The Effects of Sponsorship Termination on the Sponsored Team’s Fans and Rival Fans: A Choice Modelling Experiment

Several recent studies have suggested that sponsorship termination could negatively affect the attitudes of the sponsored team’s fans toward the exiting sponsor. However, such studies have not investigated the effects of termination on the brand equity of the exiting brand using measures of personal behaviour (e.g., preferences and willingness to pay). Moreover, the previous research has only focused on the fans of the sponsored team, neglecting the fans of the sponsored team’s rival. This study addresses these two limitations with two experiments utilising a choice modelling experiment and incorporating longitudinal data from two time points. The first experiment showed that sponsorship termination could reduce the value of the brand among the previously sponsored team’s fans. The second experiment failed to find a significant positive change in the value of the exiting brand among the rival fans.