A study on attitudes and perceptions of fans on football teams and products: Turkey-Azerbaijan comparison

Football is the sport branch getting most interest and the most popular and the most earning regarding its industry in today's world. All football clubs are seeking the ways of getting more share in this growing market. In this manner, the important issue for football clubs is concentrating on their fans. They have begun to be customers who should be reached, contacted, directing communication, listening to their requests and needs, and accordingly developing strategic plan and organisations. Football is drawing much interest and it is getting to grow economically in recent years in Turkey and Azerbaijan which have close football cultures. There are some viewpoint similarities and differences of fans toward football in these two countries where football arouse much interest. In this study it has been tried to determine the attitudes and perceptions of Turkish and Azerbaijani football fans regarding their football teams and products and to reveal the differences and similarities between two countries. For this purpose, questionnaire study was administered on the fans, 250 individuals from Turkey and 250 individuals from Azerbaijan and totally 500 people, of both countries with convenience sampling method in January and February 2018. According to research findings, the attitudes and perceptions of Turkish and Azerbaijani football fans seem changes in line with demographic characteristics. Football clubs are using all mediums of marketing closely to administer the perceptions in the eyes of their customer fans, developing their images and strengthen the communication of their brands. It will be possible to reach desired results in shorter time by increasing the fanaticism degree of fans along with the marketing strategies aiming to develop emotional bond between the team and fans.