An investigation of the corporate reputation and innovation management approach of Turkish football super league teams from the fans' perspective

Aim: The aim of this study is to examine the corporate reputation and innovation management understanding of Turkish football super league teams from the perspective of the fans. Material and Method: As a data collection tool in the study, Wonseok et al. The "Audience-Based Sports Team Reputation Scale" developed by Eroğlu and Eroğlu and adapted into Turkish by Demir et al. The "Innovation Scale in Sports" adapted into Turkish was used. The universe of the research; While the fans of the Turkish football super league teams with the Passolig card in the 2021-2022 season constituted the sample, the sample consisted of 4141 fans with the Passolig card of the 20 football teams competing in the super league. The spectator-based sports team reputation scale cronbach's alpha value was calculated as 0.89 across the scale, and the cronbach's alpha value for the innovation scale in sports was 0.92 across the scale. Results: As a result of the statistical analyzes, in line with the answers given by the football fans to the scale of innovation in sports and the scale of spectator-based sports team reputation, gender, age, marital status, education level, the team they support, being a member of any fan group, frequency of going to the match of the team they support, and self-esteem in both scales. While there was a significant difference according to the fan type variables he defined (p<0.05), no significant difference was found according to the income status variable (p>0.05). It has been determined that the average score of the fans who support Trabzonspor on the innovation scale in sports is higher than the fans who support other teams, and the team reputation score averages of the fans who support the Beşiktaş team on the spectator-based sports team reputation scale are higher than the fans who support other teams. Conclusion: It was concluded that while the opinions of the fans on innovation management in sports were positive at the level of agree, their thoughts on the reputation of the spectator-based sports team remained at the undecided level. Key Words: Football Super League, Innovation Management, Corporate Reputation, Supporter.