Articles in this issue:

• An Examination of Partitioned Pricing and the Influence of Culture and Familiarity on Sport Consumer Behavior

  Misun Won and Stephen L. Shapiro

  Prior research has examined consumer behavior toward partitioned pricing in various capacities, including types and number of surcharges and the use of dollars versus percentages. Given the fact partitioned pricing is not employed in every country, this investigation focused on consumer behavior toward this pricing strategy based on familiarity with partitioned pricing and cultural differences. An experimental design was implemented to examine South Korean and US sport consumers’ attitudes and behaviors related to ticket prices for a mega-sporting event. The findings showed all-inclusive...Read more

• The Effect of Advertising on Sales and Brand Equity in Small Sport Businesses

  Ted Hayduk and Matthew Walker

  Work in relationship marketing (RM) has implied that most large sport properties fail to enact sport relationship marketing (SRM) tactics that establish meaningful connections with consumers. Work in entrepreneurial marketing (EM) suggests that small businesses must innovate to implement elements of EM due to inherent resource constraints. Therefore, exploring SRM in an entrepreneurial, innovation-dependent context like small sport businesses (SSBs) may help explain why large sport fi rms struggle with SRM. Therefore, we examined whether SSBs’ marketing activities are generative of RM-...Read more

• Investigation of eSports Playing Intention Formation: The Moderating Impact of Gender

  Wooyoung (William) Jang and Kevin K. Byon

  The purpose of this study was to examine the gender differences in the formation of esports gameplay intention. To this end, the determinants and esports gameplay intention were adopted from the Esports Consumption Model (ESC; Jang & Byon, 2020a). A total of 498 respondents (male = 54.2%; female = 45.8%) who were adults and had experienced esports gameplay responded to the online survey. We examined the measurement invariance to examine if the constructs were being measured equivalently across gender. Also, we tested for structural invariance to examine if causal relationships exist...Read more

• A Run for Their Money: Examining Changes in Runners’ Event-Related Expenditures

  Colin Lopez

  Koo Yul Kim

  Joris Drayer

  and Jeremy Scott Jordan

  This study examines spending changes between the first and second year of participation in a mass participation sport event. Previous research has been inconclusive about anticipated spending changes from year one to year two, which may be attributed to the prominence of cross-sectional research designs. This study utilized a within-person, year-to-year design with a seven-year sample from a US running event (n = 247) to track spending from participants. Using a within-subject ANCOVA, expenditures across eight categories were analyzed as individuals progressed from first-time to repeat...Read more

• Applying the Customer-Centric Model to the Investigation of Brand Communities of Professional Sports Teams

  Anat Toder Alon and Avichai Shuv-Ami

  This study employs the customer-centric model of brand communities (including fan-fan, fan-management, fan-team, and fan-product relationships) to examine sports fans through the two lenses of team identification and fan loyalty and explore the effect of these constructs on fans’ behavior. The study used an online panel-based survey to collect data from 742 football fans. Also, the study utilized exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and nomological network analysis to establish the validity and reliability of a new scale of fan-centric relationships of team sports...Read more

• Sequential Effects of Indirect, Direct, and Virtual Sport Experiences on Consumer Learning

  Yongjae Kim

  Seungbum Lee

  and Younghan Lee

  The purpose of this study is to expand the theoretical knowledge of consumer learning by testing both the single and sequential effects of indirect, direct, and virtual sport experiences on sport brand knowledge, attitudes, and choice behavior in two laboratory experiments. Experiment I shows that virtual experience is as effective as direct experience in consumer learning. In Experiment II, designed to explore the impact of sequential combinations of sport experiences on consumer learning, the sequential combination of direct and virtual experiences results in greater brand knowledge than...Read more