In sickness and in health: The case of Boavista FC

If there is one thing everyone agrees regarding football is that this sport wouldn´t be quite as special without the fans and their passion. Even so, studies have shown that several types of supporters can be seen in each football club, with different displays of atitudes, behaviors and levels of loyalty. Given this, the present investigation sought to segment the football fans of Boavista FC - an historic Portuguese football club that competes in the National top Division – according to their level of loyalty towards the team they support. For this to happen, a survey with 586 respondents was conducted and results from crosstabulations plus Pearson´s Chi-Square and One-Way ANOVA tests were analysed. It was concluded that the segmentation model of Pick and Gillett (2019) could be readapted to the context of Boavista FC, although the Casual fans were converged into one group only. With respect to the proportion of each segment, it was found that 14 supporters were Fanatics (2,39%), 160 Enthusiasts (27,30%), 359 Regulars (61,26%) and 53 Casuals (9,04%). Lastly, it appeared that the attendance rate fluctuation after the club´s 2008 relegation and 2014 promotion were the most efficient variables to measure loyalty, alongside “loyalty perception”. On the contrary, “attendance on other teams´ matches” and “average percentage of lifetime support” were concluded to be poor variables of measurement in this context.