Examining the Impact of Team Identification and Gender on Rival Perceptions and Consumption Intentions of Intercollegiate Athletics Fans

Abstract

The current study investigated rival perceptions using the Sport Rivalry Fan Perception Scale (SRFPS) (Havard, Gray, Gould, Sharp, & Schaffer, 2013) on a group of male and female intercollegiate athletics fans at various levels of favorite team identification. To this point, the SRFPS has primarily been used to examine highly identified male fans (Havard, Reams, & Gray, 2013;Havard, Wann, & Ryan, 2013). The current study extended previous research on rivalry by finding that rival perceptions were impacted by level of team identification. Specifically, highly identified fans experienced more sense of satisfaction when their favorite team defeated the rival team in direct competition. Additionally, highly identified fans were more likely to attend a rivalry game, watch a rivalry game on television or the Internet, and read about the favorite team when playing a rival team than lowly identified fans. Further, female fans were more likely to watch a rivalry game on television than male fans, and the interaction of team identification and gender indicated that playing a rival team impacts female intentions to attend the game more so than male intentions. Significance of findings, along with implications for practitioners and avenues for future study are presented.

Reinvestigating the Impact of Conference Realignment on Rivalry in Intercollegiate Athletics

“…Further, Kilduff et al (2010) suggest that rivalry is driven more by long-term than short-term competition. Based on Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1974), research on rivalry has focused on the influence the phenomenon has on individual sport fans and fan groups (Dalakas & Melancon, 2012;Dalakas, Melancon, & Sreboth, 2015;Havard, 2014Havard, , 2016Havard, Eddy, & Ryan, 2016;Havard & Reams, 2016;Havard, Shapiro, & Ridinger, 2016). Because competitive history is so important to the formation and existence of rivalry, the recent bevy of schools that changed athletic conferences would fundamentally alter teams seen as rivals to fan groups.…”

Exploring Major League Baseball Fans’ Climate Change Risk Perceptions and Adaptation Willingness

“…Only those who were at least 18 years old, U.S. residents, and self-identified as MLB fans from a menu of professional and collegiate U.S. sports were targeted. Prior sport management research measuring behaviors and intentions across differently identified sport consumers has found MTurk to be an advantageous crowdsourcing approach to participant recruitment [85][86][87]. Likewise, previous climate change and climate risk research has also relied on MTurk samples despite potential validity concerns [88][89][90].…”

Sports fans' socialization, team identification and gendered differences between sport consumption

“…Sports fandom has been studied for many years, with a strong focus on sport consumer loyalty and fan team identification analyzed from the perspective of psychology, sociology and sports marketing, management, economics, and consumer behavior (Bodet & Bernache-Assollant, 2011;Melnick & Wann, 2004Theodorakis & Wann, 2008;Wann et al, 2001Wann et al, , 2021. Less attention has been paid to female fandom and women's sport in sports media but this gap in research has been also already increasingly filled (e.g., Dietz-Uhler et al, 2000;Farrell et al, 2011;Gemar & Pope, 2022;Havard et al, 2016;Koch & Wann, 2016;Kossakowski et al, 2022;Organista et al, 2021;Ridinger & Funk, 2006), and less involved sport fans, in other words, sport consumers, their mundane sport-related consumer practices (Crawford, 2003;Gemar, 2020) and changing their styles of media use (e.g., Chan-Olmsted & Xiao, 2019).…”