LATVIAN FOOTBALL FANS ATTITUDES, INTENTIONS AND BEHAVIORS TOWARDS SPORT LICENSED PRODUCTS

Abstract

The current research show first part of  brand architecture and brand association, how are integrated to examine the role of the league brand on the relationship between the role of league brand consumer's support for individual teams is important for the successful management and marketing with licensed products of both leagues and teams. As this paper will show, professional sports teams unite to produce a league product that, while initially produced to provide entertainment for spectators, is now sold to four distinct groups: fans, associations, communities, and corporations. Justification and aim of the study. Income from licensed products is considered particularly important for football teams survival around the world. To date the research on the perceptions of sport team fans on the licensed football team products is scarce and particularly in the Baltics countries. In this line the present study was set to investigate the purchase intentions and behaviors towards licensed products as well as perceptions of experience, aesthetics and word of mouth for Latvian football fans. Material and methods. A self-completed online questionnaire was used for the purposes of the research and a total sample of 54 football team fans in Latvia was collected. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies, percentages, means, medians, standard deviations were calculated, Cronbach's α coefficient was also used to explore the reliability of the constructs. The analysis was run using the statistical program SPSS. Conclusions. The results revealed average purchase intentions and experience from the licensed products, while aesthetics and word of mouth were evaluated higher. The majority of the participants had bought licensed products of their favorite team. This study contributes to the existing theory and offers practical implications particularly for football teams that aim to increase their income by investing in the licensed merchandise.