Samenvatting

This study is meant to elucidate the extent to which doping affairs among professional athletes’
impact consumers’ purchase intentions. The following research question has been formulated:
“How do doping affairs within professional sports impact consumers’ purchase intentions of the
sponsoring brands?” The central research question was constructed because many companies
sponsor professional athletes. Existing literature has revealed that doping among professional
athletes can reflect negatively on sponsoring brands. Based on existing literature, the following
hypotheses have been constructed: Doping scandals have a negative effect on consumers’
purchase intentions; the effect of doping scandals on consumers’ purchase intentions differs
per product category; and the negative impact on consumers’ purchase intentions is lower
when a brand terminates sponsorship agreements after a doping scandal.
The chosen approach for this research was a quantitative research method combined with
literature research. The primary data was collected by means of four different online surveys.
These surveys contained two experiment groups and two control groups in order to discover
the possible correlation between these variables.
The outcomes of this study revealed that doping scandals can have an impact on consumers’
purchase intentions concerning the endorsing brands. However, the results seem the opposite
of what was expected. In this specific case, consumers were positively affected by doping
scandals in terms of purchase intentions. People who were not confronted with the doping
scandal (control groups) had lower purchase intentions for the Campina and Nike brands in
comparison to the respondents who participated in the experiment groups and thus had read
the doping articles.
Consumers were also affected when brands terminated the sponsorship agreements with
athletes involved in a doping scandal. The purchase intentions for both Campina and Nike
products were significantly higher after respondents read the article about terminating
sponsorship agreements with the athletes involved in a doping scandal.
Consequently, it is recommended to companies that are involved or want to become involved
in sponsoring professional athletes to consider their entry and possible exit strategies
carefully. Consideration of the entry and exit strategies is necessary in order to minimize
consequences and maximize profitable results. This study enhances the knowledge of the
effect of doping scandals on purchase intentions and provides a foundation for future research
about doping scandals. Future research within this field could further advance this
understanding by focusing on more extensive measurements and a larger sample size.