Improving Corporate Brand Management to Increase Attractiveness of Professional Sports Clubs

Abstract

Since mid 2000s, Alpine skiing professional have pointed to the lack of appropriate branding practices among professional sports clubs, while simultaneously identifying corporate brands as a ‘hot topic’. This Thesis explores the challenges of brand management within professional sports clubs of Alpine skiers. The purpose of this study is to propose improvements to the corporate branding practices of sports clubs contributing towards attractiveness to young athletes. To this end, this Thesis defines the concept of corporate branding in the context of sports clubs. Next, this Thesis examines corporate brand management practices on the example of four Alpine ski clubs in Finland. To understand the relationship between corporate branding and its effects on being attractive to young elite skiers, this study explores the experiences and views of four clubs’ representatives, all from middle or top management who are all closely engaged with the development of young athletes. This is achieved through the usage of in-depth interviews with a number of key stakeholders. Results of the study show that corporate branding practices have a significant impact on the attractiveness, especially on the young athlete’s likelihood of staying in the sport. How-ever, implementation of corporate branding strategies and relevant daily practices remains predominantly overlooked by the studied Alpine ski clubs in Finland. Results outline several improvement suggestions related to the role of personal traits and servicescape for the corporate brand, that could result in the increased attractiveness of the sport overall, as well as that of the sports club for young athletes. For comparison, the study also involved the interviews with their peers in Italy for validation of the results.