A re-examination of conspicuous sport consumption theory on golf and skiing from leisure involvement perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leisure involvement (LI), conspicuous sport consumption and subjective well-being (SW) for two luxury leisure activities: golf and skiing.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from Guangdong Province (golf, n = 342) and Jilin Province (skiing, n = 310) and examined the proposed model using structural equation modeling (SEM) and tested the mediating effect of conspicuous sport consumption using bootstrapping method.FindingsThe findings show that the proposed model explained the relationships among LI, conspicuous sport consumption and SW. Furthermore, the findings suggest that LI and conspicuous consumption (CC) can elevate sport participants' perception of SW, enriching leisure-class theory.Originality/valueThe authors’ findings contribute to the domain of CC in sport participant and leisure research and provide significant implications for the sport tourism marketers.