Impact of soccer club kit sponsorships on buying behavior of fans

The research question of this research is: What is the impact of soccer club kit sponsorships on the likelihood of involved fans buying sponsors products? To what extent do attitude towards the kit sponsor and brand image of the kit sponsor mediate this effect? These questions were answered via an online questionnaire on Ajax-fans, AFC fans and on not involved people. The results of this research showed that Adidas’ soccer club kit sponsorship of Ajax (national and professional Dutch soccer club) lead to increased spending on Adidas products by Ajaxfans. Interestingly, attitude towards Adidas and brand image of Adidas fully mediated this relationship. However this was not the case for the relationship between AFC (local and amateur Dutch soccer club) fan involvement and spending on Nike products. Nevertheless, attitude towards Nike and brand image of Nike were both major and significant drivers of spending on Nike products. For the Ajax-Adidas and AFC-Nike model age and gender were not considered as significant effect modifiers in the final models.