International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship最新文献

Purpose

This study aimed to understand better what makes esports fans engage with streamers' live-streaming of esports gameplay. This study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and additionally adopted streamer identification and esports game identification as moderating variables.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from streamers' esports content streaming viewers over 18 years of age using an online survey in Amazon M-Turk (N = 307). Based on past esports live-streaming weekly watching hours, which range from 1 to 45 h, the participants were divided into lower (n = 152) and higher (n = 155) frequency groups. PLS-SEM and bootstrapping techniques were used to test the moderated mediation relationships among the constructs.

Findings

This study found a negative moderating effect of past watching experience on the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intention, and it positively moderated the path between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention. Also, it was found statistically significant direct impacts of streamer identification (STI) and esports game identification (EGI) on attitude and subjective norms. While the indirect impact of STI on behavioral intention through attitude was statistically significant, there were no significant indirect impacts of EGI on attitude and behavioral intention through subjective norms.

Originality/value

Theoretically, this study extends the TPB model by exploring the two identifications (i.e. streamers and esports games) as antecedents of the focal TPB factors (i.e. attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) and the moderating effect of prior experience based on high/low weekly watching frequencies. Practically, content creators of esports live-streaming and live-streaming platform managers can use the study’s findings to develop strategies to nurture their current and future viewership.

Purpose

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss a framework (the Revised Model of Sport Consumer Behavior – R-MSCB; Trail, 2019) to accomplish the following objectives. (1) Provide a framework for sport marketers and sport organizations to use in their own market research. (2) Designate the processes needed to generate results and knowledge that sport organizations, sport marketers and associated corporate partners can use to improve marketing campaigns. (3) Provide suggestions for analytic techniques and measurement constructs/instruments that will facilitate market research within the sport industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The author created a 140-item questionnaire for the pre-survey and a 50-item questionnaire for the post-survey. The pre-survey was given at the beginning of the season, and the post-survey was given at the end of the season. The research group has generated a sequence of 13 studies and has collected pre-survey responses from over 7,800 people across 4 continents, 8 sports and 13 teams (data collections), with more teams still planned and over 2,000 post-season survey responses with data collection continuing.

Findings

This project, with its 13 studies, will provide sport organizations with the theories/frameworks, knowledge and processes to do their own market research in a more effective and efficient manner and will show sport organizations how to understand the complexities of sport consumer behavior, the motivations behind it and how it varies extensively across individuals. The author will show sports organizations how to collect data from their consumers using valid and reliable measures and constructs that will allow them to segment their consumers, how to effectively market to those segments and how to establish long-lasting relationships that make a satisfied and loyal customer.

Originality/value

This paper provides the framework and guidelines so that sport marketers and researchers can identify specific variables, constructs and relationships that will further their own objectives when attempting to explain sport consumer behavior. Using their own market research, they can implement the results/output in association with the Communications Strategy Model to create more effective and efficient marketing and communications campaigns and consequently drive key performance indicators (KPIs) and improve revenue streams.

Purpose

This study aims to develop a conceptual model to understand how customer knowledge management (CKM) affects fitness club membership renewal through the mediation of relationship quality.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected outside of fitness clubs using a systematic sampling method. A total of 224 valid responses were collected. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the relationship between the constructs of the research model.

Findings

The results indicate that both knowledge from customers and knowledge for customers have a positive influence on customer satisfaction and customer trust. Among them, knowledge for customers has a stronger influence on customer satisfaction while knowledge from customers has a greater influence on customer trust. Additionally, three dimensions of relationship quality (customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer commitment) positively influence membership renewal intention with customer commitment exhibiting the greatest influence on it.

Originality/value

This study combines the theories of CKM and relationship quality management to explain why members will renew their service contracts. By using fitness clubs as an example, this research extends the authors' understanding of how knowledge from and for customers can influence customers' attitudes and behavioural intentions towards service companies.

Purpose

Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.

Design/methodology/approach

Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results.

Findings

The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally.

Research limitations/implications

Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience.

Practical implications

Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost.

Social implications

Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.

Originality/value

This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.

Purpose

Professional sports teams employ highly paid managers and coaches to train players and make tactical and strategic team decisions. A large literature analyzes the impact of manager decisions on team outcomes. Empirical analysis of manager decisions requires a quantifiable proxy variable for manager decisions. Previous research focused on manager dismissals, tenure on teams, the number of substitutions made in games or the number of healthy players on rosters held out of games for rest, generally finding small positive impacts of manager decisions on team success.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors quantify manager decisions by developing a novel measure of game-specific coaching decisions: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of playing-time across players on a team roster over the course of a season.

Findings

Evidence from two-way fixed effects regression models explaining observed variation in National Basketball Association team winning percentage over the 1999–2000 to 2018–2019 seasons show a significant association between managers’ allocation of playing time and team success. A one standard deviation change in playing-time HHI that reflects a flattened distribution of player talent is associated with between one and two additional wins per season, holding the talent of players on the team roster constant. Heterogeneity exists in the impact across teams with different player talent.

Originality/value

This is one of the first papers to examine playing-time concentration in the NBA. The results are important for understanding how managerial decisions about resource allocation lead to sustained competitive advantage. Linking coaching decisions to wins can help teams to better promote this core product.

Purpose

National surveys reveal that sports fans exhibit greater support for athletes, sports teams and leagues endorsing social justice initiatives compared to the general population, highlighting the potential of sports for positive social impact. This study investigates whether such responses are influenced by systematic biases.

Design/methodology/approach

Replicating a Nielsen national survey, two experiments explore whether biases affect support for athletes' participation in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The study also examines partisan motivated reasoning as a factor driving sports fans' support for BLM.

Findings

While avid fans display stronger endorsement of BLM compared to causal/non-sports fans, evidence suggests that systematic biases distort these responses. When sport identity becomes salient, reported support for the BLM movement becomes inflated.

Research limitations/implications

Researchers often employ self-report surveys to gauge audience perceptions of athlete activism or cause-related initiatives, particularly when assessing their impact. This study's findings indicate that this context is susceptible to SDB.

Originality/value

The study underscores the role of systematic biases in self-report surveys, particularly in socially desirable contexts. People tend to over-report “positive behavior,” leading survey participants to respond more favorably to questions that are socially desirable. Therefore, interpreting survey results with caution becomes essential when the research context is deemed socially (un)desirable. It is crucial for researchers to apply appropriate measures to identify and mitigate systematic response biases. The authors recommend that researchers adopt both procedural and statistical remedies to detect and reduce social desirability biases.

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to investigate the interaction effect that sponsor-team congruence and team fan (home/rival team) have on the influence of different types of sports sponsorship (joint, corporate social responsibility [CSR]-linked and conventional sponsorship) on fans' attitudes and purchase intentions toward the sponsor.

Design/methodology/approach

Two experimental studies were conducted on 391 and 297 participants. The data gathered underwent analysis through five multivariate general linear model analyses.

Findings

The study found that CSR-linked sponsorship had the strongest positive impact and the weakest negative impact on the attitude and purchase intention of home team supporters and the attitude of rival team supporters. Nonetheless, the sponsor-team congruence did not significantly moderate the relationship. Additionally, the research demonstrated that the fan identity of both home and rival teams moderates the impact of sports sponsorships on attitude and purchase intention.

Originality/value

Previous research has studied the effectiveness of sponsorship format types independently. This is the first research comparing sponsorship formats regarding fan type and congruence.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to compare four different consumer pathway models based on identity theory, attitude/loyalty theory, lifestyle theory and hierarchy of effects theory, each with associated instruments measuring connection to the team.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors did a two-study analysis, first collecting data from people aware of an NFL team (N = 218) and then an MLS team (N = 209) to determine which connection item performed better.

Findings

The authors found that the Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom based on the hierarchy of effects theory and its associated interest measurement item performed better than the other three frameworks and items. The Interest item shared the most variance with games attended, games intending to attend, games watched via media and games intending to watch via media.

Originality/value

The Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom represents the entire consumer spectrum from non-aware consumers all the way up to die-hard sports fans. This pathway will allow sport marketers to track their consumers from initial awareness of the product or service all the way through the brand relationship to ultimate loyalty.

Purpose

The purpose of this research was to investigate how VR-mediated sports, as opposed to 2-D screens, affect the emotional and cognitive experiences of fans with the game and its sponsors.

Design/methodology/approach

The current study employed a single-factorial experimental design, in which participants were randomly assigned to either watch a soccer game through a VR headset or a 2-D screen. Physiological and self-reported measures were used to measure levels of presence, arousal, attention and memory.

Findings

Participants who watched sports through VR experienced a higher level of presence, greater psychophysiological arousal, and exhibited higher levels of attention toward the game. However, they showed lower recognition for in-stadium signage compared to those who watched the game on a 2-D screen.

Practical implications

The results suggest that sports teams can use VR to create a more immersive and engaging experience for fans. Additionally, in-stadium signage advertising may not be as effective in VR sport broadcasting contexts, and sports practitioners may want to explore alternative forms of advertising that are better suited for VR environments.

Originality/value

Methodologically, this study used a combination of self-reported and real-time physiological measures to capture dynamic and spontaneous changes in fans while watching games. Theoretically, this study utilized the Dynamic Human-Centered Communication System Theory to adopt a human-centered approach to understand how VR impacts the experience of sport game viewers.

Purpose

Social media's role in engaging participants in sports events, particularly during the pandemic, is acknowledged. However, previous studies often utilized sports events for diverse objectives but overlooked brand equity's influence on sports event development. And very limited research explores social media's impact on brand equity in esports events, despite its significance. Therefore, this study aims to explore how social media affects esports event brand equity and participants' satisfaction and engagement with social media through brand equity's influence.

Design/methodology/approach

The study focused on League of Legends World Championships (LOLWC) participants, who completed a self-judged questionnaire online. The questionnaire included demographic details and latent constructs. Data analysis involved two steps: exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to assess measurement scale validity and structural equation modeling (SEM) to study relationships between traits.

Findings

The results reveal that, within the esports event context, controlled communication exerts a meaningful and dual impact – both directly and indirectly – on the fundamental components of brand equity. This, in turn, serves as a catalyst for increasing participant contentment and their posting intention.

Originality/value

This study applies brand equity theories to the esports domain, exploring participant-based brand equity concepts, user behavior and the influence of social media communication on event branding and engagement. It also recommends strategies for event improvement, emphasizes controlled communication for brand equity and highlights marketing's role in brand awareness, association and participant satisfaction. Additionally, it suggests government regulation to address cyber violence during esports events.