The Immediate Impact of Coach Succession Events on Season Ticket Holder Attitudes

Adam Karg
Heath McDonald
and Geoff Schoenberg

The hiring and firing of professional sport team coach-es and leaders is a commonplace occurrence (Bridgewater, 2010; Hughes et al., 2010; Maxcy, 2013) that attracts abnormal levels of media and fan interest. Less than 5% of coaches across the four major US professional leagues have tenures longer than a decade while less than ten percent of English Football league coaches have a tenure longer than four years. Although on-field performance is usually the key reason for changing coaches, the demands of modern coaching now extend beyond winning games, meaning the impact of the change may be felt across many areas for the organization.