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Football fans and stakeholder theory – A qualitative approach to classifying fans in Germany

Johannes Jaeger (Institute of Economics and Business, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg, Erlangen, Germany)

Sport, Business and Management

ISSN: 2042-678X

Article publication date: 4 August 2021

Issue publication date: 6 October 2021

1422

Abstract

Purpose

Public debates and scholarly literature on football fandom are often characterised by generalisation and lacking differentiation. The changing ethnography of fans, affected by the rapid commercialisation and internationalisation of the game, reinforces the demand for contemporary classification criteria and fan typologies that take the complexity and heterogeneity of fans into account and draw a more differentiated picture of fans and sub-groups.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the grounded theory methodology and a systematic literature review on stakeholder theory, stakeholder classification criteria and football fandom, the authors conduct and analyse 14 semi-structured expert interviews with fan managers employed by German professional football clubs. Building on the analysis, the authors identify, present and discuss ten contemporary criteria and five corresponding typologies for the classification of football fans.

Findings

The grounded theory analysis suggests that football fans can be characterised according to ten classification criteria. Building on the analysis, the authors derive five fan typologies that differ in their characteristics along the continua of the identified criteria. Typologies comprise (1) active fans, (2) consuming fans, (3) event fans, (4) corporate fans and (5) passive followers.

Originality/value

The paper enlarges prior knowledge on the behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of fans as individuals and adds knowledge regarding relationships within fan groups, and regarding formal and non-formal relations between fans and clubs. The results provide scholars with a framework for further scientific investigation and practitioners with a concept for a more sophisticated and differentiated approach to managing fan relations.

Keywords

Citation

Jaeger, J. (2021), "Football fans and stakeholder theory – A qualitative approach to classifying fans in Germany", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp. 598-619. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-11-2020-0127

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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