The Impact of Team Association on Attendees’ Product Knowledge and Purchase Intentions: A Case of Indian Premier League

Many research studies conducted in the recent past have found that the success of sports sponsorship depends much on consumers’ affiliation with the sport or a team. In order to understand the mechanics of the same, this study explores team–sponsor congruence, team identification and team involvement as exogenous variables to measure the attendees’ association with the team and its impact on their knowledge of the sponsor brand in order to ascertain the impact of their brand knowledge on the brand image of the sponsor and their purchase intentions. Using structural equation modelling technique, the study found that the attendees’ team association positively affects their knowledge of the sponsor brand, which in turn affects the sponsor image and purchase intention of the attendees. The study also found a weak direct association between the attendees’ product knowledge and their purchase intentions, implying the mediation of sponsor image. The study’s strength is in its sample of the respondents who were filtered for their high interest in the sport and the team (cricket and KXIP, respectively) under study. After selecting a team from the Indian Premier League (IPL) and analysing the responses of on-ground sport fans, the study provides valuable insights for the organizations which do or intend to sponsor a team in professional sport.