Marketing sustainability through sport: testing the sport sustainability campaign evaluation model

Abstract

Research question: The sport industry has deepened its commitment to implementing and deploying environmental sustainability initiatives. However, until this study there were no uniform ways to evaluate these efforts. To this end, the purpose of this study is to create and test the sport sustainability campaign evaluation model among sport participants of a 10-mile run event. Research methods: We tested the fit of the sport sustainability campaign evaluation model using 531 participants of a community run. Results and Findings: Needs, values, internal constraints, and points of attachment explained 52.1% of the variance in attitudes toward the campaign. Attitudes, external constraints, past behavior and all of the indirect effects of the other variables combined, explained 74.2% of the variance in participating in sustainability initiatives. Sport professionals can use this model to assess environmental sustainability campaigns and promote attitudinal and sustainable behaviors. Implications: The findings of this study have important implications for sport managers and marketers as they create and further advance their organization's sustainability campaigns. Understanding the needs and values of sport participants can help marketers and managers determine how those needs and values affect positive attitudes towards the campaign. Increasing the positive attitudes towards the campaign, while minimizing the negative influence of external constraints to act sustainably, can increase sustainable behavioral intentions and thus increase the success of the sport organization's sustainability campaign. This model can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of sustainability campaigns to influence attitudes and behaviors of sport participants.

An Exploratory Analysis of the Environmental Sustainability Performance Signaling Communications among North American Sport Organizations

“…Scholars [46][47][48] have demonstrated the breadth of sustainability efforts in the sport industry; but, as our findings indicate, the depth of these environmental initiatives are limited to raising awareness or educating stakeholders, mainly fans, about the organization's environmental efforts. Perhaps this is not surprising given the low awareness levels of environmental initiatives reported in previous research [4,9,35]. The lack of environmental performance signals challenges the depiction that sport organizations send through external signals like memberships to sport and environmental focused organizations (e.g., Green Sports Alliance), environmental certifications (e.g., LEED; Council for Responsible Sport), and signing international commitments (e.g., Sports for Climate Action Framework).…”

“…Therefore, it is imperative that sport organizations emphasize this fit when reporting their environmental initiatives if they want to be viewed as credible and capitalize on the benefits received through various stakeholders' relationships [34]. Specific to the sport industry, creating such connections with fans can increase fan identification through a new point of attachment [4,35]. This increased connection between the sport organization and fans decreases the likelihood that the fans will be more suspectable to fluctuations in on-field performance and maintain their devotion to the organization.…”

“…As McCullough and Cunningham [8] conceptually indicated and others have empirically demonstrated [4,9], there are financial (e.g., increased patronage) and social (e.g., increased goodwill) for a sport organization when they implement environmental focused operations. Researchers have recommended deeper collaborations between practitioners and academics to best identify which environmental initiatives will resonate with fans and to better align environmental sustainability campaigns with fan psychographics to maximize their participation [35]. This process is known as a materiality assessment, which determines the preferences for various initiatives comparing multiple stakeholder groups (i.e., internal v. external).…”

“…Prior work in this space has evaluated whether or not fans believe sport organizations are responsible for addressing their environmental impact [4,9]. Further work is needed to evaluate the fan response to sustainability performance signaling and its impact on the sport organization's brand combining this focus with Trail and McCullough's [35] framework. Further, researchers should explore the impact of such communications or signals as they relate to increased financial returns.…”

Strategy for Sport Science Progressive

“…Because Petanque one of the latest sport various come in Indonesia. Based Trail & McCullough (2019) stated the importance of conducting sports campaigns both in the domains of education, society and sports organizations. Nwankwo & Deemua (2019) in the European Journal of Physical Education and Sport Science writes about sports as a proactive strategy for the development of education.…”