Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Charlie Connor
Lecturer
Charlie Connor is a Sport Marketing lecturer and PhD candidate at the Carnegie School of Sport. His research explores Consumer Behaviour and its practical applications in Sport Management and Fandom.
0009-0003-0190-6162
About
Charlie Connor is a Sport Marketing lecturer and PhD candidate at the Carnegie School of Sport. His research explores Consumer Behaviour and its practical applications in Sport Management and Fandom.
Charlie is a lecturer in Sport Marketing at the Carnegie School of Sport, dedicated to shaping the future of the sports industry. With a strong focus on innovation and a deep understanding of the intersection between sports and marketing, he aims to empower the next generation of sports professionals by delivering knowledge and practical skills. Charlie is an advocate for integrating emerging technologies into sports marketing, recognising their transformative potential in this dynamic field.
His research applies a Behavioural Science lens to understand sport fan decision-making beyond self-reported data, challenging traditional methodologies. He aims to demonstrate how experimental research can be used to understand fan behaviour. This novel contribution to the field of Sport Management will ensure sport organisations can communicate effectively and efficiently with sport fans.
By combining his admiration for technological developments and consumer behaviour. He and his team have redesigned the Sport Marketing degree to represent the rapidly developing tech and consumer landscape.
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Research interests
Charlie's PhD employs an interdisciplinary research design, bridging Sport Management and Behavioural Science. His research focuses on the unique characteristics of emotionally attached sports fans, seeking to understand what "emotional attachment" truly means at a cognitive level. By replicating classic Behavioural Science experiments, he aims to uncover how fans respond to various stimuli in the context of sports, such as loyalty, ticket purchasing, memberships, and merchandise.
His work highlights how sport provides a unique platform for testing Behavioural Science principles, driven by the deeply emotional nature of fan loyalty - a distinctive feature of fandom. Charlie advocates for greater collaboration between Sport Management and Consumer Research to advance the understanding of fan behaviour at a cognitive level.
Publications (1)
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Sport fandom and Behavioural Science: a systematic review and new direction for future research
23 July 2026
Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal1-27 Emerald
This review examines the intersection of Behavioural Science and sport fan decision-making, an underexplored area in Sport Management. It aims to identify opportunities to integrate Behavioural Science methodologies into research on fan behaviour, moving beyond traditional self-reported data to enhance understanding of fan cognition and consumption patterns. A systematic review was conducted using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol. From 589 decision-making articles, 50 studies were identified as relevant to sport fan behaviour. These studies were analysed to assess methodological approaches, interdisciplinary collaboration and the prevalence of experimental designs, providing a comprehensive overview of current research practices in the field. The review revealed three key issues: an overreliance on self-reported data, limited interdisciplinary collaboration and a scarcity of experimental designs. Methodologies common in consumer research, particularly observational and experimental approaches, remain significantly underutilised in Sport Management. The paper addresses these gaps by creating a new conceptual framework, aiming to enhance scientific understanding of fan behaviour and improve marketing effectiveness for sport organisations. This review highlights the untapped potential of Behavioural Science to advance Sport Management research. By advocating for robust experimental and observational methodologies and interdisciplinary collaboration, it offers a framework for more nuanced, evidence-based insights into sport fan behaviour and identifies future research directions that can stimulate innovation in Sport marketing.Purpose
Design/methodology/approach
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Current teaching
- Technology and Innovation In Sport
- Marketing Communications
- Introduction to Sport Marketing
- Digital Media for International Marketing
