The Sport industry is special in a sense that sport has an extraordinary ability to command attention, interest and loyalty. In other words, sport can stimulate an emotional response in its consumers of the kind rarely elicited by other products. As an example, try to imagine consumers identifying so strongly with their car insurance company that they get a tattoo with its logo. That sounds ridiculous right? Not in the sport industry.

Emotion and passion are two special features of the sport industry. These have deep consequences that marketers must take into account:

  • Loyalty can be very powerful but strong attachments to nostalgia and traditions can also lead to slow respond to market changes
  • Sport organisations need to measures their success off-field (financial profitability) but also on-field (achievement within sport competition)
  • Sport leagues and competitions are actually encouraging competitive balance, as sport consumers are more attracted to attend games where there is a balanced competition (think about the NBA Draft system).
  • In competitive sport, there is a low cross elasticity of demand, i.e. it is difficult to substitute one sport league, team, brand or competition for another. That means that fans will continue supporting their favorite team (and purchase tickets and merchandises) even if its results are disappointing.

To illustrate how sports fans are the most loving, hateful, emotional, irrational, insecure and obsessive brood in the world, here isshort video from youtube :)

That last point has to do with the fact that sport consumers identify with teams, clubs, brands and athletes, and see them as extensions of themselves. The challenge for marketers would then be to bring business needs and emotion needs together.

More on this topic:

“Using sports to create a strong emotional bond“

” For love or money? The unrequited passion of the sports fan“

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