Importance of winning, schadenfreude, team identification and loyalty: exploring relationships with survey data from Turkey

Abstract

Sports marketing literature indicates that there are important relationships between importance of winning, schadenfreude, team identification, attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. The purpose of this study is to investigate importance of winning, schadenfreude on team identification and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty in the context of soccer. A structural model based on relationships is proposed in this study to explore the influence of importance of winning, schadenfreude on team identification and fans’ loyalty. Convenience sampling was chosen in this study and empirical data were collected among soccer fans via an online and self-administration questionnaire. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model with Amos 20.0 software. Findings indicate that there were a significant and strong relationship between team identification and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Furthermore, this paper shows that team identification was a mediator between importance of winning and schadenfreude, and loyalty. The results of this research have significant implications for the practice of sports marketing. Having said that, the study has significant implications as to how soccer teams’ managers should be interpreting these variables or phenomenon.