Submitted by David Gargone*(1)<\/p>\n
(1) David Gargone is an assistant professor of business and director of the sport management program at Misericordia University.<\/p>\n
*Corresponding Author:
\nDavid Gargone, Ed.D.
\nMisericordia University
\n301 Lake St
\nDallas, PA 18612
\ndgargone@misericordia.edu
\n570-674-6337<\/p>\n
ABSTRACT<\/strong> <\/p>\n Keywords:<\/strong> fan motive, team identity, team loyalty, college football <\/p>\n INTRODUCTION<\/strong> Consumer loyalty also has a greater impact on customer retention, helping to alleviate ebbs and flows in attendance and team support (Bee & Havitz, 2010). Fans with higher allegiance to a team experience greater levels of positive emotions like satisfaction and enjoyment (Raney, 2003; Keaton & Gearhart, 2014). Sport marketers need to identify the driving motives behind their fans in order to promote their team and develop a loyal fan base. In order to effectively accomplish this task, sport marketers need data that provides insight into the specific sport fan motives associated with the differing fan groups making up their fan base. <\/p>\n An understanding of the type of fan (e.g., highly identified, not loyal) is also important. This type of information may allow marketers to target specific segments with promotional methods that match the fan motives associated with that segment. The purpose of this research was to study the fan motives at varying levels of team identity and team loyalty of fans of selected college football teams. <\/p>\n Fan Motives<\/strong> Limitations of the SFMS and MSC scale led Trail and James (2001) to propose the Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption (MSSC), which offered a reduction, to nine, in the total number of fan motives. Concurrent work by Funk, Mahony, Nakazawa, and Hirawaka (2001) established the Sport Interest Inventory (SII), which originally contained 10 variables but underwent two major revisions (Funk, Mahony, & Ridinger, 2002; Funk, Ridinger, & Moorman, 2003), each resulting in the addition of four motives, for a total of 18 fan motives. Because supporting women\u2019s participation is among those 18 but is not relevant to a study of major college football, only the remaining 17 fan motives were considered in this study: bonding with friends, socialization, customer service, vicarious achievement, wholesome entertainment, drama, interest in players, bonding, interest in sport, entertainment value, aesthetics, escape, community support, sport knowledge, excitement, interest in team, and role model.<\/p>\n Additional research has focused on fan motives and developing fan profiles for comparison across teams, leagues, and sports. The Scale of Sport Spectatorship Motives (SSSM) is an alternative measurement tool that uses four underlying motive constructs: Aesthetics, Casual Spectatorship, Fan-Self Concept, and Recreational Value (Keaton, 2013; Keaton & Gearhart, 2014). The 18 item scale has been used to profile typical fans at different levels (amateur vs. professional) and types of sport (Keaton, Watanabe, & Gearhart, 2015). Keaton et al. (2015) compared fans of a team sport with those sport fans that have athletes as their attachment point. Significant differences existed in the motives driving sport consumption for college football fans in comparison to NASCAR fans. <\/p>\n Team Identity and Team Loyalty<\/strong> Several attempts have been made to model fan progression from team identity to team loyalty. Funk and James (2001) proposed, via the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM), a four-stage progression, later revising this model (2006) to account for the specific inputs, processes, and outputs involved in each stage. The four stages- Awareness, Attraction, Attachment, and Allegiance, represent a rise in attitude toward a sports team. Continued research made strides in the operational development of the PCM by using participant involvement (Beaton, Funk, & Alexandria, 2009; Beaton, Funk, Ridinger, & Jordan, 2011). Additional support that the PCM can be used to segment sport consumers into different levels of brand involvement, increasing the reliability and validity of the construct, was established in a 2013 study by Kunkel, Funk, and Hill. Funk and James are additionally responsible for the development of the Fan Attitude Network (FAN) model (2004), which suggests that the progression from team identity to team loyalty largely depends on the evolution of a fan\u2019s attitude toward that team. Heere and James (2007b) later devised the Team*ID scale, a six-dimensional description of the processes involved in the development of both team identity and team loyalty.<\/p>\n Mahony, Madrigal, and Howard (2000) made the first attempt at systematically quantifying team loyalty by creating the Psychological Commitment to Team (PCT) scale, which, like the FAN model, accounted only for attitudinal indications of team loyalty, ignoring the role of behavioral signs. Additional research by Gladden and Funk (2001) was also limited to fan attitudes. Iwasaki and Havitz (2004) defined team loyalty in terms of five behavioral variables: duration, proportion, frequency, intensity, and probability of brand use. Scremin (2008) combined the attitudinal metrics of Gladden and Funk (2001) with the behavioral indicators of Iwasaki and Havitz (2004) and determined that the development of team identity may serve as a transitional stage between the fulfillment of fan motives and the engenderment of team loyalty. Wu, Tsai, and Hung (2012) used a similar approach when measuring the effects of trust, vicarious achievement, and identification on team loyalty. This study distinctively separated team identification from player identification, though the results show team identification had a much greater influence on fan behavior than player identification. <\/p>\n Environmental factors have received increased attention in the literature. Lee et al. (2012; 2013) examined the influence of stadium experiences, including the sights and sounds of the game, on team identity and team loyalty. Sensory factors have been found as having an impact on varying levels of team identity and team loyalty (Lee et al., 2013). <\/p>\n METHODS<\/strong> A variety of statistical methods were used to analyze the results of the survey data collected. These methods included descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, percentage, frequency) and multivariate inferential statistics (MANOVA). Bonferroni post-hoc tests were run following the MANOVAs to identify specific variances to support the initial findings. <\/p>\n RESULTS<\/strong> Survey questions concerning the 17 fan motives were presented in a 1-to-7 Likert scale format. Concerning which motives were most attractive to college football fans, Drama (M = 5.87, SD = 1.28) and Excitement (M = 5.87, SD = 1.30) tied for the highest average. Sport Knowledge (M = 5.54, SD = 1.55), Interest in Team (M = 5.54, SD = 1.55), and Bonding with Friends (M = 5.40, SD = 1.44) also had high averages (see Table 3 in the appendix). In contrast, Interest in Players (M = 3.19, SD = 1.68), Bonding with Family (M = 4.44, SD = 1.77), Escape (M = 4.47, SD = 1.65), and Interest in Sport (M = 4.47, SD = 1.84) exhibited the lowest scores. Participants rated nine motives on average as at least somewhat important (M \u2265 5).<\/p>\n Levels of Team Identity and Team Loyalty<\/strong> Table 1<\/strong>
\nFan motives, factors that influence a person\u2019s decision to attend a sporting event, affect sport consumption at both the amateur and professional levels. This study identified the fan motives, selected from the Sport Interest Inventory (SII), most influential on college football fans and more specifically examined the effects on fan motive prevalence of seven variables: team identity, team loyalty, team affiliation, conference affiliation, household income, age, and level of education. All seven variables exhibited a statistically significant effect, at the p < 0.001 level, on a majority of the 17 fan motives considered, with team loyalty exhibiting a statistically significant effect (p < 0.001) on all 17 motives. In general, higher levels of team identity and team loyalty were associated with greater preference for fan motives. Across all participants, excitement, drama, sport knowledge, and interest in team were identified as the most common college football fan motives; interest in players, bonding with family, interest in sport, and escape were identified as the least common motives.\n\n\n<\/p>\n
\nThe popularity of college football has increased in recent years, making it more important for college football marketers to understand the factors involved in building and maintaining a loyal fan base. Not only do loyal fans spend more money in support of their respective teams than non-loyal fans, they are also more likely to expend effort recruiting new fans (Bauer, Stokburger-Sauer, & Exler, 2008). Expansion of a team\u2019s fan base can result in greater media coverage, larger corporate sponsors, and the negotiation of more lucrative broadcasting packages. Conversely, the increase in broadcasting and media coverage can result in an expanded fan base. <\/p>\n
\nUnderstanding the motives that promote spectatorship allow marketers the opportunity to tailor strategies to smaller segments of fans to increase team consumption in sports. Several researchers have constructed instruments to measure these motives. Early work by Wann (1995) established the Sport Fan Motivation Scale (SFMS), comprised of eight fan motives that prompt sport consumption: family needs, group affiliation, aesthetic qualities, escape, self-esteem, entertainment, economic factors, and eustress. Shortly thereafter, Milne and McDonald (1999) developed the Motivations of the Sport Consumer (MSC) scale, which identified a total of 12 fan motives, three included in the SFMS and nine not previously identified.<\/p>\n
\nFrom purchasing more expensive tickets to buying more team merchandise, fans who identify with a team (i.e. acknowledge some level of emotional attachment to that team) have been associated with greater sport consumption than fans who do not (Wann, Drewer, & Royalty, 1999; Trail, Fink, & Anderson, 2000; Fink, Trail, & Anderson, 2002; Bauer et al., 2008). The reliability of team identity as a predictor of sport consumption has sparked studies of the psychological factors associated with team identity (Fink et al., 2002) and the relationships between team identity and other types of social group identity (Heere & James, 2007a, 2007b; Pons, Laroche, Nyeck, & Perrault, 2001; Hickman, Lawrence, & Ward, 2005). Studies on the impact of stadium experience (Lee, Lee, Seo, & Green, 2012), including an examination of the impact of fan senses (Lee, Heere, & Chung, 2013), on team identity and team loyalty have increased the academic knowledge in this area. <\/p>\n
\nParticipants of this study were solicited via ten randomly selected college football team fan pages on the social networking Web site Facebook. All participants were 18 years of age or older and had attended a college football game during the five calendar years prior to the study. Participants completed a survey, built and hosted on the Web site Survey Gizmo, consisting of approximately 100 questions compiled from the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) (Funk et al., 2003), Team*ID scale (Heere & James, 2007b), attitudinal team loyalty scale (Gladden & Funk, 2001), and behavioral team loyalty scale (Iwasaki & Havitz, 2004). Respondents\u2019 gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, household income, education level, favorite college football team, and favorite college football conference were also solicited.<\/p>\n
\nOf the 345 participants in the study, 61.4% were males (n=212) and 38.6% were females (n=133). Over half of the participants, 51.3%, fell in the 18 to 25 years of age category (n=177), and 81.4% of the participants were under the age of 45 (n=281). The majority of participants, 87.8%, reported being Caucasian (n=303). Nearly 75% of the participants reported having a yearly household income lower than $49,000 (n=251). Over half of the participants, 58.6%, reported being single (n=202) and two-thirds held at least an undergraduate college degree (n=231). <\/p>\n
\nParticipants\u2019 responses to team identity and team loyalty items were used to identify which level of identity and loyalty an individual had towards a team. Table 1 illustrates the division of participants among the three levels of team identity, Not Identified, Moderately Identified, and Highly Identified. Each level of identity consisted of exactly one third (n=115) of the sample population. Participants with a maximum identity rating of 4.00 are considered part of the Not Identified (M = 3.27, SD = .62) group. Participants with an identity rating between 4.00 and 4.99 are located in the Moderately Identified (M =4.45, SD = .30) group. Participants scoring above 5.00 in identity form the Highly Identified (M = 5.73, SD = .500) group.<\/p>\n
\nThree Levels of Team Identity <\/p>\n