international journal of sports marketing and sponsorship · despite being unable to keep the sport...

International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship

A model of fans’ reaction to resurrected brands of sport

organizations

Journal: International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship

Manuscript ID IJSMS-08-2017-0073.R2

Manuscript Type: Research Paper

Keywords: resurrected brands, fan-based brand equity, sports marketing, behavioral outcome, PLS



A model of fans’ reaction to resurrected brands of sport

organizations

Introduction

Similar to other organizations, sport organizations have their own dynamics, in which

bankruptcy and dissolution are undesirable events that do occasionally occur. Overspending and

a high dependency on external funding are perceived as the most common causes that drive a

sport organization to bankruptcy (Schubert, 2014). In both cases, the corporate brand is not

responsible for the outcome, and, therefore, it remains undamaged and equally valuable (Thomas

and Kohli, 2009). Despite being unable to keep the sport organization alive, the brand retains

considerable potential that eventually can be exploited and harvested by another entity in what is

generally known as a phoenix club (Stone, 2015).

Resurrected, sport brands face a major issue regarding their acceptance among fans.

There has been a long array of cases that show a wide variety of reactions, from complete and

instant acceptance to fierce aversion and resentment. The Italian football club Parma has

experienced two resurrections in little more than a decade, both well received by fans. In 2015,

the newly founded S.S.D. Parma Calcio 1913 sold over 9,000 season tickets despite the rough

relegation to Serie D, the fourth division in Italian football. Another Italian football club that has

been resurrected after emerging from a bankruptcy process in 2002 is Fiorentina. Fiorentina’s

successful rebirth has been attributed to Angelo Di Livio’s commitment to the club, even when

the re-established club had to resume its quest for a top place in Italian football from the fourth

division. That sport performance cannot always prevent an organization from going bankrupt is

illustrated by the case of Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea, a Romanian handball club that disappeared at

the end of a season after reaching the second semifinal of EHF Champions League in a row. The

replacement club, HCM Ramnicu Valcea, has been far less successful in its supporters’ eyes as

well as in sport competitions. Other sport brands such as A.F.C. Wimbledon, Accrington

Stanley, Glasgow Rangers, S.S.C. Napoli, Torino F.C., U.S. Citta di Palermo, Malaga C.F., U.D.

Salamanca and Amica Wronki were resurrected at some point in their history.

Along with these resurrected sport brands, there are hundreds of other brands that were

never resurrected after the original organization stopped functioning. However, some of these

brands may still have favourable and unique associations in the mind of their fans that can serve

as exploitable vestiges (Dion and Mazzalovo, 2016). A noteworthy example is Seattle

Supersonics, a successful NBA team in the 1990s, which was never resurrected after it relocated

to Oklahoma City in 2006, despite some attempts in the early 2010s. Similarly, NHL team

Hartford Whalers’ relocation to North Carolina has negatively affected its left behind fans, who

didn’t follow the relocated team nor found a new favorite (Hyatt, 2007). Although the

organization did not go bankrupt, the sale of the franchise led to changes in practically every

brand element including name, colours, logo and location, which have left the old brand empty

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and thus inactive. It is safe to say that the relocated teams use different brands, which don’t fall

in the category of resurrected brands that is analyzed in our study.

This paper aims to disentangle the conditions for positive fans reaction to resurrected

brands of sport organizations, connecting what fans think and feel about the brand with their

behaviour in different contexts. The context-dependent feature is suggested by the conspicuously

different outcomes in parallel mixes of brand assets documented by well-known evidence.

Identifying the basis of brand acceptance or rejection has at least three major benefits. First, we it

can explain the marketing success or failure of sport ventures that used a resurrected brand.

Second, the findings would offer guidelines for sport entrepreneurs who attempt to resurrect their

brands. Finally, it is possible to find brand-related explanations for faded sport brands that have

never been resurrected notwithstanding their previous success.

This paper is structured as follows. In the next section, we discuss the concept of brand

resurrection and place it within the context of the sports industry. Section three presents the

conceptual model along with the subsequent hypotheses and the content of our constructs. In

section four, we explain the research methods involved in the data collection and construct

measurement. Next, the study results are presented followed by a discussion in which we draw

conclusions for knowledge and management. The paper ends by assessing the limitations and

making suggestions for future research.

Brand resurrection: concept and application to sports

The idea of brand resurrection or revival was suggested decades ago in the literature as a

less risky and less costly alternative to the introduction of a new brand (Aaker, 1991), but it has

received relatively little attention from the scientific community. The resurrection can be done by

bringing the brand into the present through revitalization (Lehu, 2004), or keeping and even

reinforcing its association with the past in what it is known as retrobranding (Brown et al., 2003).

In any of these cases, relying on nostalgia alone is not enough to initiate the revival, without

repositioning the brand to meet current consumers’ needs (Cattaneo and Guerini, 2012; Bellman,

2005).

Sport marketing has gradually increased in sophistication in recent decades (Woratschek

et al, 2014), although the issue of sport brand resurrection has received no attention from

scholars. In the closest attempt, Richelieu and Lessard (2014) proved the importance of branding

in fostering historically successful clubs. The sport brand and the city/ region brand are likely to

be related to each other as the strongest and most meaningful associations (Ginestra and de San

Eugenio, 2014; Herstein and Berger, 2013; Kozma et al., 2012; Rein and Shields, 2006), which

makes the resurrection probable, but difficult, due to the requirements imposed by exacting fans.

Among the most important requirements is preserving the club’s heritage (Hudson, 2013) and

thereby insuring the authenticity of the revived club. This compulsory reaffirmation and

consolidation of the brand’s historic meaning entails that the idea of invented traditions

(Hobsbawm and Ranger, 2012) becomes worthless in the context of the sports industry. The

evidence presented above shows that sport brand resurrection is such a complicated issue that

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preventive mechanisms must be imposed to avoid club bankruptcy and dissolution (Schubert,

2014). For example, UEFA Financial Fair-Play enforces financial rules with the goal of

protecting “the long-term viability and sustainability of European club football” (Schubert and

Könecke, 2014) against the greedy and image-seeking investors (Rohde and Breuer, 2017).

Conceptual model and hypotheses

Because resurrecting a faded sport brand is about harnessing its residual brand equity, we

followed Naik and Gupta’s (2013) adaptation of the brand resonance model (Keller, 2008) to the

sports industry, to capture fans’ internal mechanisms of acceptance or rejection of the revived

sport brand. The theoretical model is comprised of four levels, namely, brand salience or

identity, brand meaning, brand response, and brand relationship. The model also underlines five

consequences of brand equity in the sports industry: fan loyalty, merchandise sales, jersey rights,

media exposure, and ticket sales (Naik and Gupta, 2013).

Brand salience lies at the core of brand equity development, consisting of the ability of

consumers to easily and frequently recall the brand (Keller, 2008). This endows the brand with

identity by linking brand elements to specific category, consumption or usage contexts and other

mental associations. Salience is described in term of both depth and breadth. The depth shows

the brand awareness, or how likely it is for the public to recall the brand in different situations or

to recognize it through its elements, whereas breadth measures the range of contexts in which the

individual recalls the brand (Naik and Gupta, 2013; Keller, 2008). To operationalize this

variable, we employed the self-reporting approach of Vieceli and Alpert (2002).

Brand meaning has two facets: brand performance and brand imagery (Keller, 2016).

These are ways in which fans create a bond with the sport organization, that contribute to the

building of a team’s brand equity (Russell and Bang, 2008; Bauer et al., 2005). Whereas brand

performance expresses the quality of leisure services offered to fans in functional terms, brand

imagery consists of abstract concepts (Ko and Chan-Olmsted, 2015). We retained for our model

four brand-related variables suggested by Naik and Gupta (2013) to measure brand meaning:

reliability, effectiveness, style, and history, of which only the last variable belongs to brand

imagery. Brand reliability is the perceived consistency of performance, not merely in sport

competitions but in the entire experience delivered to the fans. Brand effectiveness captures how

effective a team meets its fans entertainment expectations. Brand style refers to the aesthetic

aspects that impact the sensorial experience. History reflects the legacy of glory, success and

drama all of which evoke in fans pride and a sense of tradition (Naik and Gupta, 2013).

The variable of fan response represents what fans think and feel about the sport brand –

for what it has as broad components fans judgments and feelings. We used eleven dimensions to

measure fan response: quality, credibility, superiority, consideration, warmth, fun, excitement,

security, social approval, self-respect, and patriotism. Quality encompasses the current

competitive performance, overall benefits, celebrity players and fulfillment of promises.

Credibility is the attribute a team gains by displaying a professional attitude, trust on the

commitment of team, players and staff, all of which encourage the fans to watch the team


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playing. Superiority is the sense of being a fan of a superior team, able to compete successfully

at its level. Consideration refers to the extent to which an individual wants to support a certain

team versus other teams. Warmth represents the degree to which fans feel sentimental or

affectionate about the team. The fun component concerns emotions such as amusement,

joyfulness, playfulness, pride, and relaxation that the sport organization stirs in its fans.

Excitement adds feelings such as coolness, energetic, curiosity, and optimism. Security measures

the team’s ability to prevent negative feelings in fans. Social approval is the sense of social

acceptability attendant to supporting a sport organization. Self-respect occurs when fans feel

pride, social and inner respect in supporting a team. Finally, patriotism is the sense of pride that

arises when the favourite sport organization becomes iconic for the country, region or city (Naik

and Gupta, 2013).

The final stage in the brand equity creation relates to relationship, which are focused on

the resultant tie between a sport brand and its fans in terms of loyalty, attachment, commitment,

engagement, and social responsibility. Loyalty is defined in behavioural terms as constant

purchase and consumption of branded products, including watching the team’s matches on TV,

the Internet or in live shows in the arena. Attachment must be understood as the extent to which

the fans love the team or describe it as an important part of their lives (Ross et al., 2008).

According to Keller (2001), the sense of community means feeling part of a brand community;

this sense of belonging leverages brand associations to communicate the brand’s core meaning

(Popp, 2016; Naik and Gupta, 2013). Engagement refers to fans’ willingness to invest their time,

energy, and money in team-related activities. Finally, team social responsibility represents fans’

willingness to engage in social causes supported by the club (Ko and Chan-Olmsted, 2015).

To explain the different degrees of success of previously resurrected sport brands, we

must consider the particular circumstances of the resurrection. In terms of the time of the

resurrection, our model aims to contrast between resurrection cases undertaken immediately after

bankruptcy and cases carried out at a later time. The model tests whether the relationship

between the former and the current brand owners makes any difference to fan reactions,

comparing a positive perception of the owner-to-owner relationship with a negative perception.

We aim to find differences between using the exact name of the old brand versus using a

modified or new brand name in the resurrection. We also compared the integration and neglect of

salient figures of the faded brand’s history. We likewise, considered the level of perceived

heritage (Dion and Mazzalovo, 2016) and loyalty to the faded brand for eventual interaction

moderations.

Brand salience is the basic level of brand equity that further sustains the development of a

strong brand-fans relationship. However, the notorious cases show that a well-known brand can

fail to achieve relationship reconstruction, so this influence is certainly context-related. Thus, we

hypothesize:

H1: (a) Resurrection moment, (b) owner-to-owner relationship, (c) brand name, (d)

salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand salience on

brand relationship.


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Resonance between the team and the fans is also based on brand meaning in terms of

performance and imagery, although it is not clear that the relationship functions equally well in

any context. Therefore, it is interesting to check the following:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand meaning on

brand relationship.

The two sides of brand response – cognitive and affective – are directly responsible for

the creation of the bond between the brand and the fans. Nonetheless, the experience of past

revivals of sport brands suggests that fans can display a passivity inertia or a fast engagement,

which allows us to hypothesize as follows:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand response on

brand relationship.

The more often and easily a fan recalls his favourite club, the higher the chance of a

desirable behaviour, such as buying match tickets or merchandise goods. The influence is not

expected to be strong, as the two constructs are not theoretically related in a direct manner; an

indirect effect is, however, much more likely to occur. However, some circumstances may

strengthen this relation, so that we are justified in examining the following hypothesis:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand salience on

fans’ behavioural outcomes.

Fans often refer to aspects of brand meaning to anchor their positive or negative attitudes

and actions. In particular, the brand revival of a sport organization is a delicate moment

concerning brand meaning, because the management has to bridge the gap between the new and

the old club by meshing its current existence into the essence of the faded brand. Investigating

whether and in which circumstances this effect occurs is equivalent to hypothesizing as follows:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand meaning on


Brand judgements and feelings are considered triggers of fanaticism or absenteeism

(Mahony et al., 2002), which implies an effect of brand response on fan behaviour. Whereas it is

highly likely to find a significant relationship between the two, it is interesting to explore the

conditions that hinder or consolidate this influence. Thus, we hypothesize as follows:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand response on


As the ultimate stage of brand equity development, brand relationship is directly

concerned with the emotional bond between the club and its fans that is directly reflected by

observable behaviour. Previous research (Kim et al., 2013) supports the role of brand

identification – conceptually close to brand relationship – in fan attendance. This obvious


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statement becomes conjectural when we consider brand resurrection, when even a strong

relationship can produce no evidence if its foundations are in doubt and if the fans fear proving

their loyalty to a deceitful clone. To examine where the truth lies in this issue, we hypothesize as

follows:


salient figures, (e) heritage, and (f) faded brand loyalty moderate the effect of brand relationship

on fan’s behavioral outcome (see Table 1 for the graphical description of the model).

Although there are enough theoretical claims to presume relationships among salience,

meaning and response, it is not part of our theory to focus on these issues, as (1) it would be a

simple confirmation of a widely accepted model, providing little valuable knowledge, and (2) it

would not highlight the conditions for a positive behavioural outcome, which is the main

construct of interest in our study. As the time lapse of inactivity can have a significant impact on

fan’s psychology and behavior, the results are controlled for faded time at the level of all the

endogenous variables.

Insert Figure 1 here

Method

Object and sample

We collected data from 462 fans of five sport organizations from Romania that went

through resurrection in the last five years. Four of these sport organizations are football clubs,

namely Politehnica Timisoara (82 respondents), UTA Arad (84 respondents), Ripensia Timisoara

(88 respondents), CSU Craiova (120 respondents), and the fifth organization is the handball club

HCM Ramnicu Valcea (88 respondents). The inclusion of various sports in our sample provides

more general results for sports industry. Table 1 describes the sample in terms of average age,

gender, and education. In doing so, we aimed to gain an understanding of the differences that

exist between dichotomous cases related to the following moderators: resurrection moment,

brand name, and salient figures. Whereas these moderators were automatically assigned to each

respondent, the other moderators where subject to a questionnaire item. For example, UTA Arad

and Ripensia Timisoara were assigned the status of using the same brand name as the faded one,

and Politehnica Timisoara, CSU Craiova, and HCM Ramnicu Valcea used a different name

while still claiming their legacies.

Insert Table 1 here

Politehnica Timisoara was established in 1921, and since then has been the flagship

football team of Romania’s west part. The club has an intricate history in the last two decades: in

2002, AEK Bucharest, recently promoted to the first division, was relocated to Timisoara and

renamed Politehnica AEK Timisoara, in 2008, it changed its name to FC Timisoara following a

Court for Arbitration for Sport decision, and in 2012, the club was dissolved. Currently, there are

two clubs claiming the legacy of the old faded brand, both resurrected in 2012: the top-tier ACS


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Poli Timisoara, resulted after the relocation of the former ACS Recas, and ASU Politehnica

Timisoara, which promoted from the fifth to the second division in just four years. Our study

only considers the former one.

UTA Arad was founded in 1945, being the traditional rival of Politehnica Timisoara and

one of the most titled clubs in the Romanian football. The club was resurrected by its fans in

2014, immediately after the faded club’s management failed to stabilize club’s finances and lost

fan’s support.

Founded in 1928, Ripensia Timisoara was the first professional football club in Romania.

After being four times national champions and winning two national cups, the club melted into

Electrica Timisoara in 1948. The club was resurrected in 2012, using “the socios model” made

famous by clubs like F.C. Barcelona or Benfica. Since then, the club has managed back to back

promotions, reaching the second division.

CSU Craiova was established in 2013, one year after the old club Universitatea Craiova

was disaffiliated by the Romanian Football Federation. Despite the volatile and ambiguous

ownership of the record, brand, and logo of the faded club, CSU Craiova gained the fan’s

support, and the club promoted to the first division in its first year. Currently, there are two clubs

claiming the legacy of the old brand, as the owner of the former club reestablished it in 2017.

HCM Ramnicu Valcea is the successor of the faded Oltchim Ramnicu Valcea, one of the

most successful handball clubs in Europe. The former club was abolished in 2013, after it had

lost the financial support of Oltchim S.A., the largest chemical company in Romania. The

resurrection was undertaken immediately by the local authorities, but the competitive success

and fans acceptance was far beyond its predecessor.

Data collection was performed using face-to-face interviews with individuals irrespective

of their sex and age in open spaces such as city squares and parks in the four cities where the

considered clubs are based. As a screening item, we inquired about the level to which the

respondents liked handball for HCM Ramnicu Valcea and football for the other clubs selecting

only individuals with a medium or higher preference for the sport. The non-response rate was 19

percent, enough to cause significant bias in our data. We performed a MANOVA test

(Armstrong and Overton, 1977) to assess non-response bias that contrasts early and late

respondents on a number of subjective and objective variables, resulting in a non-significant

Wilks’ Lambda (p=.228), and thereby proving non-responses do not affect the data.

Variable measurement

In measuring our constructs, we used both formative and reflective measures, depending

on the operational definitions and the different aspects that we had to capture. We used a two-

step approach (Langerak et al., 2004) to develop the measures. For the first stage, we generated a

pool of potentially suitable items for each construct through repeated interviews with five

academics. In the second stage, we conducted ten cognitive interviews with football fans to

choose the best item(s) for each construct and component. The absence of any confusing

expression and a proper discrimination between constructs were also ensured in this stage. The


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measure development ended when no more issues were found for the final version of the

instrument (see Appendix 2). For all the constructs, a seven-point semantic differential scale was

used. The questionnaire was originally developed in English, translated into Romanian, and then

retranslated into English following the back-translation approach (Brislin, 1970) to ensure that

the two versions are identical.

Results

To test our hypotheses, we used partial least squares (PLS), given its superiority in

estimating models with formative latent variables and interactions (Lowry and Gaskin, 2014).

PLS models require a two-stage approach (Barclay et al., 1995), starting with the measurement

model and continuing with the structural model, which ensures that our conclusions are based on

valid and reliable data.

Measurement model

Our model consists of both formative and reflective measures; this feature determines the

validation approach of the measurement model. For constructs with formative measures, we

followed the recommendations of Diamantopoulos et al. (2008), who discourage the use of the

classical validation procedure. Thus, in the stage of measure development, we applied a census

of components for every construct to ensure complete representation (Bollen and Lennox, 1991).

As the different manifest variables build the construct in this type of measurement,

multicollinearity is an important aspect to check. We calculated the variance inflation factors

(VIF) for the observed variables for every construct and obtained results below the threshold of

10 as suggested by Hair et al. (2011), showing that multicollinearity does not affect our data.

For the reflectively measured constructs, convergent validity and internal consistency

were established by verifying that the factor loadings were greater than the conservative

threshold of .7 (Carmines and Zeller, 1979), and that the average variance extracted (AVE) was

greater than the .5 benchmark (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The discriminant validity was also

established, by verifying that the square root of AVE was greater than the inter-construct

correlation for the reflectively measured constructs (see Table 2).

Insert Table 2 here

Taking into consideration the recently discovered drawbacks of the classical Fornell-

Larcker (1981) criterion in detecting the lack of discriminant validity (Henseler et al., 2015), we

reinforced it with the more demanding heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) matrix, which confirms the

discriminant validity (see Table 3).

Insert Table 3 here

The common method bias across all responses was assessed using Harman’s one-factor

test (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), which resulted in 32 percent of the variance being explained


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by the first factor. By obtaining a result lower than the 50 percent benchmark, we dismissed the

possibility of common method bias affecting our data.

In the measurement of the first-order formative constructs, depth (weight=.545) and

breadth (weight=.549) had roughly the same importance in the formation of brand salience.

History (weight=.560) proved the most prominent for brand meaning, consideration

(weight=.621) contributed the most to brand judgements, and loyalty (weight=.540) left its mark

on brand relationship. Warmth (weight=.254), social approval (weight=.251), and security (.232)

shared the highest contribution to the formation of brand feelings. For the second-order

constructs, brand feelings (weight=.709) proved dominant in measuring brand response

compared to brand judgement (weight=.358). For the behavioural outcome, the four components

had roughly equal contributions with weights between .27 and .3 (see Appendix 1).

Our proposed model uses a molar model approach that treats the first-order constructs as

formative dimensions of the second-order construct, with no interest in the interrelations among

the first-order constructs (Chin and Gopal, 1995). The second-order constructs were calculated

using the repeated indicator approach (Lowry and Gaskin, 2014). Provided that each first-order

construct of behavioral outcome is of special interest for our study, we linked them in a

regression model to its determinants, to observe the different patterns of influence.

Consequently, our model lacked any second-order factor that is simultaneously endogenous and

formative, thus ensuring that the perfectly predicted problem (Jarvis et al., 2003) was not an

issue.

Structural model

Table 4 summarizes the findings in terms of standardized coefficients and t-values after

performing 1000 bootstrap subsamples. According to these results, brand salience and brand

meaning have no direct link with any type of behaviour, other than a weak influence of brand

salience on ticket purchase (.084). Conversely, brand response directly influences three

components of fan behaviour – ticket purchases, media consumption and endorsement – and has

a very strong link with brand relationship (.970). Finally, brand relationship strongly influences

all the considered behaviours with standardized coefficients between .47 and .65. Faded time

positively influences brand relationship (.052), ticket purchase (.155), and has a negative

influence on media consumption (-.082).

Insert Table 4 here

With regard to the indirect effects, Table 5 shows that all the exogenous variables have an

indirect effect through brand relationship on the four behavioural outcomes. What distinguishes

the three exogenous variables are the intensity and sign of their influence. Brand salience has

very little effect on fan behaviour, whereas brand response exerts a strong influence on fan

behaviour, especially with respect to merchandise purchases. Brand meaning strangely displays a

negative, though weak relationship with every behavioural outcome.


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Insert Table 5 here

To test our hypotheses, we analysed how these effects vary across different contexts of

brand resurrection.

The moderating effect of resurrection timing

Three differences were observed depending on the resurrection timing. When the

resurrection is immediate, the negative effect of brand meaning on brand relationship becomes

stronger, resulting in revulsion from the fans, whereas in the case of a late resurrection, this

effect is not-significant. A strong brand-fans relationship drives more ticket purchases when the

resurrection occurs after a period of inactivity, whereas brand response strongly influences ticket

purchases when the resurrection is immediate (see Table 6). Thus, we found evidence for H2 (a)

and partial evidence for H6 (a) and H7 (a).

Insert Table 6 here

The moderating effect of owner-to-owner relationship

The perceived relationship between the former owner and the current owner drives some

changes in fan reactions. Whereas brand meaning shows no link with merchandise purchase

when the relationship is bad, the link becomes positive when the fans perceive this relationship

as good. Media consumption increases when a positive owner-to-owner relationship exists as an

effect of brand relationship and brand salience (see Table 7). These results partially support H4

(b), H5 (b), and H7 (b).

Insert Table 7 here

The moderating effect of brand name

Comparing resurrections that used the same brand name with those that employed a

modified brand name, we noticed a stronger boomerang effect of brand meaning on the

relationship in the latter case, which can alienate fans. Moreover, to some extent, endorsement is

affected by brand salience only when the same brand name is used for resurrection (see Table 8).

Thus, H2 (c) and H4 (c) are partially supported.

Insert Table 8 here

The moderating effect of historic figures

The involvement of historic figures in the club management or as technical staff makes a

big difference in the reactions of fans. Thus, club’s legends create the conditions for an increase

in ticket sales through the effect of brand meaning and relationship. The news about the brand

becomes more interesting for fans when the club’s legends are part of the resurrection project. In


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the presence of historic figures, endorsement also becomes more effective once a strong brand-

fans relationship is achieved (see Table 9). These results support hypotheses H4 (d), H5 (d), and

H7 (d).

Insert Table 9 here

The moderating effect of heritage

Plotting the results from Table 10, we noticed that brand heritage strengthens most of the

positive effects, but dampens the negative effect of brand meaning on brand relationship.

Therefore, brand relationship becomes stronger when brand heritage in more salient. Tickets and

merchandise sales and endorsement increase the club’s success due to the interaction between

heritage and brand meaning, response, and relationship. The least affected behavioral outcome

by brand heritage is media consumption, because only the link it has with brand saliency is

slightly reinforced. These empirical results confirm H1-3 (e) and partially confirm H5-7 (e).

Insert Table 10 here

The moderating effect of faded brand loyalty

Faded brand loyalty also strengthens most of the positive influences on ticket and

merchandise purchases, although with lower intensity than in the case of heritage. The

development of a strong brand-fans relationship is slightly favoured by the interaction between

faded brand loyalty and brand meaning. The interest in club news in the media is fostered by the

significant interaction between brand meaning and faded brand loyalty (see Table 11).

Consequently, the hypotheses H1-3 (f) are fully supported, while H4-7 (f) are just partially

supported.

Insert Table 11 here

Discussions

The results provide insight into how fans react to brand resurrections of sport

organizations, which can be used both to explain the opposite outcomes of existing brand record

and to find successful patterns to be followed in future resurrections.

The structural coefficients are in line with Keller’s (2008) brand resonance model and its

adaptation to sport branding (Naik and Gupta, 2013) in the sense of suggesting a hierarchy in

brand equity development and its consequences. Specifically, the higher a construct is ranked in

the brand resonance pyramid, the stronger its effect on the considered behavioural outcomes.

From this perspective, the study contributes to the sports marketing theory by providing

empirical support for the relevance of the brand resonance model to sport branding.

Our study shows that brand resurrections are more successful when fans perceive a

favourable relationship between the former and the current owner, the faded brand name is used,

club’s historic figures are involved in the resurrection project, the faded brand has an unrivalled


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and inimitable legacy of glory and tradition, and the club has a good relationship with the loyal

fans of the faded club. Both immediate and late resurrections are equally feasible as there are no

differences between the two cases in terms of behavioural outcome.

One possible explanation of resurrection failures is the negative effect of brand meaning

on brand relationship. According to this finding, the more glorious is the club’s history, the more

reliable and effective its resurrection. Counterintuitively, the better preserved the faded brand’s

style, the more likely fans are to react by alienating themselves from the brand. This can be

explained as a nostalgia effect, which makes fans devalue any current achievement relative to the

club’s historical record. This does not in any way affect the perceived superiority or excitement

that fans feel, or reduces its positive effect on brand-fans relationship, but when compared to the

core meaning of the brand, fans tend to favour the glory of old times. The negative effect of

brand meaning on brand relationship is stronger when the resurrection is immediate and

irrelevant when it is late. In the former case, fans feel that the resurrected team is an unauthentic

copy of the faded brand attempting to counterfeit its essence, instead of regarding it as a

respectable successor attempting to carry on its legacy of success.

Practical implications

Our findings confirm that the brand resurrection of a sport organization is a delicate

process that can easily lead to rejection by fans and frustrate the sport entrepreneur. To avoid this

outcome, the sport entrepreneur must first secure the right to use the old brand name and its other

elements, such as colours, emblem, or anthem. Moreover, if the resurrection is carried out

immediately following the bankruptcy of the old club, the sport entrepreneur’s strategy must

carefully address the core meaning of the brand. Whereas not honouring brand’s history and

style or not entertaining the fans may result in an unsuccessful attempt to restore the essence of

the brand in the new club, exaggeratedly pretending the opposite can also hurt the relationship

with the fans, who might not consider the new club to be a meritorious successor of the faded

one. Both scenarios are negative, as they lead to brand dilution and rejection. The former can

cast the resurrected brand into anonymity, while the latter may even cause anti-marketing

campaigns (Popp and Germelmann, 2016).

Faded brand loyalty showed some capacity to strengthen the favourable chains that lead

to desirable behaviour such as ticket and merchandise purchases. This finding suggests that a

good resurrection strategy is to first target the most loyal fans of the old faded brand, who will in

turn incite a sense of community and social approval that would encourage new fans to join in.

Our work also confirms the importance of eliciting the support and involvement of some of the

club’s legendary figures. They will be responsible for creating a genuine bond between the old

and the new club, which will stimulate positive behavioural reactions.

For a sport entrepreneur interested in brand resurrection, with various options of faded

brands, the best choice is the one that retains the most prominent heritage in the eyes of former

fans. Additionally, if the original brand has been inactive for a moderate amount of time, has


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numerous former fans, and is available for use, the sport entrepreneur should consider it the best

option.

Conclusions, limitations, and future research

These results provide valuable insight for future resurrections of such faded brands, as the

Los Angeles Aztecs, Dalian Shide, Dukla Prague, or F.C. Amsterdam.

The current study makes significant contribution to the brand resurrection literature and

the practice of brand resurrection in sport, but it has a number of limitations. The first limitation

is the cross-sectional nature of the study, which fails to highlight the evolution of fans’ reactions

under the impact of different determinants. Given that brand resurrection in general is mostly an

issue of timing, longitudinal studies are needed for a deeper understanding of the topic at hand.

The second limitation concerns the limited extent of our empirical data that come from a single

country, which prevents us from considering fans’ cultural and social characteristics as potential

determinants (Chanavat and Bodet, 2009). Finally, we tested the moderating effects using a

structural model that replicates brand equity development and consequences. The same

moderators could be tested based on models inspired by the consumer-team relationship quality

model (Kim et al., 2011), or the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and its extended

versions.

This work tackles a rather neglected topic that is nevertheless rife with research

opportunities. First, future studies should explore how divided support from a club’s historic

figures influences fans reaction. Second, as fans usually develop strong negative emotions

towards the former owner, it is interesting to understand the role of these feelings in fans

reactions, especially when the former owner is the one who undertakes the resurrection. Third,

when these negative attitudes appear, our findings regarding the owner-to-owner relationship

seem exaggerated; thus, the existence of a moderated moderation can be further investigated.

Fourth, finding differences in the resurrection potential between bankrupt faded brands and

brands that are inactivated through relocation or merger can further support future resurrections.

Fifth, using our model can help to find potential unrecoverable vestiges of brand resurrection that

calls for the owners to assume greater responsibility. Along the same line, sport governance can

be applied to model the responsibility of the owner and the subsequent relationships with

different stakeholders. Sixth, the pillars of strong and unique associations of the sport brands

should be studied for a better understanding of the dynamics of fan’s feelings. As we mentioned

before, our model has limited empirical validation, which implies that replications in different

countries or with a cross-country sample are advisable. Finally, the rather complex relationship

between the memories of the old brand and the resurrected sport organization deserves more

attention in order to gain full understanding of how fans associate with resurrected brands of

sport organizations.

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Insert Appendix 1 here

Insert Appendix 2 here


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Brand

salience

Brand

meaning

Brand

response

Ticket

purchase

Brand

relationship

Endorsement

Media

consumption

Merchandise

purchase

Resurrection moment

Owner-to-owner relationship

Brand name

Historic figures

Brand legacy

Faded brand loyalty

Figure 1. Graphical description of the model

Behavioral

outcome

Control variable:

Faded time


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Table 1. Sample demographics

Organization Average

age

Gender Education

Politehnica Timisoara 37.7 68.2% male 37.8% high school graduates

UTA Arad 40.1 80.9% male 35.7% trade/ technical/ vocational

training

Ripensia Timisoara 44.8 73.8% male 35.2% bachelor’s degree

CSU Craiova 36 64.1% male 45.8% bachelor’s degree

HCM Ramnicu Valcea 44.9 54.5% male 42% trade/ technical/ vocational training


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Table 2. Correlations between reflective constructs

1 2 3 4

1. Tickets purchase .935

2. Merchandise purchase .784 .953

3. Media consumption .683 .728 .972

4. Endorsement .803 .762 .678 .923

Note: The bold numbers on the diagonal are the square roots of the AVE, off-diagonal numbers

represent inter-construct correlations


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Table 3. HTMT results

1 2 3 4

1. Tickets purchase

2. Merchandise purchase .795

(.741; .838)

3. Media consumption .695

(.642; .742)

.739

(.696; .778)

4. Endorsement .817

(.758; .862)

.772

(.707; .822)

.690

(.645; .721)

Note: The numbers in brackets are the confidence intervals at 95% confidence (1000 bootstrap

samples).

�


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Table 4. Structural model results

Path Path

coefficient

(β)

t-Value

(Bootstrap)

p-value

Brand salience Brand relationship .106 4.496 <.001

Brand meaning Brand relationship -.135 2.698 .007

Brand response Brand relationship .970 21.400 <.001

Brand relationship Ticket purchase .478 5.560 <.001

Brand relationship Merchandise purchase .655 8.100 <.001

Brand relationship Media consumption .522 5.400 <.001

Brand relationship Endorsement .509 5.929 <.001

Brand salience Ticket purchase .084 2.964 .003

Brand salience Merchandise purchase .001 .017 .986

Brand salience Media consumption .007 .199 .842

Brand salience Endorsement .019 .510 .610

Brand meaning Ticket purchase -.025 .402 .688

Brand meaning Merchandise purchase -.058 .907 .364

Brand meaning Media consumption -.007 .105 .917

Brand meaning Endorsement -.112 1.640 .101

Brand response Ticket purchase .293 3.390 .001

Brand response Merchandise purchase .149 1.593 .111

Brand response Media consumption .293 2.943 .003

Brand response Endorsement .312 3.351 .001

Control variable:

Faded time Brand relationship .052 2.786 .005

Faded time Ticket purchase .155 5.031 <.001

Faded time Merchandise purchase -.016 .442 .658

Faded time Media consumption -.082 2.963 .003

Faded time Endorsement -.023 .549 .583


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Table 5. Indirect effects

Path Indirect

effect

t-Value

(Bootstrap)

p-value

Brand salience Ticket purchase .051 3.698 <.001

Brand salience Merchandise purchase .070 4.207 <.001

Brand salience Media consumption .055 3.674 <.001

Brand salience Endorsement .054 4.027 <.001

Brand meaning Ticket purchase -.064 2.638 .008

Brand meaning Merchandise purchase -.088 2.650 .008

Brand meaning Media consumption -.070 2.576 .010

Brand meaning Endorsement -.069 2.571 .010

Brand response Ticket purchase .463 5.566 <.001

Brand response Merchandise purchase .636 7.648 <.001

Brand response Media consumption .506 5.386 <.001

Brand response Endorsement .494 5.733 <.001


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Table 6. Multi-group moderation – resurrection moment

Path Immediate

resurrection

Late

resurrection

Difference

β t-value β t-value β t-value p-value

Meaning Relationship -.218 3.08 .008 .129 .226 2.358 .019

Relationship Tickets purchase .334 2.772 .818 9.61 .484 3.152 .002

Response Tickets purchase .423 3.26 -.07 .713 .494 2.926 .004


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Table 7. Multi-group moderation – owner-to-owner relationship

Path Good

relationship

Bad relationship Difference


Relationship Media consumption .805 9.573 .283 2.112 .523 3.418 .001

Salience Media consumption .129 3.015 -.153 3.015 .282 4.293 <.001

Meaning Merchandise purchase .228 1.963 -.049 .677 .278 2.065 .039


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Table 8. Multi-group moderation – brand name

Path Same brand

name

Different brand

name

Difference


Meaning Relationship .046 1.005 -.387 4.245 .433 4.484 <.001

Salience Endorsement .115 2.035 -.086 1.886 .185 2.997 .003


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Table 9. Multi-group moderation – historic figures

Path Historic figures

involved

No historic

figures involved

Difference


Meaning Ticket purchase .169 1.738 -.211 2.613 .380 2.975 .003

Relationship Endorsement .650 6.653 .282 1.691 .368 2.046 .041

Relationship Ticket purchase .683 8.472 .188 1.218 .495 3.126 .002

Salience Media consumption .153 2.491 -.043 1.086 .196 2.817 .005

Meaning Media consumption .217 2.263 -.060 .681 .277 2.050 .041


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Table 10. Interaction moderation – heritage

Interaction Path

coefficient

(β)

t-Value

(Bootstrap)

p-value

Dependent variable: Brand relationship

Brand salience x Heritage .077 4.394 <.001

Brand meaning x Heritage .093 4.382 <.001

Brand response x Heritage .117 5.129 <.001

Dependent variable: Tickets purchase

Brand salience x Heritage .047 2.134 .033



Brand relationship x Heritage .138 2.649 .008

Dependent variable: Merchandise purchase

Brand salience x Heritage .014 .584 .559



Brand relationship x Heritage .345 6.935 <.001

Dependent variable: Media consumption

Brand salience x Heritage .077 2.601 .009

Brand meaning x Heritage .064 1.767 .078

Brand response x Heritage .035 .868 .386


Dependent variable: Endorsement

Brand salience x Heritage .022 .809 .419





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Table 11. Interaction moderation – faded brand loyalty

Interaction Path

coefficient

(β)

t-Value

(Bootstrap)

p-value

Dependent variable: Brand relationship

Brand salience x Faded brand loyalty .025 1.312 .190

Brand meaning x Faded brand loyalty .050 2.719 .007

Brand response x Faded brand loyalty .095 4.750 <.001

Dependent variable: Tickets purchase

Brand salience x Faded brand loyalty .029 .847 .397

Brand meaning x Faded brand loyalty .130 3.759 <.001

Brand response x Faded brand loyalty .112 2.856 .004

Brand relationship x Faded brand loyalty .063 1.381 .168

Dependent variable: Merchandise purchase

Brand salience x Faded brand loyalty .089 2.330 .020

Brand meaning x Faded brand loyalty .148 3.792 <.001


Brand relationship x Faded brand loyalty .139 2.634 .009

Dependent variable: Media consumption

Brand salience x Faded brand loyalty -.052 1.837 .067



Brand relationship x Faded brand loyalty -.023 .681 .496

Dependent variable: Endorsement

Brand salience x Faded brand loyalty .018 .440 .660



Brand relationship x Faded brand loyalty .054 .943 .346


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Appendix 1. Measurement model results

Construct/ Dimension/ Indicator VIF Weight Loading CR AVE

Brand salience (first-order formative construct) N.A. N.A.

Depth 1.816 .545

Breath 1.816 .549

Brand meaning (first-order formative construct) N.A. N.A.

Reliability 6.243 .248

Effectiveness 7.351 .111

Style 5.245 .247

History 1.404 .560

Brand response (second-order formative

construct)

N.A. N.A.

Brand judgments (first-order formative

construct)

.358 N.A. N.A.

Quality 6.894 .111

Credibility 7.278 .140

Superiority

Consideration

5.089

3.887

.183

.621

Brand feelings (first-order reflective construct) .709 N.A. N.A.

Warmth 9.545 .254

Fun 9.231 .170

Excitement

Security

Social approval

Self-respect

Patriotism

8.900

7.942

4.790

9.453

7.152

.053

.232

.251

.046

.045

Brand relationship (first-order formative

construct)

N.A. N.A.

Loyalty 5.150 .540

Attachment 4.746 .004

Community 2.990 .263

Engagement 8.546 .069

Social responsibility 9.350 .145

Behavior (second-order formative construct) N.A. N.A.

Tickets purchase (first-order reflective construct) .296 .904 .876

TP1 .882

TP2 .969

TP3 .779

Merchandise purchase (first-order reflective

construct)

.279 .929 .909

MP1 .889

MP2 .883

MP3 .911


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Media consumption (first-order reflective

construct)

.290 .981 .945

MC1 .877

MC2 .969

MC3 .970

Endorsement (first-order reflective construct) .278 .893 .852

ED1 .779

ED2

ED3

.880

.907

Appendix 2. Measures

Brand salience

The following questions aim to determine how salient [brand name] is in your mind. Please

answer on a scale of 1–7 (1 Strongly Disagree to 7 Strongly Agree).

Depth I am able to recall or recognize [brand name] through its elements.

Breath I recall [brand name] in a wide range of contexts.

Brand meaning

The following questions aim to determine [brand name]’s meaning from your perspective. Please


Reliability [Brand name] delivers a consistent experience to the fans.

Effectiveness [Brand name] meets fans expectations to be entertained.

Style

History

[Brand name]’s style meets my aesthetic requirements.

[Brand name] reflect a legacy of glory, success, and drama that makes me proud.

Brand response

Please indicate the extent to which each statement reflects your opinion on 7-point scales by

indicating their level of agreement/disagreement (1 Strongly Disagree to 7 Strongly Agree).

Brand judgments

Quality The current competitive performance, overall benefits, and celebrity players

fulfill [brand name]’s promise.

Credibility [Brand name] displays a professional attitude, trust on team, players and staff

commitment.

Superiority

Consideration

[Brand name] a superior team, able to compete successfully at its level.

I totally support [brand name] versus any other team.

Brand feelings

Warmth I feel sentimental about the team.

Fun [Brand name] awakens amusement, joyfulness, playfulness, pride, and

relaxation in my heart.

Excitement

Security

[Brand name] inspires me coolness, energetic, curiosity, and optimism.

[Brand name] prevents me from developing negative feelings.


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Social approval

Self-respect

Patriotism

Supporting [brand name] is socially acceptable.

I feel pride, social and inner respect by supporting [brand name].

I feel pride that [brand name] represents the country/region/city at a higher

level and that it is iconic for the place branding.

Brand relationship

The following questions aim to determine the relationship between you and [brand name]. Please


Loyalty I consider myself a loyal fan of [brand name].

Attachment I consider [brand name] an important part of my life.

Community I feel myself part of a community of [brand name]’s fans.

Engagement I’m willing to invest my money, time, and energy for [brand name].

Social

responsibility

I’m willing to engage in [brand name]’s social responsibility actions.

Behavioral outcome

The following questions aim to determine the relationship between you and [brand name]. Please


Tickets purchase

TP1 I frequently attend [brand name]’s matches.

TP2 I buy tickets for [brand name]’s matches.

TP3 I am always in the stands when [brand name] plays.

Merchandise purchase

MCP1 I buy [brand name] products very often.

MCP2 I don’t miss any new product of [brand name].

MCP3 I am not a customer of [brand name]’s sport articles. (R)

Media consumption

MC1 I don’t miss [brand name]’s matches and news on media.

MC2 I am interested in media outlets covering [brand name]’s news and matches.

MC3 [Brand name] is not a topic to look for on media. (R)

Endorsement

ED1 I have a good opinion of the brands endorsed by [brand name].

ED2

ED3

I pay attention to the brands endorsed by [brand name].

I am not interested on the brands endorsed by [brand name].


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international journal of sports marketing and sponsorship · despite being unable to keep the sport...

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