The Development of a Scale to Measure Professional Sport Team Brand Associations

Although sport managers are beginning to view their teams, leagues, and properties as brands to be managed, the process by which brand associations are identified and measured is still in the developmental stage. At this point in time, only a small number of empirical research studies have examined brand associations, and even less research has focused on brand associations in the context of sport. Even though several quantitative instruments have been proposed, a valid and reliable scale of brand associations has yet to be developed. The current research sought to identify the professional sport team brand associations that consumers hold, and to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure those associations. Through the use of a free-thought listing technique, in combination with a confirmatory factor analysis procedure, the Team Brand Association Scale (TBAS) was developed. Eleven dimensions were identified as underlying consumer-held professional sport team brand associations. The 11 dimensions were non-player personnel, team success, team history, stadium community, team play characteristics, brand mark, commitment, organizational attributes, concessions, social interaction, and rivalry. The results provided evidence that existing instruments intended to assess sport team associations are inappropriate, and that existing models of brand associations and their application to sport should be reassessed. Support for this conclusion stems from the discrepancies in professional sport team brand associations elicited from sport consumers in the current study and those brand associations, specifically sport brand associations, proposed in previous research. Furthermore, the instrument provides a valid and reliable measure of the eleven categories identified by sport consumers as professional sport team associations. Through assessment of the scale validity and reliability, several points regarding scale development emerged. In addition, managerial implications and future research are presented.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Recreation, Sport and Tourism

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ross, Stephen Daniel

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jeffrey James

• Business Administration, Marketing

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3101959

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86002