Word-of-Mouth Rave When the League Brand Is Cool: Roles of Perceived Social Media Activities and Brand Identification

In the increasingly saturated digital media landscape, sport leagues are in need of developing branding strategies that go beyond conventional awareness-building to build emotional connection and fans’ advocacy. The current study proposes and examines the effect of brand knowledge on sport fans’ word-of-mouth intention through serial indirect effects of perceived social media activities and brand coolness and a moderating effect of brand identification. A conditional process analysis was conducted with a sample of 229 U.S. sport fans of major leagues (i.e., NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS). The results revealed that brand coolness consistently emerged as a significant factor enhancing word-of-mouth intention. Specifically, the effect of brand knowledge on word-of-mouth intention was significant only through its indirect path via social media activity and perceived brand coolness. Notably, these relationships vary by different levels of brand identification. For example, the direct effect of brand knowledge on word-of-mouth was significant and stronger among highly identified fans, whereas these effects depended more on these mediated pathways among low-identified fans. These results highlight the crucial role of brand coolness and social media activities in fostering sport fans’ word-of-mouth intention. Our model provides a novel viewpoint on how emotional, symbolic, and cognitive elements interact to influence sport fan behavior.