Supporter attitudes towards league governance in emerging football markets: evidence from fans of the Chinese Super League

Abstract

ABSTRACT Purpose/rationale Chinese football governance has dramatically changed during the last decade. Consequently, the organisation of the top-tiered Chinese Super League (CSL) developed from a rigid communist, state-governed model to a commercialised market, though still under governmental influence. Football fans became a key stakeholder group following this organisational change. Therefore, this study examines supporters’ attitudes towards the governance of their domestic league. Design/methodology/approach Active fans of the CSL (N = 453) were surveyed via clustered intercept sampling outside the stadium gates at five matches with ten different teams involved to ensure the reliability, validity and variance of responses. The data were analysed by (ordered) logit regressions with respect to attitudes towards the commercialisation of the CSL with nearly fifty explanatory variables. Findings A key finding is that supporters tend to appreciate commercialisation as evidence of progress of the Chinese professional football. This attitude can be attributed largely to past governance failures of the CSL and the positive connotation of increased market orientation as a counterbalance to governmental control. Regression analyses, however, reveal the emerging characteristics of the Chinese fan culture and provide evidence of contradictions in the attitude patterns as well as a likely increase in fans’ resentment of more commercialisation. Research contribution The empirical insights into Chinese fan culture extend the understanding of the governance and commercialisation of professional football beyond the more researched European markets.