Connecting Sports and Brand Fandom
sports fans are also the biggest brand fans
I’m best known for my content on sports fandom, but I also spend significant time on non-sports topics like entertainment, politics, and universities. One category especially relevant to my job as a business school professor is brand fandom. While different from sports fandom, there are important lessons that consumer products and sports can learn from each other.
Today’s post doesn’t explore these lessons but instead examines the connection between sports and brand fandom. Two key lessons come from this exploration: 1. Fandom propensity is a human trait, 2. American culture is comprised of distinct cultural segments.
The Data
The figure below displays the percentages of NBA and MLB fans who are also fans of certain brands. The gold bar represents the percentage of the entire sample (N=1610) that are fans of each brand. The blue bar indicates the percentage of NBA fans, and the grey bar shows the percentage of MLB fans who are fans of each brand. Overall, 17.5% of respondents are NBA fans, and 14.9% are MLB fans.
The key point is that both NBA and MLB fans have significantly higher fandom rates for all the brands in the study compared to the general population. For example, Coca-Cola is the top brand in the survey with a 27.5% fandom rate. However, among NBA fans, Coca-Cola’s fandom rate rises to 39.7%, and among MLB fans, it increases to 42.1%.
A second key observation is a slight tendency among NBA fans to show more brand loyalty. NBA fans exhibit higher fandom for 9 of the 14 brands, with an average fandom rate of 25.1% across all brands, compared to the MLB fan rate of 23.8%. This finding aligns with my sense that the NBA is more connected to pop culture than MLB.
Third, the brands with the biggest gaps in fandom between NBA Fans and MLB fans are Nike and Polo. The brands preferred by MLB Fans more than NBA Fans are Budweiser, Levi's, and Coca-Cola. The data isn't conclusive, but it suggests that NBA Fans lean more towards fashion brands, while MLB Fans favor more traditional “Americana” brands.
Thoughts
I’m not surprised by the findings. A consistent pattern in the fandom survey data is that people who are fans of one thing tend to be fans of others. For example, people who like sports are often more likely to enjoy entertainment than those who don’t follow sports. Fandom appears to be a human trait connected to cultural engagement.
The data also points to underlying cultural segments. NBA fandom has the strongest links with Polo and Nike enthusiasts, while MLB’s main connections are with Budweiser and Levi’s. I won't try to interpret what these differences mean beyond saying that Budweiser, Levi’s, and baseball just feel different from Nike, Polo, and the NBA. I could also include pop entertainers and politicians in the analysis. We probably wouldn’t find anything surprising, but it’s a fascinating way to look at America in 2025.