FiT Publishing

When purchasing tickets in advance, sports consumers are often faced with uncertainty. Most notably, in today’s real-time environment, it can be challenging for consumers to determine how ticket prices and seat availability will change over time. Guided by the generic advanced-booking decision model, the current study investigated the role of time, ticket source (primary or secondary market), and team identification in advanced ticket purchasing by exploring a consumer’s perceptions of ticket availability and finding a lower price. The results suggest the perceived likelihood of ticket...Read more

The Seattle Sounders FC took Major League Soccer by storm in its inaugural season of 2009. The club led the league in attendance, won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup trophy, and clinched a playoff berth. The team’s success was attributed in part to its rabid fan base, which routinely sold out its 30,000-seat venue and nearly doubled the league attendance average. How was it that an expansion franchise was able to garner such immediate, fervent support, while original franchises with well-established fan bases struggled? This case study sought to supplement the limited current literature...Read more

The current investigation examined the interrelationships among overall sport team identification, specific dimensions of team identification, and behavioral intentions. Using an antecedents approach to guide predictions (Dabholkar, Shepherd, & Thorpe, 2000), a model was tested in which overall identification would mediate the relationship between specific dimensions of team identification and behavioral intentions. To test the hypothesized pattern of effects, participants completed a questionnaire packet assessing overall identification via the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (...Read more

Team identification has been defined as an individual’s psychological connection to a team (Wann, 2006). Outgroup or rival team salience is the awareness of a specified outgroup or rival team, and its impact on team identification was explored in this series of studies. In the first study (N = 143), participants viewed either a neutral sports video or a rival team highlight video. A repeated measures ANOVA was performed and supported the hypothesis that a salient rival team would increase identification. The second study (N = 67) examined the impact of a researcher wearing either a rival...Read more

This study examines if fan identification with a sports team is established through two similar yet distinct psychological processes: affinity and affiliation. The brand personality literature indicates consumers build an affinity with brands, or in this case teams, whose image is congruent with their own personality. On the other hand, consumers affiliate with and become attached to organizations they feel emulate and share their values. The current study examines the relative contribution team affinity and organizational affiliation, with the sponsoring university, play in forming...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