Brand equity of professional sports franchises in mainland China.

摘要

The marketing of professional sports clubs and franchises is an emerging phenomenon in China that has ramifications for major sports teams in the United States and Europe. To determine the value of the brand equity of foreign sports franchises in Mainland China, this thesis developed a framework for measuring brand equity. The study focused on the three largest cities on the Mainland to determine how a target demographic, males ages 18-30, influenced the brand equity of the most popular foreign professional sports, the National Basketball Association and European soccer.; The Gladden and Funk: (2042), ESPN the Magazine (2003, 2404) and Sutton, McDonald, Milne and Cimperman (1997) studies were used to develop the measurement framework. Field research was conducted in Beijing and Shanghai for a period of three weeks, with surveys conducted in Mandarin.; The results showed that the NBA and European soccer clubs have significant amounts of brand equity on the Mainland, with a small number of NBA teams at the top of the brand equity list and a large number of European soccer clubs making up a large proportion of the rest of the list. The results also showed that is this framework is an excellent way to study the brand equity of sports franchises overseas.