Exploring the components of brand equity amid declining ticket sales in Major League Baseball

Ticket sales for Major League Baseball (MLB) games are decreasing annually, yet baseball fans have increased team interest and following in other ways. Instead of following from the stands or on television fans are choosing to follow, for example, via social media. The emerging unified theory of brand equity offers a framework to examine the mediating role of attendance and local television and the moderating role of Twitter followers on the relationships between MLB marketing assets (MA) and team financial performance. Publicly available secondary data are analyzed with PLS-SEM. The results indicate attendance and local TV partially mediate the relationship between non-seasonal MA and team financial performance, whereas attendance and local TV fully mediate the relationship between in-season MA and team financial performance. Furthermore, the number of Twitter followers for each MLB team moderates various relationships within the MLB brand equity research model. Findings suggest MLB sales and marketing professionals should design ticket sales initiatives that not only promote attendance in the short-term but, more importantly, build upon non-seasonal sources of team brand equity for the long-term. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1057/s41270-020-00083-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.