In a sporting world dominated by media and money, an understanding of sport branding is an essential skill for any sport manager. Success means being able to 'brand' - and therefore differentiate - a sport club, player, code, or event in a highly competitive entertainment market. For anyone seeking to understand or manage sport, this book offers an immediate and salient insight into the complex and dynamic process of creating a powerful sport brand. The book explains how a sport brand goes beyond just an identifying badge, reinforced by a name or a logo that helps sport consumers recognise a product or an organisation. It reveals how a brand becomes linked with consumers' opinions and perceptions of a sport product and the organisation that owns it. Readers will learn how to create a powerful brand that has both recognition in the market and strong associated imagery, by imbuing it with a spirit of the past through appeals to tradition, by endowing it with human qualities of emotionality, thought, and volition, and through the use of characters, colours, texts, and symbols. It also provides a brief guide to the new domains of digital sport branding and social media. Concise, informative, and entertaining, this is an essential resource for anyone exploring or practising the business of sport.

Combining the latest branding research with a diverse range of powerful case examples, this book reveals the cutting edge techniques of value co-creation, personalisation and customer engagement employed by sport's leading brands. Based on the transferable lessons that emanate from these practices, Brand Fans explores and illuminates how firms can cultivate connected fans and lifelong advocates, while building brand equity exponentially in the process. This is a book that will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike, as well as anyone fascinated by modern marketing, consumer relationships and branding.

In a sporting world dominated by media and money, an understanding of sport branding is an essential skill for any sport manager. Success means being able to 'brand' - and therefore differentiate - a sport club, player, code, or event in a highly competitive entertainment market. For anyone seeking to understand or manage sport, this book offers an immediate and salient insight into the complex and dynamic process of creating a powerful sport brand. The book explains how a sport brand goes beyond just an identifying badge, reinforced by a name or a logo that helps sport consumers recognise a product or an organisation. It reveals how a brand becomes linked with consumers' opinions and perceptions of a sport product and the organisation that owns it. Readers will learn how to create a powerful brand that has both recognition in the market and strong associated imagery, by imbuing it with a spirit of the past through appeals to tradition, by endowing it with human qualities of emotionality, thought, and volition, and through the use of characters, colours, texts, and symbols. It also provides a brief guide to the new domains of digital sport branding and social media. Concise, informative, and entertaining, this is an essential resource for anyone exploring or practising the business of sport.

Combining the latest branding research with a diverse range of powerful case examples, this book reveals the cutting edge techniques of value co-creation, personalisation and customer engagement employed by sport's leading brands. Based on the transferable lessons that emanate from these practices, Brand Fans explores and illuminates how firms can cultivate connected fans and lifelong advocates, while building brand equity exponentially in the process. This is a book that will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike, as well as anyone fascinated by modern marketing, consumer relationships and branding.

In the pursuit of more muscle, enhanced strength, sustained endurance and idealised physiques, an increasing number of elite athletes, recreational sport enthusiasts and body-conscious gym-users are turning to performance and image enhancing drugs and substances (PIEDS). In many instances, such use occurs with little regard for the health, social and economic consequences. This book presents a nuanced, evidence-based examination of PIEDS. It provides a classification of PIEDS types, physical impacts, rates of use, user profiles, legal and sporting status, and remedial program interventions, covering both elite and recreational use. It offers the perfect guide to assist students, government policy makers and sport managers in understanding the complex issues surrounding PIEDS consumption.

In the pursuit of more muscle, enhanced strength, sustained endurance and idealised physiques, an increasing number of elite athletes, recreational sport enthusiasts and body-conscious gym-users are turning to performance and image enhancing drugs and substances (PIEDS). In many instances, such use occurs with little regard for the health, social and economic consequences. This book presents a nuanced, evidence-based examination of PIEDS. It provides a classification of PIEDS types, physical impacts, rates of use, user profiles, legal and sporting status, and remedial program interventions, covering both elite and recreational use. It offers the perfect guide to assist students, government policy makers and sport managers in understanding the complex issues surrounding PIEDS consumption.