Managing Athlete Brands in Transgressions: Influence of Athlete Performance Level and the Severity of the Transgression on Consumer Perceptions of the Athlete

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of athlete’s performance level and their severity of transgression on individuals’ attitudes and willingness to forgive a transgressed athlete from a brand management perspective. Using an experimental study design, two sets of data were collected for Study 1 (n = 205) and Study 2 (n = 347) to test three hypotheses. The results of Study 1 showed that an athlete’s performance level had a main effect on participants’ attitudes (H1) and willingness to forgive (H2). In addition to confirming H1, the results of Study 2 confirmed that there was an interaction between an athlete’s performance level and severity of transgression on participants’ willingness to forgive (H3). The participants showed a higher level of willingness to forgive an athlete with an extraordinary performance level when it came to a minor transgression. The results suggest that high-performing athletes might be able to enjoy a less harsh response for a minor transgression but not for a major transgression. Overall, our work points to the foundation of a possible model that companies can employ in predicting consumer reactions after athlete transgressions in the context of an athlete’s endorsement.

Keywords:

• Willingness to forgive
• transgression
• attitude
• fan identification
• performance level
• severity of transgression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cindy Lee

Cindy Lee (Ph.D., Ohio State University), received her doctoral degree in sport management from the Ohio State University. She works as an associate professor in the Department of Sport Sciences at West Virginia University. Her research interest is applying principles of consumer behavior and psychology to the sport contexts, which helps understand and explain how and why sport spectators and fans behave in certain ways including decision makings. Her secondary research area is sponsorship mechanism and influencing factors on sponsorship effectiveness.

Hyejin Bang

Hyejin Bang (Ph.D., University of Minnesota), received her doctoral degree in Kinesiology (Sport Management emphasis) with a minor in Quantitative Research Method at the University of Minnesota. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Recreation, and School Psychology at Florida International University in Miami, FL, USA. Her primary research areas of interest include brand marketing in recreation and sport, physical activity and academic outcome among adolescents, interventions to prevent obesity in children and adolescents, organizational behavior and human resource management in sport, and volunteer management in sporting events and non-profit sport organizations.