The Role of Fans in Value Co-Creation and Engagement – Case Huuhkajat
Finnish football culture has undergone significant changes over recent decades. The position of football has strengthened, digitalisation has made the sport more accessible across different platforms, and social media has enabled diverse forms of interaction around the game. Value creation in the sports industry is also increasingly approached from a customer-oriented perspective. According to service-dominant logic, value is not created solely through an organisation's activities but emerges through collaboration between organisations, customers, and other stakeholders.
In her bachelor's thesis, The Role of Fans in Value Co-Creation and Engagement as Part of Value Creation – Case Huuhkajat, Alisa Vahtola examines the role of fans in value co-creation in the context of sports marketing. The study focuses on the Finnish national football team and was conducted as a qualitative case study based on interviews with five Huuhkajat supporters. The aim was to explore the role fans play in the team's value co-creation process and to examine the significance of engagement as part of this process.
The findings show that fans perceive themselves as active participants in value co-creation, even if they do not necessarily identify their own activities as co-creation. The fans felt they had good opportunities to influence the team and that the team valued them as equal members of the Huuhkajat community. Value co-creation takes place online and across social media platforms, within fan communities and supporter groups, as well as at live match events.
The study identifies engagement both as a factor that encourages value co-creation and as an outcome of successful co-creation. Fan engagement manifests itself in various ways, including ritualistic fan behaviour and collaboration with team management. Engagement resulting from value co-creation, in turn, can be emotional, cognitive, and behavioural.
The findings highlight the importance of match events and the sense of community among fans. They also provide insights into how sports teams can develop their activities and create increasingly meaningful and community-oriented experiences for their supporters.
Read Alisa Vahtola's bachelor's thesis (in Finnish): Fanien rooli arvon yhteisluomisessa ja sitoutumisen kokemus osana arvonluontia – Case Huuhkajat
