The Influence of New Team Entry upon Brand Switching in the J-League

Abstract

The present study (a) explored how brand switching occurs among professional soccer fans under the situation of a new team entry and (b) examined the relationship between brand switching and team identification. This study focused on the behavior of spectators at sampled games held at the home stadiums of the three J-League (Japan Professional Football League) and JFL (Japan Football League) teams located in hometowns in the same region, the Kansai area in Japan. This study chronologically followed changes in the fan behavior during the 1994 and 1995 seasons. A total of two surveys were conducted in the 1994 and 1995 seasons. The numbers of effective respondents were 1,414 (recovery ratio of 99.0%) in the 1994 survey and 2,844 (recovery ratio of 98.5%) in the 1995 survey. Analyses were conducted for only those who answered “Yes” to the question “Are you rooting for the home team in today's game?” The numbers of persons who answered “Yes” to this question were 1,201 (85.4% of total subjects) in the 1994 survey, and 2,275 (80.0%) in the 1995 survey.

The respondents filled out a questionnaire eliciting their team-switching behavior. In addition, the actual attendance at soccer games during 1994 and 1995 was also used in the analyses. To measure team identification, 14 items were selected mostly from 17 items of a group identity scale (Murrell & Dietz, 1992). Two factor analyses of 14 items for both the 1994 and 1995 seasons revealed personal and community factors. The results of the analyses suggested that many fans with weaker team identification, including personal and community factors, switched from the existing team to the new teams during the 1994 and 1995 seasons. The detailed results are reported, and implications are discussed.

The first professional football league (J-League) in Japan was established in 1993. The J-League was created by adopting the approach employed by Peter Ubberoth in the Los Angeles Olympic Games of studying strong points of various world professional sports and by utilizing advertising agencies. At this time, with the help of a growing awareness among companies of social contribution and with the maturation of the Japanese economy, a modern sport business was born.

As exemplified by baseball, most Japanese professional sport teams have been owned by companies without strong links to the localities where the teams are franchised. In contrast, the J-League has emphasized strong links to localities and attached importance to the establishment of a hometown system. This led many municipalities without large companies to show interest in owning professional football teams.

The first fiscal year of the J-League was very successful, with an average of nearly 20,000 spectators in each game and 30-billion-yen ($300-million US) sales of J-League-related goods (Tsushosangy osho Sabisusangyoka, 1994). Without links to specific companies, the J-League was welcomed by local governments that intended to promote local development and urban marketing; enthusiasm for fostering professional football teams prevailed throughout Japan.

However, the spectators for specific J-League teams began to change as the J-League entered its second and third years. A remarkable difference was apparent between teams that increased their spectators and those that experienced a decrease in spectators. In general, professional teams with decreasing spectators have problems such as poor performance and a lack of star players. In the case of the J-League, however, the increasing number of teams can be suggested as a problem.

Besides some empirically deduced figures, no demonstrative studies have been conducted regarding the optimum number of teams within a league. Although it probably depends on such complicated factors as cultural and economic situations and the popularity of sports in a nation having a professional league, the number of teams should be appropriate in accordance with the number of fans as a whole. This is exemplified by the American Professional Soccer League, which was established in 1977; the league increased the number of teams from 10 to 27, but eventually faced managerial difficulties.

The J-League was started in 1993 with 10 teams. Thereafter, two teams were added each year, resulting in 12 teams in 1994 and 14 teams in 1995. In terms of the market area of professional sports team, Noll (1991) argued that most fans live within 20 miles of the fran-chised stadium. In addition, 10–20% of a team's income is lost when there is a competitive team of the same professional sport within the same region. Thus, each team tends to avoid having its hometown in the same area with other teams and competing with them. In the case of Japan, where space is limited and population is centered on urban areas, the presence of multiple professional teams of the same sport is unavoidable.

It is assumed that more than one professional sport team in the same sports compete to obtain their attendance with each other in the same area. People might quit being one team's fan and become another team's fan. In other words, brand switching may happen among professional sport fans.