Team sports fan loyalty, particularly is different from brand loyalty. In brand loyalty as much as if a consumer buy a product that is of lower quality than expected, consumer usually abandon allegiance to the brand. However, in fan loyalty consumer continues to buy team products even if the team that the fan supports continues to perform poorly. In Nature of Sports Marketing Article authors Andre Bubbler and Gear Infer studied this subject. They mentioned that sports consumers are different in numerous ways from ordinary consumers of ordinary companies.
For example this is specially clear in soccer supporters. Authors made 3 important comments about soccer supporters behaviors. They mentioned that first, soccer supporters are usually more passionate about their favorite football club than consumers are about their preferred brand. Second, fans show a high level of loyalty to their team. Dempsey and Reilly (1998) explain this loyalty with the fact that supporters find something in football that they cannot find anywhere else, e. G. The escape from the ordinary work a day world, the adrenalin rush and thrill of a match or the feeling of being part of a community.
Therefore, fans pledge allegiances to their clubs. Passion and loyalty leads to the third difference: football fans are often irrational in their consumer behavior. Purchase decision are seldom taken on commercial grounds, or as Cashmere (2003) puts it: ‘Part of being a fan involves buying all manner of product related to the object of adulation’ regardless of price or quality. A related consequence of loyalty is the fact that football supporters don’t have a real choice when it comes to purchase decisions. While ordinary consumers may have their preferences, they normally have a choice between several products.
Football supporters, however, would rarely change to another club only because the ticket price of the competitor is more reasonable. The whole issue of fan loyalty, irrational consumer behavior, passion, identity and identification lead economic analysts and professional investors to the conclusion that football supporters are ‘captive consumers
