Relationship Marketing in Sports: A Functional Approach

This paper examines how and why consumers develop, enter into, and maintain relationships in a sports marketing context. This paper presents a framework for understanding how and why consumers engage in relationship marketing. Based on Kelman's functional approach to attitude change, this framework presents three qualitatively different levels for understanding relationship formation and maintenance: (a) compliance is superficial, temporary, and often the result of external influence; (b) identification is related to selfesteem and image enhancement of sport consumers; and (c) internalization is the result of values similarity. Internalization is more likely to result in a long-term relationship. Relationship Marketing in Sports: A Functional Approach Recently, relationship marketing has received considerable attention in practice. Sports organizations are focusing on long-term consumer retention and incorporating a variety of database-management techniques to maintain and enhance customer relationships. Although consumer-focused relationship marketing has received a significant amount of attention in the field, little theoretical work in the study of relationship marketing in sport supplements or justifies the professional trend. Additionally, current research in relationship marketing has been in the context of sales Colleen Bee, PhD, is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego. Her research interests include sport marketing, emotion, experiential consump-