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Top1. Introduction
The consumer and brand relationships have increasingly got the attention of academics and practitioners, particularly in the marketing field (e.g. Elsharnouby, et al., 2021). Companies work hard and pay wealth to identify how consumers relate to their brands and why some brands are preferred and even loved. Consumers feel emotions, bear sacrifice and commitment, engage with brands, and develop loyalty (Cirillo and Cantone 2015). Sport- entertainment is currently considered to be an industry and one of the most important factors in the growth of the national economy in many developed countries (Asadollahi et al. 2015). The popularity of sports events has made it possible to reach wide audiences. Branding and customer relationship management (CRM) together with the commercialization and professionalization of the sports industry are key elements in the achievement of sports teams and their brands (Karjaluoto et al. 2016).
Consumer (e.g. fan) and brand (e.g. club) relationship in the football sector is one of the most critical and unique research areas since the relationship between football fans and their favorite teams is special and long-lasting. The key issues of the sports brand are fan attraction, developing loyal relationships with its fans, inspiring them to become more attached to the brand. Therefore, many sports clubs act as commercial brands and obtain marketing practices and competencies to develop a well-established relationship with their fans (Cirillo and Cantone 2015). Sports executives increasingly see their clubs as brands to be managed. Therefore, their goal is to create a strong brand that can affect the behavior of external target groups, irrespective of sports success. According to Keller (2001), there are four steps to build a strong brand. 1) To ensure that the brand is identified with its consumers and that the brand is associated with a particular product class or customer need. 2) To firmly establish the meaning of the brand in the minds of customers by strategically linking several tangible and intangible brand associations. 3) To obtain the precise customer response to this brand identity and brand meaning. 4) To convert brand responses to establish consumer brand relationship.
The brand personality as a part of the brand image affects the behavior of target groups (Schade et al., 2014). In other words, brand personality can help sports managers to establish a brand image, which strongly influences the fans’ behaviors. Therefore, it is important to examine the brand personality in the sports industry. Well established brand personality can serve as an important source of emotional bonding between consumer and brand, a helpful tool to develop a lasting long term relationship with consumers (Ahmad and Thyagaraj 2014), and a strategic tool for differentiating and creating a consumer-brand relationship (Guèvremont and Grohmann 2013). The successful consumer-brand relationship depends not only on relationship marketing practices but also on consumer personality. In othe words, the consumer-brand relationship is developed through consumers' and brands' interactions (Fournier 1998).