FiT Publishing

The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in the relationship between sports consumers’ perceived influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendation and its antecedents. We conducted a survey with sports consumers who had received a WOM recommendation to watch a sporting event and actually watched the event. Survey participants indicated how much the WOM recommendation influenced their sport-watching behavior. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that a recommender’s trustworthiness, the richness of message content, and the strength of message delivery...Read more

The purpose of this study was to advance our understanding of the role of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the donor decision making process in college athletics. A research model was developed to examine theoretical relationships among perceived CSR, trust, commitment and donation intention. The proposed research model was tested using 644 donors from a college booster club in the US through simultaneous equations. It was concluded from the results that donors’ perceptions about CSR activities significantly influenced trust and commitment toward the organization. Trust...Read more

The current study quantitatively investigated how fan perceptions and willingness to consider committing anonymous acts of aggression toward participants of the rival teams differed between a rival in a current conference and an anticipated one in a new conference. A sample of 168 online fans of teams affected by conference realignment were administered a survey containing the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS: Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013) and questions regarding willingness to consider committing anonymous acts of aggression (Wann, Haynes, McLean, & Pullen...Read more

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is a fit between nature of negative incidents (competency-related vs. integrity-related) and response types (apology vs. denial) in recovering trust and inducing forgiveness in the sport context. It was hypothesized that there is an interaction between nature of incident and response types: Apology works better for competency-related incidents while denial has a better fit with integrity-related incidents. The pilot study was conducted with a hypothetical persona, and the results of MANOVA showed that there was no interaction, but main...Read more

The sports gambling industry represents a multi-billion dollar enterprise composed of a variety of activities, the composition of which is under constant debate. Among the topics of importance is the effect of sports gambling (both legal and illegal) on the attitudes and behaviors of sport fans. In particular, investigation into the nature and extent of involvement in activities such as betting on sport events and fantasy sport participation—along with any resultant effects on attitudes and more ‘traditional’ forms of sport fan behavior— could be of interest to sport marketing scholars and...Read more

The ability to draw attendees to performances is vital to the success of a sport organization. As a result, sport managers and academics attempt to investigate motivations that drive decisions to attend events. In order to make predictions, academic demands have lead to the proliferation of instruments and constructs to capture a wide variety of motives, but these tools have limited ability to explain game attendance; and practitioners demand shorter scales to increase efficiency. The purpose of this research is to provide a parsimonious measuring tool of motives to explain sport event...Read more

We examined the influence of vicarious achievement and team identification on BIRGing and CORFing behavior. We tested three different models (direct effects, partially mediated, and fully mediated) across two different situations: BIRGing with the winning team and CORFing with the losing team. Data were collected from 246 students. The fully mediated model fit best in the BIRGing situation and the partially mediated model fit best in the CORFing situation. We found that vicarious achievement explained 12.7% to 16.9% of the variance in team identification across situations. Vicarious...Read more

This study examines how perceptions of fairness may influence sport spectators’ satisfaction. An experimental design was utilized to determine how voice (whether or not administrators solicit customers’ input) and choice (whether or not customers have a role in making decisions) can alter overall satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Further, this study investigates how financial inputs and the degree to which a customer considers himself/herself a fan may interact with these effects. Researchers collected data from 346 subjects. Each subject received one of eight (2 voice x 2 choice x 2 price)...Read more

The current investigation examined sport type differences in eight fan motives: escape, economic (i.e., gambling), eustress (i.e., positive arousal), self-esteem, group affiliation, entertainment, family, and aesthetics. Participants (final sample N = 886) completed a questionnaire packet assessing their level of fandom and motivation for consuming one of 13 target sports: professional baseball, college football, professional football, figure skating, gymnastics, professional hockey, boxing, auto racing, tennis, professional basketball, college basketball, professional wrestling, and golf...Read more

The purpose of this study was to segment spectators based on emotional attachment toward team, university, coach, and player, and to examine whether different groups of people classified by emotional attachment demonstrate different interrelationships between motives and behavioral intentions in attending sporting events. The results revealed that the feasibility of two clusters is derived from emotional attachments and those two groups demonstrate different interrelationships between spectators’ motives and behavioral intentions, respectively. In conclusion, this study can provide a...Read more