Wearing Pride on Their Sleeve: An Examination of the Relationship between Team and University Identity and Brand Equity

Abstract

The current study seeks to examine the ever-increasing relationship between sportswear companies and university intercollegiate athletic departments, and the subsequent effect on the students of the university. Beginning in the late 1990's the process of university athletic departments engaging in agreements with sportswear companies (ie. Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, etc.) has become an ever pertinent component to the landscape of college athletics. The dollar value of these contracts has grown exponentially, and has become a point of pride and recognition for universities and their athletic departments. However, very little research has been made to examine the impact of the unique relationship between sportswear brands and university students who are not athletes at their institution. Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) posits that every individual seeks to establish identities that define themselves as they exist in society. Some of the identities are fairly straight forward (ie. gender, age, race), others however, are less so. Of these, becoming a fan of a given sports team and developing a team identity or becoming increasingly identified with one's college or university and developing a university identity. The importance of an individual's attachment to their team has positive implications for the athletic department and university's potential revenue opportunities through ticket sales, merchandising agreements, and sponsorships, but this attachment can be equally advantageous for the sportswear companies. This is posited through the potential development of a stronger belief of brand equity of the brand that is worn by an individual's team and university that could lead to greater likelihood of repeat purchases and brand loyalty. To investigate this connection, university students were surveyed using instruments of team identity (Heere & James, 2007), university identity (Mael & Ashforth, 1992), and brand equity (Yoo & Donthu, 2001). The results demonstrated that both university identity and team identity were not statistically significant predictors of perceived brand equity. The implications of these findings have a very pertinent impact on the way in which sportswear brands focus their business decisions in engaging in licensing and sponsorship agreements with intercollegiate athletic departments.