Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions of Turkish Football Fans: TFF 1st Lig and 2nd Lig Examples

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is among the duties and responsibilities of all kinds of organizations today. In the light of this approach, the responsibility activities of sports clubs that are active in the football industry may also attract the interest of fans that are dedicated to these clubs and shape their perceptions. This study aimed to investigate the awareness of sports club fans on the CSR activities of sports clubs based on their demographic variables and determine the CSR component pyramids of sports clubs that arise as a result of such perceptions. The population of the study consisted of the fans of Adanaspor and Adana Demirspor in the Turkish Football Federation’s (TFF) 1^st League and Kahramanmaraşsports Club in TFF 2^nd League. The sample consisted of 656 fans who were selected from this population by the method of unbiased sampling. The data of the study were collected by using the Corporate Social Responsibility Scale that was developed by Jung (2012) and tested for reliability and validity in the Turkish language by Sönmezoğlu et al. (2016). According to the findings of the study, perceptions of the fans on CSR activities were on a medium level, and there were significant differences based on the variables of gender, marital status, age, educational status, the supported sports club and occupation. Consequently, regarding the CSR pyramid components of the clubs, legal responsibility was in the first place for the fans of Adanaspor and Kahramanmaraş Spor, while philanthropic responsibility was in the first place for the fans of Adana Demirspor.