The model of brand image building through sports support at private universities in Thailand

Abstract

          There are many universities in Thailand which provide support in popular competitions, teams, or athletics. Most of them believe that fans who love their teams will love their teams’ supporters too. Therefore, the fans tend to purchase their supporter’s products. That is, greater awareness from sports supporter can also lead to an increase in the number of student applications to attend the university. However, a scarcity of empirical research still exists in this field, particularly in Thailand. The objective of this study is to study the management method of the universities in managing their popularity of athletic students to achieve their brand equity or sports supporters to be able to get good image back. 500 students who are in the first year of private universities and 500 students who have just finished the secondary school will be selected as sample. All samples were collected by questionnaires. Then, they were analyzed the relation between the universities who play higher levels in role of sports supporters and the students for find out the model. The results of this study reveal that almost all universities distributing some scholarships to athletes do not require any benefits in return because it is one part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. All the respondents think that universities who play higher levels in the roles of sports supporters have a good image. The model, which is a management method for the universities, who have higher levels in the roles of sports supporters, are able to have good images as follows:      Sponsor integrity   = 0.61_Team support      Event sponsor fit  = 0.49_Sponsor integrity + 0.13_Event                                   Type or sport identification +                                   0.31_Event characteristic or Brand                                   cohesiveness + 0.18_ Event                                    objective       Brand Image       = 0.86_Event sponsor fit       Brand Equity        = 0.98_Brand Image