FiT Publishing

Description: Competition for the sport consumer dollar has increased tremendously in recent years. A better understanding of why sport spectators and fans consume media and merchandise would benefit sport marketers and managers greatly. To date, no empirically tested model has proposed explanatory and predictive relationships among fan/spectator motives and behavior variables. In addition, no psychometrically sound scales exist to measure these cognitive, affective, and behavioral constructs. The results of this study indicate that a model including such factors as motives, identification...Read more

The purpose of this study was to determine if the day of the week impacted select socio-demographic characteristics and consumption patterns of spectators attending a Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) event. A questionnaire was administered to randomly selected spectators on each day of the tournament using the spectator-intercept method for golf developed by Hansen and Guathier (1993). Twoway Chi square analysis determined that significant differences exist regarding the socio-demographics of employment status and age and the consumption pattern of how tickets were acquired and...Read more

While the game is generally considered the most important factor influencing sport spectators, insights can be gained about how customers, especially different customer segments, view the physical facility and service personnel. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the demographic independent variables age, gender, household income and family size, and the psychographic variable of team identification to affect customer perceptions of three service experience elements: the physical facility, the core product, and service personnel. Results from a sample of 218 minor league...Read more

A mail survey was conducted with season ticket holders (N=507) of a new Major League Baseball franchise to ascertain whether consumers felt a psychological connection with the team prior to any direct experience with the team. Three items scale were used to ascertain respondents?level of psychological connection to the team (a=.74). Reasons for purchasing season tickets were compared among the groupings. Significant differences were found among the groups of respondents relative to the number and strength of the factors influencing the purchase of season tickets. No significant differences...Read more

 The purpose of this paper was to develop a demand model that determined if a relationship existed between the variation in team payroll and spectator attendance at Major League Baseball (MLB) games. A secondary purpose was to determine if the presence of star players was related to MLB attendance. Our findings suggest that if a star player does not contribute to an increase in the team’s on-field performance, the player has little influence on attendance. Additionally, the assumption that an increased team payroll will result in additional attendance is usually correct, yet incomplete....Read more

While sport has become a viable component of the marketing promotion mix, a comprehensive set of factors for evaluating the motivations of consumers who watch or play sport is still lacking. This research begins to fill this void by suggesting a motivations framework to organize constructs for evaluating sport consumption. The empirical study develops scales to measure motivations for spectating and participant markets and profiles sports using motivational constructs. The proposed constructs are shown to have implications for marketing managers, advertising agencies, and other researchers...Read more