Crowdfunding as Financing Tool of Semi-professional Sports Clubs: Evidence on Funders’ Preferences and Typologies

Due to the official regulatory credit screening procedures of Basel II and Basel III in Europe, credit is now more difficult to obtain. As a consequence, alternative financial mechanisms, such as crowdfunding, that focus on sports clubs’ supporters have become more important. The aim of the present study is to evaluate crowdfunding related to sports clubs using a choice-based conjoint analysis (CBCA) to detect project- and participant-related success factors in successful financing. Therefore, two fictitious crowdfunding projects with the offered return and the price are chosen as features and two German sports clubs – one ice hockey club and one football club – are selected for the analysis. Using segmentation techniques, the study also examines the types of crowdfunders and their preferences. The results show that the offered return and the price are the two most important features for potential crowdfunders. They prefer either a club-related return containing a certain economic value or the donation as representative of a more altruistic return. The findings also indicate that crowdfunding can be a financial instrument for both semi-professional and professional clubs. Keywords: crowdfunding, financial instrument, sports clubs, semi-professional clubs, professional clubs