fans are defined as individuals with a psychological connection and specific interest in one or several sports, teams, and/or athletes (Funk and James, 2001). Wann, D.L. (2011), Divided loyalty? 4, pp. As Turk points out: Unlike a retail clerk, the teacher's role is not to sell a product or please customers. 227-242, doi: 10.1080/16184742.2012.679949. 465-486, doi: 10.1177/101269000035004002. 14 No. 22 No. 3, pp. Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates, Answers to the most commonly asked questions here, 2022, Erik Winell, John Armbrecht, Erik Lundberg and Jonas Nilsson, References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the review, Examining the relationship between brand emotion and brand extension among supporters of professional football clubs, Spectacularized sport: understanding the invention of a nostalgic, commodified sporting event, International Journal of Sport Communication, Jokerits move to KHL: an odd momentum in the commercialization of Nordic elite ice hockey, Brand image and fan loyalty in professional team sport, Club members in German professional football and their attitude towards the 50+1 RuleA stakeholder-oriented analysis, Uniting a sport teams' global fan community: prototypical behavior of satellite fans enhances local fans' attitudes and perceptions of groupness, A child's Christmas in America: Santa Claus as deity, consumption as religion, The effects of emotions on football spectators' satisfaction and behavioural intentions, Football's emerging market trade network: ego network approach to world systems theory, Experiential marketing in sport spectatorship services: a customer perspective, The Politics and Culture of FC St. Pauli: from leftism, through anti-establishment, to commercialization, A digital ethnography of fan reaction to sponsorship termination, Football fandom and Disneyisation in late-modern life, Influence of the virtual brand community in sports sponsorship, The neoliberalization of football: rethinking neoliberalism through the commercialization of the beautiful game, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Local tradition versus globalisation: resistance to the McDonaldisation and Disneyisation of professional football in England, Divided loyalty? This yielded four major themes: (1) Fan Identity, (2) Fan Attitudes, (3) Fan Emotions, and (4) Fan Behaviours. Subcultural capital and the commercialization of a music scene, Deviant Behavior, Vol. Numerato and Giulianotti, 2018). Koenigstorfer, J., Groeppel-Klein, A. and Kunkel, T. (2010), The attractiveness of national and international football leagues: perspectives of fans of star clubs and underdogs, European Sport Management Quarterly, Vol. Chanavat and Bodet (2014) argue that overcommercialization, such as clubs having an overly strong emphasis on (inappropriate) sponsorship activities, leads to negative fan attitudes towards elite sport actors (Chanavat and Bodet, 2014). It is also important to note that fans are not a homogenous group (Wang etal., 2020). 461-469, doi: 10.1002/mar. 5) Performers, teams and events can be manipulated or exploited to suit the sponsor. 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. 45 No. * Uhrich, S. and Benkenstein, M. (2012), Physical and social atmospheric effects in hedonic service consumption: customers' roles at sporting events, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 9 No. and Schreyer, D. (2016), The future of professional football: a Delphi-based perspective of German experts on probable versus surprising scenarios, Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 18 No. 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. Sometimes, commercial revenues are, for example, one reason why teams or athletes improve their possibilities of winning (Abosag etal., 2012). Participants in the study give word to the notion that overcommercialization can lead to disenchantment and thus erode fan loyalty (Hyatt and Foster, 2015). The study indicates that most fans do not want this privatization development for two reasons: to prevent commercial interests in more than one club and for reasons of traditional and social interest. However, some contexts are quite different. * Hyatt, C.G. Sports teams are businesses like any other and they need to make money to survive. In the previous literature, other concepts are often interlinked to commercialization of elite sports, such as commodification, marketization, modernization and globalization. Almost all articles (34 of 42 papers) focus on commercialization in the context of elite football. (2019), Your Neighbors Walk Alone (YNWA): urban regeneration and the predicament of being local fans in the commercialized English football league, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 399-417, doi: 10.1123/jsm.2013-0199. Several studies also indicate that commercialization affects how, and through what interactions fans develop their personal identity with the team or the sport (e.g. 206-216. 3, pp. 3, pp. Several of the reviewed papers are written with a theoretical foundation in either identity theories (e.g. First, it will assess the view that modern sport was a lagged by-product of the . 2, pp. Hoegele etal., 2014; Meng etal., 2015). Swanson, K.K. Examining the effect of expansion teams and soccer-specific stadiums on Major League Soccer attendance, 'I was there from the start': the identity-maintenance strategies used by fans to combat the threat of losing, Social change and the commercialization of professional sports, Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, The effect of associated group identities on team identity, Estimating consumer spending on tickets, merchandise, and food and beverage: a case study of a NHL team, The attractiveness of national and international football leagues: perspectives of fans of star clubs and underdogs, Sport team emotion: conceptualization, scale development and validation, How to use your Olympian: the paradox of athletic authenticity and commercialization in the contemporary Olympic games, The market for football club investors: a review of theory and empirical evidence from professional European football, Sports teams heritage: measurement and application in sponsorship. 25 No. This study therefore aims to address this knowledge gap in the nexus between increased commercialization, elite sports, and the impacts on fans. We use the term football for European style football (soccer). It can also help young people find a hobby which gets them off the streets and discourages them from crime. There were also articles covering general sport-related issues, such as the governance of the Olympics, which only briefly mentions fans. 23 No. Several papers address how resistance to commercialization is manifested among fans. (2020), Jokerits move to KHL: an odd momentum in the commercialization of Nordic elite ice hockey, Sport in Society, Vol. Merkel etal., 2016; Laurell and Soderman, 2018) and is at least partly induced by sponsors (e.g. 600-619, doi: 10.1177/1469540515611199. 1-21, doi: 10.1080/02614367.2012.667819. Commercialization and possible fan resistance may not always imply negative consequences on the relationship between teams and fans (e.g. Effect of Commercialization on Sporting Events - UKEssays.com DeSchriver, T.D., Rascher, D.A. 1, pp. 14 No. 3, pp. Here, commercialization is studied as a process that moves away from, and causes conflicts to traditions and the local connectedness (Duke, 2002). 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. 333-339. Still in a European context, more specifically German elite football, studies have provided more nuanced understanding to commercialization as both negative and positive responses have been presented, e.g. 21 No. Growing levels of commercialization in the sports industry bring forward an increasing amount of negative reactions from sports fans. Advertisements on major events rising in terms of worth (e.g. In an elite sport context, the attitude object can range from an individual athlete to a team, league, or sport. Fan loyalty is conceptualized into two main dimensions, i.e. 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. (2011), Foreign fandom and the Liverpool FC: a cyber-mediated romance, Soccer and Society, Vol. 3, pp. 3.2 Socio-cultural influences and wellbeing in physical activity and sport 1-18, doi: 10.1080/16184742.2020.1871394. Dixon (2014) interviewed loyal, long-term English football fans regarding the so-called Disneyfication of products, services and experiences that are branded and sold using their team's logo. 1, pp. 97-114, doi: 10.1108/SBM-10-2017-0065. Marketization of elite sports is also like commercialization, as it describes how elite sports take the shape of a market economy, where clubs operate as businesses, and fans as customers (Liang, 2017). 1, pp. The final theme that emerged in the review focuses on fan behaviours. 2, pp. 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). Bond, A.J., Widdop, P. and Chadwick, S. (2018), Football's emerging market trade network: ego network approach to world systems theory, Managing Sport and Leisure, Vol. References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the review.