Establishing Athlete Brand Among Female Pakistani Fans

Abstract

Athlete branding is growing topic in academics. This article seeks to investigate athlete branding by focusing antecedents, attributes and its implication among developing south Asian country, Pakistani female fans to help the efforts of an athlete to become an international brand. The final data sample is comprised of 15 semi-structured interviews with female fans of certain athletes. Participant's responses indicated that five major antecedent media, oral communication, social agents, team & sports and impression management are basic source of brand awareness among fans. While selecting their favourite athlete two attributes associated to athletes emerged (on field athlete brand attributes and off field athlete brand attributes). Furthermore, Fan's indicated that athlete brand have positive impact on athlete itself, athlete's teams and on athlete's sponsors as well. These implications further discussed in the article. The result of the study can help to establish athlete brand among conservative societies (i.e. south Asian, Muslim) and second stream sports (i.e., Cricket).