Measuring the effectiveness of loyalty strategies in amateur sports clubs: A quantitative approach based on member behavioral data in Brussels and Walloon Brabant

Details

Supervisors

Verardi, Vincenzo

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée
Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThe thesis explores the different factors influencing member loyalty in amateur sports clubs in Brussels and Walloon Brabant. The study focuses on team sports, specifically football, field hockey, and rugby. A two-phase methodology was implemented to address the research objectives. First, exploratory interviews with club managers were conducted to identify current loyalty strategies. Then, a quantitative survey was distributed to adult members of amateur clubs in the targeted regions, providing a final sample of 241 valid responses. Data were analyzed using robust linear and logistic regressions, with LASSO employed for variable selection. An overall loyalty score was also constructed using multiple correspondence analysis to capture simultaneously attitudinal and behavioral components of loyalty. The results demonstrate that satisfaction, teammate interaction quality, infrastructure quality, perceived value, and social identification positively influence attitudinal loyalty, while only infrastructure quality and social identification significantly affect overall loyalty. The findings also suggest that the impact of these factors may vary across sports. This study offers practical recommendations for amateur sports club managers. They are encouraged to monitor member satisfaction more systematically, strengthen team cohesion through low-cost team-building activities, improve infrastructure quality, and clearly communicate the value of membership. Additionally, promoting social activities may reinforce members’ sense of belonging. However, the results should be interpreted with caution due to limitations such as sample imbalances, the limited geographic scope, and the methodological simplification of treating ordinal dependent variables as continuous in regression analyses.