Articles in this issue:

• Identification in Sport and Religion: Exploring the Overlap Between Two Group Identities

  Keevan M. Statz

  Elizabeth B. Delia

  and Brian S. Gordon

  The potential link between sport team identity and religious identity has been recognized for decades, but minimal empirical work has examined the phenomenon. Using social identity theory and social identity complexity as a theoretical lens, this study provides both practitioners and academics with insights on the relationship between religious identification and team identification. Using a qualitative methodology, interviews were conducted with 15 individuals who highly identify with both a sport team and their religion. Among all participants, we discovered that religious identification...Read more

• Publicity about Athlete Endorsers Affects Responses to Ads via Motivational Activation

  Glenna L. Read

  Jihoon (Jay) Kim

  Yen-I Lee

  Shuoya Sun

  Youngji Seo

  and Kenon A. Brown

  This research addresses how positive and negative publicity about athlete endorsers influences motivational mechanisms (appetitive and aversive) underlying cognitive and affective processing and evaluation to ads. Participants viewed an ad for a soft drink brand that featured an athlete endorser while psychophysiological measures of cognition, emotion, and arousal were collected. Each ad was preceded by a news story that contained either positive or negative information about the athlete’s off -fi eld behavior. Results indicate that cognition and arousal were enhanced in response to ads...Read more

• An Examination of Sponsor Outcomes at Different Tiers of IndyCar Sponsorship

  Zachary Evans and Terry Eddy

  While frequently examined in events and service research, satisfaction has received little examination in the context of sponsorship. Given the shared characteristics of both service and sport-derived products, this study, which was framed by the theory of planned behavior, aimed to examine the influence of event satisfaction, motorsport involvement, and sponsor-event fi t on both sponsor image and behavioral intentions for a title sponsor of an IndyCar event. In addition, the study explored the influence of satisfaction and motorsport involvement on sponsor awareness and image for...Read more

• It’s About Time: A Longitudinal Examination of Attitudes and Brand Associations of a Women’s Professional Sport Team

  Henry Wear

  Michael L. Naraine

  and Jordan Bakhsh

  The proliferation and growth of women’s professional sport over time has seen a range of consumer outcomes and attention. Recently, there has been increased acknowledgement by sport marketing researchers that there is something inherently unique about the consumption and engagement of individuals as fans of women’s sport. Simultaneously, there have been new findings regarding the importance of brand associations for new sport teams as they seek to craft a brand to ensure financial success. Th is study builds on this work by showcasing the changing nature of consumer perceptions as they...Read more

• The Utility of a Single-Item Self-Perception Fandom Measure for Sport Consumer Segmentation and Predicting Behavior

  Thilo Kunkel

  Adam Karg

  Heath McDonald

  Effective consumer segmentation is crucial to accurately address target markets and develop marketing campaigns. Sport industry practitioners increasingly segment their consumers using behavior and attitudinal measures. To accommodate the need for ease and speed of responses, practitioners generally employ single- item attitudinal measures to examine the level of fandom of their consumer base. Th e current research bridges a gap between academia and industry by examining the utility of a single-item self-perception fandom measure. Findings of three studies indicate that the single-item...Read more

• NBA Fan Behavior: The Effects of Personality on NBA Fandom and Stickiness in Purchasing Related Products

  Yu-Tai Wu

  Yu-Feng Wu

  Chih-Fu Cheng

  and Mei-Yen Chen

  Understanding sport fans is an important key to initiating and sustaining behavior, which is a central topic in psychology and marketing. Th ere is multidimensional experience in sport fans, giving a mixture of consistently altering and overlapping thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Th us, the purpose of the research was to understand the correlation of neuroticism, extraversion personality, sport fandom, impulsive buying behavior, and stickiness. In the study, 280 valid questionnaires were obtained online from fans in an NBA group in Taiwan using structural equation modeling with confi...Read more