Corporate Social Responsibility and Football Clubs: The Value of Environmental Sustainability as a Basis for the Rebranding of Real Betis Balompié in Spain

Gema Lobillo Mora, Xavier Ginesta and Jordi de San Eugenio Vela
Additional contact information
Gema Lobillo Mora: Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, University of Malaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain
Xavier Ginesta: Department of Communication, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, 08500 Barcelona, Spain
Jordi de San Eugenio Vela: Department of Communication, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, 08500 Barcelona, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: On October 2020, Real Betis Balompié, a football club located in Seville (Andalucia), presented the Forever Green programme, a global programme of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that, through the club’s foundation, enables the entity to position itself in areas of sustainable development and environment at a global level. This project was preceded by a sponsorship initiative with the Green Earth project, as well as having been the first football club to sign the United Nations’ Climate Change Now initiative. This article aims to explain the rebranding process of a sports brand based on values linked to sustainability and to assess the impact this rebranding process has had on the fans’ perception of the brand. The methodology used was a combination of in-depth interviews with the executives charged with leading the rebranding process and a convenience survey given to 100 fans to assess the impact of the initiative. The results show that both the entity and the fans agree on a holistic vision of what the CSR is, altruistic in nature, and that its initiatives should be applicable across the entire organisation. However, although the club’s link with values of the environment and sustainability is highly valued by the fans, they still do not feel directly called upon to take part in actions that the club organises.

Keywords: Real Betis Balompié; corporate social responsibility; sustainability; LaLiga; environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13689/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13689/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13689-:d:700066

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().