Abstract
Professional football is a big business in which understanding fans is a precondition for the long-term commercial success of clubs. The focus of this paper is on the segmentation of football fans based on their behaviour and on determining the differences among the identified segments. The research is crosssectional, and the data was collected through an online survey of 370 fans, sampled using a non-probability, convenience sample. For segmentation purposes, the eFangelism scale - consisting of four basic forms of evangelistic behaviour: advertising, advocating, assimilating, and antagonizing, was used. Data were analysed using hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis, ANOVA, and posthoc Tukey test. The results of this study confirm the applicability of the concept of sports fan evangelism (eFangelism). Four clusters offootball fans are identified based on evangelistic behaviours. This study provides concise profiles for each of the clusters and shows differences between the characteristics of their members. The findings from this study can be of use to sports marketers - namely, elements of marketing strategy can and should be adjusted for idiosyncrasies of various segments identified through the study.
Keywords: sports market, evangelistic behaviour, eFangelism, segmentation
JEL classification: C38, D12, M31, Z29
Sažetak
Profesionalni je nogomet područje poslovanja u kojem razumijevanje navijača predstavlja preduvjet dugoročnog komercijalnog uspjeha klubova. Fokus ovog rada je na segmentaciji nogometnih navijača temeljem njihovog ponašanja i utvrdivanju razlika medu identificiranim segmentima. Istraživanje je provedeno jednokratno, a podaci su prikupljeni online anketom koja je obuhvatila 370 ispitanika, uzorkovanih korištenjem namjernog prigodnog uzorka. Za potrebe segmentacije korištena je ljestvica eFangelizma - koja kategorizira evangelizacijska ponašanja u četiri temeljna oblika: promoviranje, zagovaranje, asimilacija i antagoniziranje. Podaci su analizirani pomoću hijerarhijske i ne-hijerarhijske klaster analize, ANOVA i post-hoc Tukey testa. Rezultati potvrduju primjenjivost koncepta navijačke evangelizacije (eFangelizma). Identificirane su četiri segmenta nogometnih navijača temeljem evangelizacijskih ponašanja. Dani su sažeti profili svakog od klastera i raspravljene razlike medu njima. Nalazi ove studije mogu biti korisni praktičarima u domeni marketinga sporta. Naime, nalazi pružaju okvir za prilagodbu elemenata marketinške strategije posebnostima različitih segmenata identificiranih kroz studiju.
Ključne riječi: sportsko tržište, evangelističko ponašanje potrošača, eFangelizam, segmentacija
JEL klasifikacija: C38, D12, M31, Z29
1. Introduction
Football is widely recognized as the most popular sport in the world (Giulianotti and Robertson, 2012), with the highest market share and profit in the global sports market. According to Torrens University Australia (2020), the entire sports industry was estimated at 500 billion USD. Half of this turnover was generated by spectator sports which in turn were dominated by football with a market share of 43%.
Fans are one of the most important stakeholder groups in today's sports industry since they support clubs and spread positive information and rumors about the club they support. Management of football clubs aims to strengthen the psychological bond between the fans and the club and create permanent relationships with them by ensuring the commitment of every fan. Therefore, the concepts of club image, brand evangelism, and club identification are considered to be of critical importance for the future of professional sports club management (Altin et al., 2020). According to service logic, brands are owned by customers (Harrigan et al., 2020). To facilitate value co-creation, which lies at the foundation of such a perspective, a rapid transition from a transactional to a relational journey approach in brand rapport with consumers is taking place (Nandy and Sondhi, 2022). One of the important mechanisms stemming from the relationship between brands and customers is evangelic behaviour, i.e. brand evangelism.
This paper focuses on brand evangelism in sports and its applicability as a basis for segmentation. The purpose of this paper is to, through replication of Park et al. (2021) study, validate the efangelism scale as a segmentation framework in the football context. Additionally, through a comparison of the study outcomes in the new (South Korea) and traditional (EU, Croatia) football markets, indicative insights into behaviour dynamics across different markets will be provided. More precisely, this research aims to determine if segmentation outcomes between significantly different markets (in terms of tradition and attitude towards football fandom) differ, and to what extent. The working hypothesis of this study is that the efangelism scale will prove to be a stable and actionable tool for segmentation purposes and that resulting segments will vary depending on the characteristics of the markets under study.
The study is structured as follows: following the introduction, the literature review is provided and followed by the methodology segment of the study in the third section. Empirical data and analysis are contents of the fourth section with discussion and conclusions presented in the fifth and sixth sections, respectively.
2.Literature review
Defined as active behavioural and vocal support for the brand, brand evangelism includes actions such as purchasing (brand) products, spreading positive brand recommendations, and directing others towards the brand by disparaging competing brands (Beccera and Badrinarayanan, 2013). Brand evangelism implies a strong relationship between consumers and the brand, manifested through the spread of positive word of mouth (henceforth WOM) (Doss, 2014; Riivits-Arkonsuo et al., 2015) and a fervent effort to convince or persuade others to associate with the brand (Matzler et al., 2007). Brand evangelism evokes consumers' affection and admiration for the brand (Riorini and Widayat, 2015) and their commitment through active purchase or purchase intention. Evangelists show a strong psychological and emotional commitment to the brand, with their behaviour including (Dwyer et al. 2015; Riivits-Arkonsuo et al., 2015):
- promoting through communicating positive information, ideas and feelings about a particular brand - either through traditional word of mouth (WOM) or electronic channels (eWOM),
- co-creating the overall brand image by actively engaging in discussions about brand attributes with other consumers,
- purchasing products from a favourite brand,
- influencing the behaviour of other consumers,
- performing the function of an unpaid spokesperson for the brand,
- opposing/disparaging competing brands.
The generally accepted multidimensional approach to brand evangelism dominates research (Beccera and Badrinarayanan, 2013; Mvondo et al., 2022) and is based on three dimensions: brand purchase intention, positive brand referrals, and oppositional brand referrals. However, Harrigan et al. (2020) claim that, in the service sector, evangelism is a construct with two dimensions: brand defence and brand advocacy, arising as a result of co-creation. While Sharma et al. (2021) highlighted the role of brand evangelism in actively endorsing and defending brands, Harrigan et al. (2020) stress that brand defence and brand advocacy must first be earned with consumers. There has to be a reason to evangelise brand and - as Panda et al. (2020: 4) note, evangelism marketing "aims to make buyers believe in the brand so much they are compelled to tell others about it". Evangelism is the result of the strong emotional relationship of a brand with a customer (Sohaib et al., 2022), consumer-brand relationship "evolves and changes over a series of interactions" (Fournier, 1998: 344) with brands anthropomorphized by consumers. Fournier stresses that "the premise that consumer actions affect relationship form and dynamics is easily accepted" (Fournier, 1998: 344). Creating an inspiring brand experience encourages the customer to share their enthusiasm with others (Meiners et al., 2010) - passionate consumers evangelize (Matzler et al., 2007), with evangelic behaviour varying from one consumer to another.
Kang et al. (2020) highlight the growing interest within the scientific community in investigating the consumer-brand relationship as well as its relevance for and impact on brand value. In today's digital environment, the power of this relationship lies in the ability of consumers to spread information quickly and widely, consequently influencing the behaviour of other consumers. Hutter et al. (2013) suggest that social media enhances consumers' brand awareness and their involvement in WOM, stimulates future purchase intentions and provides numerous opportunities for promotional activities. Social media has revolutionized communication between companies and consumers, as well as communication between consumers, facilitating evangelists' access to others and ability to share information about brands they support (Doss, 2014). Indeed, Sharma et al. (2021) emphasize the importance of social media-based brand communities for promoting brand evangelistic behaviour.
In the context of consumer-brand relationships, brand evangelism is an important mechanism (Nobi et al., 2021) which has been studied in numerous areas such as media (Latonero and Shklovski, 2011), politics (Gay, 2000), banking (Riorini and Widayat, 2015), hospitality industry (Mvondo et al., 2022), IT activities (Cestare and Ray, 2019), e-shops (Zhu and Park, 2022), the higher education (Amani, 2022), management (Malhotra et al., 2015), sports (Gholami and Kalateh, 2020), green brand evangelism in hospitality (Sohaib et al., 2022), etc.
Efangelism is a new concept in marketing literature, derived from the concept of brand evangelization. In the seminal study, which introduced the concept and measurement instrument, efangelism was defined as "behaviour predicated by one's relationship with a team brand and activated through the fervent dissemination of team-related beliefs and team-centered interactions" (Dwyer et al., 2015: 646). Four dimensions of evangelism have been conceptualised as advertising, advocacy, antagonizing, and assimilating. Advertising is defined as behaviour including "publicizing of team affiliation on automobiles, at work, online, or through gifts to others." (Dwyer et al., 2015: 649). The advocacy dimension refers to the "internalization and advocacy of team superiority to others, including strangers" (Dwyer et al. 2015: 649). The antagonizing dimension refers to "provocative behavior with family and/or friends who are not fans of one's favorite team" (Dwyer et al., 2015: 649). Finally, the dimension of assimilation represents "outgoing group assimilation, including game day behaviour related to special gettogethers, communication, and apparel choice." (Dwyer et al., 2015: 649).
Subsequent studies implementing the efangelism concept include a sport evangelism demographics study (Yuksekbilgili, 2018), efangelism-based segmentation of sports fans (Park et al., 2021), investigation of sports team evangelism behaviours among students (Gelen et al., 2022), investigation of the relationship between the level of evangelization and purchase intentions (Yüzgenç et al, 2022) and study on the interaction of fanaticism and evangelism in football (Karafil and Akgül, 2022).
As noted previously, today's omnipresence and availability of communication technologies have contributed to the strengthening of bonds between fans and the club and increased the importance of fan evangelism in sports. Evangelistic behaviour of the fans is manifested through the enthusiastic dissemination of the beliefs related to the supported clubs during interactions with others (Dwyer et al., 2015). Organized fan groups are the best example of such behaviours. They operate on the principle of attending home and away matches in an organized manner, buying and wearing club insignia, donating money, etc. Additionally, they engage in antagonistic behaviours towards rival clubs (e.g. spreading negative messages and information about them).
Although sports are linked with an individual's sense of passion (Yuksekbilgili, 2018), professional football is also a big business. By improving their understanding of both fan behaviour and their psychological characteristics, clubs can improve their relations with fans and thereby improve the commercial side of their business. Evangelism is thus important from an economic point of view because evangelistic fans voluntarily and actively participate in the activities of promoting products and services offered by sports clubs (Altin et al., 2020). They act as voluntary spokespersons for the brand, and their efforts can reach the point of preaching in an attempt to convert others (Anggraini, 2018).
Fans differ in many ways, and it is not easy to segment the sports market and generalize the results. Various segmentation studies classify sports fans based on different attributes such as gender (Yuksekbilgili, 2018), attitudinal and/or behavioural loyalty (Altin et al., 2020), family income (Küçükibiş and Yurtsızoǧlu, 2019) and level of education (Yaşar and Turǧut, 2019). However, these studies attempt to segment sports fans based on their socio-demographic characteristics and loyalties, rather than on their observable behaviours. Park et al. (2021) were the first to notice this research gap in marketing literature and were the first to segment football fans based on their evangelistic behaviour using Funk and James' (2001) psychological continuum model (PCM) as a conceptual framework. Park et at. (2021) base their research on the assumption that fans go through different PCM hierarchical stages of involvement with their club (awareness, attraction, attachment, and allegiance). Furthermore, they view this relationship as not a static one, but rather as continuous and dependent on time and context. Such aview of fans' psychological attachment to a sports team was first identified by de Groot and Robinson (2008) in their investigation of the individual's journey from initial attraction to eventual allegiance to the team. Doyle et al. (2013) empirically tested the involvement-based PCM segmentation procedure on sports spectators. Their findings suggest that the PCM is an appropriate framework to investigate fan development and an excellent segmentation tool, capable of helping marketers to better understand their heterogeneous fan bases and to make the right marketing decisions.
Park et al. (2021) segmented the market and identified three clusters of fans: Evangelists, Mild supporters, and Stationary fans. Evangelists represent the club's "most enthusiastic and passionate fans" (Park et al., 2021:11) who provide the greatest support to their club and are active in all forms of evangelistic behaviour. When considered within the PCM framework, evangelists are at the stage of allegiance, reflecting their full attachment to a sports team. Unlike evangelists, mild supporters are at the PCM stage of attachment, in which the team is gradually integrated into the individual's self-concept. Finally, stationary fans are passive fans who periodically visit sports events and are at the PCM stage of attraction in which the individual starts forming a positive attitude towards the team. While findings from Park et al. (2021) pave the way to understanding the behavioural consequences of consumers' evolution as fans, they also open some important questions. Namely, due to differences that are present between the consumption behaviours of sports fans in Asia and Europe, the question of applicability and replicability of findings from Asian contexts emerges. As Rowe and Gilmour (2010) note, sports fans' loyalties in Asia are flexible and dependent on factors such as team success, media coverage, celebrity endorsement, etc. Such fandom is very different from fandom in traditional football markets (primarily in European countries) where tribalistic attachment to place, origin, and club shapes fandom and fan behaviour. Additionally, as indicated by Doyle et al. (2013), psychological connections between fans and sports objects have temporal dynamics, changing and evolving. Thus, it would be reasonable to presume that higher levels of fans' psychological connection with the sports object (team) will be absent or at least less prominent among fans in new football markets (in this case - The South Korean market). Based on the preceding discussion, the following research questions have been defined:
RQ1: Does efangelism scale consistently provide actionable insights in terms of segmentation of fans?
RQ2: To what extent are findings related to segmentation of fans universal or particular to certain social environment and sports context? As previously indicated, to address this question, findings from Park et al. (2021) will be compared with the indings based on empirical research of a traditional football market - namely, Croatian.
Beyond simply replicating findings from Park et al. (2021), answers to these question could have significant implications for management of fan communities across the globe, as well as on transferability of sports marketing practices.
3. Research methodology
To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study replicating Park et al. (2021) in a country (Croatia) where football can be categorised as a traditional sport. By combining PCM and eFangelism in the context of a market with a long football tradition, and comparing findings from Park et al. (2021) the authors aim to investigate the parallel evolution of involvement and corresponding behaviours among football fans in a traditional market and identify similarities and differences across traditional and new markets.
Primary data were collected cross-sectionally, using a non-probability sample of adult fans of a professional football club during January 2022. For the research, a questionnaire was distributed using the Qualtrics XM platform. Respondents were recruited via forum pages and social networks (mainly through open and closed football club fan Facebook groups). A total of 392 respondents filled out the questionnaire, and - after screening for interrupted questionnaires and missing data, 370 of them were included in the final sample.
The questionnaire consisted of close-ended questions, organised into two segments - general socio-demographic questions and the segment consisting of elements adopted from measurement scales related to constructs under study. In the first part of the questionnaire, questions concerning the general characteristics of the respondents such as gender, age, level of education, personal and household income, companion, and average spending in the stadium were included. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of the eFangelizm scale (Dwyer et al., 2015) adopted for the context of the study (in terms of club references). The scale consists of 14 items measuring four previously discussed dimensions: advertising, advocacy, assimilation and antagonism. For fan satisfaction, the scale developed by Lee et al. (2000) consisting of 5 items was used. All items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale.
The data were analysed using SPSS 24.0 and AMOS packages to determine the clusters of fans of the professional football club, their level of satisfaction, and the differences existing between them.
4. Empirical data and analysis
The sample consisted of self-identified fans of a professional Croatian football club. Out of a total of 370 respondents, 286 (77.3%) were men, and 84 (22.7%) were women. The largest number of respondents (136; 36.8%) belong to the age group between 25 and 34 years. Furthermore, 66 (17.8%) respondents were from the 18-24 age group, 94 (25.4%) from the 35-44 age group, 57 (15.4%) from the 45-55 age group, and 14 (3.8%) from 55-64 years old age group. The largest number of respondents, (174; 47%) were married, 2 (0.5%) were widowed, 112 (30.3%) were single, and 71 (19.2%) respondents were in a relationship. The group with marital status separated had 11 (3%) respondents.
In terms of income, the largest number of respondents (134; 36.2%) have an average personal income of more than 1,000 EUR. The remaining personal income ranges are distributed as follows: 40 (10.8%) fall in the 400-600 range, 57 (15.4%) have less than 400, 79 (21.4%) have 601-800, while 60 (16.2%) have an average personal income in the range of 801-1,000 (all ranges expressed in EUR). In terms of total household income, the largest number of respondents - 184 (49.7%) have a total household income of more than 1,600 EUR. The remaining household income ranges are distributed as follows: 34 (9.2%) have less than 800, 51 (13.8%) have 800-1,100, and 101 (27.3%) have 1,101-1,600 (all ranges are expressed in EUR).
Regarding employment status, the majority of respondents - 257 (69.5%) were employed. The remaining respondents were retired (9; 2.4%), students (72; 19.5%), or unemployed (32; 8.6%). As for education, the majority of respondents (142; 38.4%) completed secondary school, and 6 (1.6%) completed primary school. 107 (28.9%) completed undergraduate studies, while 100 (27%) completed graduate studies. A total of 15 (4.1%) respondents completed postgraduate studies.
Regarding the attendance of football matches, the majority of respondents indicated going to matches with close friends (69.9%) or family members (16.2%). Organized attendance with other fans or fan groups was indicated by 9.3% of respondents, and 4.6% go completely alone.
In terms of purchases during the match, the majority of respondents either buy nothing at the stadium (14.9%) or buy very little (36.8%). Those who do make purchases spend 10-15 EUR (31.5%) or more (8.9% spend from 15.01-20 EUR and 7.9% more than 20 EUR).
Cluster analysis was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed followed by the non-hierarchical cluster analysis in the second phase. Hierarchical clustering methods are initially used to determine the number of clusters to expect. Ward's clustering method (minimum variance) was used, as it provides the most accurate estimate of the number of clusters that are equal in size. Agglomeration hierarchical algorithms are fairly simple and their solutions can be intuitively read from the dendrogram, however, the interpretation of the results is subjective (Ungaro, 2016). The result of the hierarchical cluster analysis revealed four clusters of fans, support for which can be found in previous research, with similar sizes and minimal variances within the clusters.
In the second phase, a non-hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using the K-means algorithm (eng. centroid-based clustering) on four predefined clusters. This procedure resulted in assigning the fans to predefined clusters (see Table 1).
Additionally, discriminant analysis (see Table 2) was performed to determine the extent to which the model, based on the dimensions of eFangelism, is able to predict the actual membership in the cluster. For that purpose, the results and the validity of the clustering procedure were tested. Three statistically significant canonical discriminant functions were used in the analysis, with resulting canonical correlation values: 0.919; 0.757, and 0.361. The eigenvalues of the first two discriminant functions are 5.429 and 1.345 and combined they explain 97.8% of the variance of the research model.
The results of Wilks' lambda, which were used to test the discriminant functions, were statistically significant, and the first two values were close to 0. By looking at the classification matrix, it was determined that with 97.6% of the fans, the effectiveness of the functions was confirmed. Finally, it can be concluded that the four sub-dimensions of eFanangelism (advertise, advocate, antagonize, assimilate) do act as strong predictors and that the model is accurate, statistically significant, and capable of predicting cluster membership.
As shown in Table 1, the first cluster (eFAngelists) contains 99 respondents and has the highest mean values for all four factors (dimensions) of eFangelism - advertising (M=4.45; SD=0.56), advocacy (M=4.66; SD=0.48), assimilation (M=4.49; SD=0.56) and antagonizing (M=3.80; SD=0.88). Second cluster (pacifists) consists of 125 active fans who do not express antagonism towards rival clubs. Their mean values for advertising (M=3.85; SD=0.75), advocacy (M=4.18; SD=0.72), assimilation (M=3.94; SD=0.81) are fairly high, while mean value of antagonizing (M=1.52; SD=0.59) was the lowest across all clusters. Mild supporters (67) report moderate values with all four evangelism factors, with the value for advertising (M=2.09; SD=0.63) being lowest, and relatively equal means for advocacy (M=3.41; SD=0.93), assimilation (M=3.35; SD=0.69) and antagonizing (M=3.23; SD=0.97). Finally, stationary fans (79 of them) display relatively low mean values for advertising (M=1.53; SD=0.67), advocacy (M=2.05; SD=0.91), assimilation (M=1.85; SD=0.72) and antagonizing (M=1.63; SD=0.82).
In order to determine if there is a difference between the identified clusters, analysis of variance (One-way ANOVA) was undertaken along with a posthoc Tukey test for each of the four eFangelism dimensions. Based on the results of variance analysis (F=388.152; p<0.01) and posthoc Tukey test, there is a statistically significant difference among average values for advertising dimension between clusters. Furthermore, variance analysis (F =200.163, p<0.01; F=221.273, p<0.01) and posthoc Tukey test indicate differences between four identified clusters for advocacy and assimilation dimensions. In terms of the antagonising dimension, the results (F=200.701, p<0.01) show a statistically significant difference among some of the average values for this dimension between clusters. However, a post hoc comparison of Tukey's test shows no significant differences in average values for these dimensions for pacifist and stationary fan clusters. It can be concluded that the results shown in Table 1 undoubtedly show statistically significant differences (p<0.001) between the majority of average values of efangelism dimensions for the four cluster solution. Post-hoc comparisons using Tukey's test show significant differences between mean values for efangelism dimensions across four clusters, with the only exception being valued for antagonizing dimension, for which mean values are not significantly different for clusters 2 and 4.
In order to identify the attributes of each cluster as well as to measure the satisfaction of cluster members, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed (see Table 3). The results show no statistically significant differences between identified clusters in terms of member's age, marital status, and modality of match attendance (i.e. companion type or lack thereof). Gender and personal income are attributes on which there are significant differences between the four clusters identified in this research. Values of average household income and consumption during the match (within the stadium) were borderline significant (i.e. they were insignificant at p=0.05 but significant at p=0.1), hence it would be reasonable to conclude that clusters in fact differ on those characteristics.
When examining the characteristics of each cluster - efangelists enjoy the company of other fans and rarely go alone to matches (only 3.3% of them). They have relatively higher average household income (54.6% are in the range from 800 to 1,600 EUR) and 62% of them spend more than 10 EUR each time they attend a match. Efangelists pacifists are characterized by very positive attitudes and behaviour as they do not express antagonism towards rival clubs (lowest medium value M=1.52). In this group 40.8% have personal income higher than 1,000 EUR, however, 56.2% of them spend less than 10 EUR when attending match day. Compared to other clusters, women are less represented in this group (15.2%). Also, the largest percentage of respondents from this group (20.7%) attend matches with members of their family. Among mild supporters, 65% are younger than 35 years of age, with relatively fewer married individuals (37.3%).
They attend matches mainly with friends (81.5%), have relatively modest personal income (47.8% have less than 800 EUR), and 60.8% do not make purchases or spend very little when visiting the stadium. Similarly to mild supporters, stationary fans have modest incomes with personal (59.4 %) and household (15.2 %) incomes of less than 800 EUR. At the same time, this group is the weakest consumers when talking about spending on stadiums during match day (62.9% spend less than 10 EUR or nothing at all). They are mainly attending matches due to persuasion and with close friends, and - compared to other clusters, have the largest proportion of female members (35%).
Results presented in Table 4 show that there is a statistically significant difference (F=6.992; p<0.001) between some of the average values of fan satisfaction for the observed four clusters. Despite the test results, the actual difference in the average values between the clusters is quite small. A post-hoc comparison using Tukey's test reveals that only the average value of fan satisfaction in the fourth cluster (stationary fans) significantly differs from the values for the remaining three clusters while the average values of fan satisfaction for the first three clusters do not differ significantly.
5.Results and discussion
The analysis revealed four clusters of fans: efangelists, efangelist pacifists, mild supporters, and stationary fans - a finding differing from the study conducted in South Korea (Park et al., 2021), in which only three clusters were identified. Analysis of the resulting clusters revealed different characteristics and behaviours among fans. With the conceptual framework of this study being based on PCM, those differences can be interpreted according to different levels of involvement of fans with supported teams. Efangelist and efangelist pacifists are at the PCM stage of allegiance - they are highly involved in various forms of evangelistic behaviours except for antagonising behaviours among pacifists, as they hardly show any desire to harm or/and derogate rival fans or teams. Mild supporters are at the PCM stage of attachment, they are mostly younger people, with great fan potential, who show that they are currently moderately involved in evangelistic behaviours. Stationary fans are at the PCM stage of attraction, showing low levels of involvement in all four types of evangelistic behaviours, while ultimately still being fans of the club. In summary, these findings indicate that fans with different levels of involvement show different patterns of evangelistic behaviours. Consequently, evangelists and pacifist evangelists are most important for the club as - with their passionate behaviour and commitment to the club, they can encourage other clusters of fans as well as potential fans to connect more with the club and participate more in the club's activities. They are financially independent, which facilitates their evangelizing behaviour. The results show that efangelists in Croatia, similarly to South Korean fans, tend to spend more money at the stadium and socialize more with other fans. Their passion should be continuously developed and their loyalty to the club used since they represent an effective marketing force. Pacifist evangelists are a segment not recognised in the Korean study. They represent fans who exhibit positive behaviours and attend matches with their family members. However, although they have relatively high incomes, on average they spend very little at the stadium. It is indicative that they are not satisfied with the quality and/or quantity of match day hospitality offers at the stadium, making that an aspect of service at the stadium which needs to be improved. Compared to evangelist fans, mild supporters and occasional stationary fans have lower incomes. Also, they - most often, visit the stadium alone or with close friends. Interestingly, mild supporters, in addition to being great advocates for their team, have a strong desire to harm and trash-talk the opponent. This finding resonates with findings from South Korea, where the Mild supporter cluster also had relatively high values for antagonising behaviours, albeit lower than the one in Croatia.
In contrast to findings from South Korea, where the cluster of stationary fans primarily consists of students, stationary fans in the Republic of Croatia are usually older (the majority is 25+ years old) passive fans who rarely go to stadiums. When they do go, it's mostly due to persuasion from their friends, family, or partners. Most often, these are derby match fans who are not satisfied with the quality of league football and players or individuals to whom football does not provide a sufficient amount of entertainment and who do not want to spend their free time in poorly maintained stadiums.
Analysing the demographic characteristics of the clusters, no statistically significant differences regarding the age and marital status of fans depending on the patterns of their evangelistic behaviour were found. However, in both studies, there is a statistically significant difference related to consumption in and around the stadium during the match day. While the differences are marginally significant they are nevertheless observable, with fans who reported higher personal and household incomes spending significantly more in and around the stadium. The finding of significant statistical differences between clusters based on their gender structure contradicts the findings from the previous study. The difference is likely an indicator of the fact that football as a sport is significantly more popular among women in South Korea than it is in Croatia (EU). This realization can be a guide for marketers in football to focus their efforts more on developing marketing programs through which they will animate, activate and involve the female part of the population in activities related to the daily functioning of clubs and/or the development of different sports.
As already noted, contrary to the Park et al. (2021) findings, statistically significant differences in average personal and household income have been confirmed between clusters. Income is a prerequisite for fans' efangelistic behaviour, such as attending matches, buying annual subscriptions or memberships, or buying club merchandise. Considering the fact that the average standard of living in South Korea is significantly higher than in Croatia, the difference in the research results is not surprising. However, it is indicative that - with equal opportunities for evangelistic behaviour, Croatian fans reserve a higher portion of total income for football fandom-related expenditures. A very distinct difference between this and the South Korean study, has to do with the type of the company (or lack thereof) fans attend matches with. Namely, when Croatian fans are concerned, no significant differences were identified between clusters in this regard. Finally, when talking about fan satisfaction, the differences between the clusters - while statistically significant, in reality, were quite small and show that the satisfaction differs substantially (and is lower) only for the cluster of stationary fans.
6.Conclusions
The aim of this study was to validate the efangelism scale as a segmentation framework in the football context and to compare segmentation outcomes between new and traditional football markets. For that purpose, this study applies the efangelism-framework-based segmentation of fans in the context of the Croatian football league. Being the first empirical study of this kind conducted in a market with a long tradition of football fandom, the findings offer strong support for the use of efangelism (framework and scale) as a robust tool providing interpretable and actionable results in terms of fan segmentation and in understanding fans' outward behaviours. Additionally, used in conjunction with the results from the original study, findings from this research provide insights into the dynamics of fan behaviour across different markets which warrant further research. Namely, the results show discrepancies in the number and types of resulting segments with four distinct groups of consumers surfacing in the Croatian case - one more than the original study, thus confirming our working hypothesis. While it would be erroneous to draw any finite conclusions regarding such findings, they are certainly indicative of differences across markets, raising questions about potential driving factors behind them and opening routes for further investigation. Significant underlying differences in the psychological connection between fans and sports teams, reflected in the findings of this study, with Croatian fans displaying higher levels of such connections, imply a need for a different approach to marketing and managing relations with fan communities. In an environment where football is constantly becoming more globalised and ever-increasingly commodified, the findings of this study can have wider implications, serving as an important reminder about the differences between new and traditional football markets. These differences call for different approaches in developing marketing strategies, with new markets being more open to promotional activities while old markets show more personal engagement of fans in their relationships with football clubs, and requiring an adjusted approach in terms of promotional activities in order not to alienate most passionate fans.
The results of this study should be viewed in the context of its limitations. Although the sample size is substantial, the non-probability, purposive nature of the sample resulted in a limited ability to encompass a full variety of fan characteristics. Furthermore, although the survey was anonymous, the potential for both social desirability in some of the answers and self-selection bias must be recognised. The additional limitation lies in the fact that only one club and only one sport (football) were included in the research. Therefore, the results are very specific, referring only to a limited group of football fans, and not to the general population. The research is cross-sectional, so the results might be influenced by the current results of the club, which also should be pointed out as one of the potential limitations. A longitudinal study of efangelism dynamics would be most welcome as fan behaviours change over time. As noted in the introductory discussion, segmentation studies in sports have generally focused on the socio-demographic characteristics of fans rather than on their observable behaviours, limiting the ability to compare and critically evaluate findings from this study in the wider context of segmentation research. Thus, future research should provide additional empirical testing of both the applicability of efangelism scale in this context as well as the structure of resulting segments. Determinants of the observed differences should be additionally studied in order to improve understanding of the underlying mechanics driving fan behaviour. Some potential routes of investigation could include the study of differences between markets in general as well as the extent to which idiosyncrasies of a particular team's role in a community determine fan behaviours. Accordingly, conducting longitudinal research in several different countries could aid in investigating the influence of cultural differences on the evangelizing behaviour of fans. Furthermore, it is suggested to conduct research on a larger number of fans of several different clubs from the territory of the Republic of Croatia, as well as on clubs from different sports, in order to identify similarities and differences in evangelic behaviours across clubs and sports. Provided that the sample is representative, fans of different teams in the same football league might exhibit differently structured clusters, depending on a number of determinants (e.g. club history, image, historical and actual results). It would be interesting to investigate the level of evangelism among fans of a specific sport (e.g. football) or sports in general and compare it with the level of team evangelism. In conclusion, it can be argued that the fans can be the biggest strength as well as the biggest weakness of sports clubs. Only through understanding and investing in fans can clubs achieve long-term mutual satisfaction, which can lay a foundation for their professional success.
Received: 08-03-2023; accepted: 26-06-2023
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Abstract
Profesionalni je nogomet područje poslovanja u kojem razumijevanje navijača predstavlja preduvjet dugoročnog komercijalnog uspjeha klubova. Fokus ovog rada je na segmentaciji nogometnih navijača temeljem njihovog ponašanja i utvrdivanju razlika medu identificiranim segmentima. Istraživanje je provedeno jednokratno, a podaci su prikupljeni online anketom koja je obuhvatila 370 ispitanika, uzorkovanih korištenjem namjernog prigodnog uzorka. Za potrebe segmentacije korištena je ljestvica eFangelizma - koja kategorizira evangelizacijska ponašanja u četiri temeljna oblika: promoviranje, zagovaranje, asimilacija i antagoniziranje. Podaci su analizirani pomoću hijerarhijske i ne-hijerarhijske klaster analize, ANOVA i post-hoc Tukey testa. Rezultati potvrduju primjenjivost koncepta navijačke evangelizacije (eFangelizma). Identificirane su četiri segmenta nogometnih navijača temeljem evangelizacijskih ponašanja. Dani su sažeti profili svakog od klastera i raspravljene razlike medu njima. Nalazi ove studije mogu biti korisni praktičarima u domeni marketinga sporta. Naime, nalazi pružaju okvir za prilagodbu elemenata marketinške strategije posebnostima različitih segmenata identificiranih kroz studiju.