Abstracts Vol. 5 (No.1 / 2008)

Michael Schilhaneck
Brand management in the professional sports club setting

Market studies regularly indicate that professional sports clubs lack appropriate branding practices. Consequently, it is the purpose of this paper to develop a conceptual framework which comprises strategic as well as operative brand management options for professional sports clubs. The principal idea is to choose a generally valid theoretic brand management approach which represents the present state of academic research and to modify it to the special requirements of the chosen field of analysis. The objectives of this procedure are first to identify club branding options and second to use those findings to design a special brand management model for the professional sports club setting which provides information about how to build and maintain strong club brands. To illustrate the model, examples from German league football will be used. Additionally, empirical evidence of the importance in practice of the club branding options will be provided.

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