The success of modern sports, entertainment, political, and other cultural categories is driven by organizations’ ability to create and manage fandom. This book explores fandom from a marketing perspective providing a multidisciplinary framework for understanding, measuring, and growing fandom. It provides a fandom analytics framework for creating and managing fandom and identifies the macro forces (technology, demographics, etc.) that are changing fandom’s structure and societal role. The book goes beyond understanding the foundations of fandom by demonstrating how marketing tools may be employed to value and manage fandom assets. It is designed for existing and new generations of sports and entertainment professionals, as well as scholars, students, and academics interested in sports and entertainment marketing and analytics.

Michael Lewis is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Emory Marketing Analytics Center at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University (Atlanta, GA, USA). Professor Lewis’s work focuses on the intersection of sports analytics and sports marketing. He studies issues ranging from player performance analytics to brand equity in sports. The foundation for Professor Lewis’ work is a deep background in statistics and optimization. These tools provide a data-driven approach to measurement and decision-making. This approach makes Professor Lewis a unique expert on fandom as his work addresses the complete process from success on the field to success at the box office. He has published work related to loyalty programs, customer lifetime value, and dynamic pricing in addition to sports topics.