Children’s game-day experiences and effects of community groups

Abstract

Purpose Sport management research that examines children as a distinct group of sport consumers is sparse, and therefore the authors know relatively little about how and why children become fans of sport teams. The purpose of this paper is to explore the game-day experiences of children in order to better understand how these experiences allow children to socialize into the team community and become fans of the team. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine this through exploratory observational analysis and 26 semi-structured interviews with children at professional sporting events. Findings Among the results, it was found that children primarily focus on exploring ways to build membership in the fan community as opposed to initially building connections to the team itself. In addition, those children that watched the games with their peers demonstrated greater in-game emotional responses than those children that viewed the game with family. Research limitations/implications This study provides support for the importance of community membership in the initial stages of sport team fandom as well as the varying effects of different groups within fan communities on child fans. However, further research is needed to increase the generalizability of the results. Practical implications It is recommended that sport teams increasingly target groups that will bring children to games with their peers in order to enhance their game experience and increase their socialization into fandom. Originality/value This paper is one of the first in sport management to directly look to better understand children and the ways in which they become fans of sports teams.

From social activism to active socialization: The evolution of football ideology in community‐owned football clubs

“…Parents were present for all the interviews, but using a framework from Reifurth, Bernthal, and Heere (2018), parents were asked not to intervene in the interview nor to interject with answers of their own and were made aware that questions were to be directed at the participant and participant only. Before the actual questions, we asked the children to categorize themselves as fans to help contextualize the data.…”

Untitled

“…The socializing agents of friends, family, and community, therefore, can greatly impact sports fandom, especially for young fans. Children seek to establish fan membership among other fans, mostly their friends who are fans, before establishing attachments to specific teams and players (Reifurth et al 2018). Therefore, young fans seem to place greater importance on -fitting in‖ with their peers than connecting with a team, which helps illustrate the importance of social identity theory on children's fan development.…”

Team loyalty and intergenerational influence: the role of nurturant fathering in the transference process

“…Of the many drivers of fandom in general and team loyalty more specifically, researchers consistently point to the importance of the family socialization process, particularly in a child's formative years (Day and Lamb, 2004; Hyatt et al. , 2018; Reifurth et al. , 2018; Tamis-LeMonda and Cabrera, 2002).…”

“…Although past studies demonstrate the power of family interactions in developing individuals' team loyalty, there is a dearth of research exploring how the formation process of individual team loyalty occurs through these intergenerational influences. This knowledge is critical to sports properties as Reifurth et al. (2018, p. 258) noted:Understanding children's sport consumption is vital to the sport industry's future because these young sport consumers represent an enormous lifetime value……”

“…Of the many drivers of fandom in general and team loyalty more specifically, researchers consistently point to the importance of the family socialization process, particularly in a child's formative years (Day and Lamb, 2004;Hyatt et al, 2018;Reifurth et al, 2018;Tamis-LeMonda and Cabrera, 2002). Family interactions, specifically those with one's parents, have commonly been cited as key sociocultural factors that help shape individuals' bonds with a team.…”