Sport Consumer Behavior Research: Improving Our Game

Abstract

Sport consumer behavior (SCB) research continues to grow in both popularity and sophistication. A guiding principle in much of this research is that sport consumers seek out sport-related experiences, and the benefits they yield, in order to satisfy needs and wants. This approach has provided new knowledge and insight into sport consumers. One outcome of this focus is that the vast majority of research on sport consumers has centered on psychological characteristics of these sport experiences related to evaluative and affective components. In addition, this research has predominately relied on cross-sectional studies and attitudinal surveys to collect information with less emphasis on how various situational or environmental factors can influence attitudinal data patterns at the individual and group level. This special issue seeks to deepen our understanding of SCB by providing seven papers that demonstrate or validate findings using multiple studies or data collections.

Sport consumer behaviour model: Motivators and constraints

“…The results indicated that fans were motivated to attend a game when they already identified the team. These data supports the previous claim that team identification is a key predictor of sport consumption behaviour (D. Funk et al, 2016;D. C. Funk, 2017;E.…”

“…As Wang et al, (Wang et al, 2011) believed that a team-dependent factor is not solely enough to predict the consumers' behaviour without considering the satisfaction. From a wider perspective, social interaction is a key determinant of sport participation (D. Funk et al, 2016;D. C. Funk, 2017;Yoshida, 2017).…”

“…In order to improve the marketing research in the field of spectatorship and revenues, researchers explored some motivational determinants such as community support, escape, interest in sport, entertainment, bonding with families, vicarious achievement, drama, bonding with friends, customer service, interest in players, role model, socialization, sport knowledge, excitement, wholesome environment, core product, social network, relationship investment quality, curiosity and knowledge, technology, clear polices, innovation, time, communication, social system, team identification, surveillance, encouragement, interest in the game, and prizes. Also, the items of constraints including car park, distance, traffic, time to get to the stadium, match time, stadium location, accessibility to public transportation, cost of going to match, weather, financial effort, win and lose, verbal aggression, physical aggressive behaviours, and boring competition (Bee & Havitz, 2010;Bravo, Lee, & García-González, 2016;Byon, Zhang, & Connaughton, 2010;Fink, Trail, & Anderson, 2002;D. Funk, Lock, Karg, & Pritchard, 2016;D.…”

Emotions and Sport Management: A Bibliometric Overview

“…Although the literature on the role of emotions in the sport business was very limited until a few years ago ( Wolfe et al, 2005 ), it has currently become the central axis of the sport business in contemporary societies ( Rodriguez-Pomeda et al, 2017 ). In fact, the sport consumer has become a popular area of study for sport management researchers ( Funk et al, 2016 ) in which the importance of consumer satisfaction and emotions to enhance loyalty has been highlighted ( Koenig-Lewis and Palmer, 2014 ). This focus has developed because knowing customers’ emotions and the way they express them allows sport managers to act on these emotions and reproduce them in an efficient way, with the aim of influencing and guiding them for the benefit of the organization ( Puig, 2012 ).…”

Análisis del comportamiento psicoeconómico del consumidor habitual de productos deportivos (Analysis of sports products consumers’ psycho-economic behaviors)

“…Desde el punto de vista de la oferta son habituales los estudios relativos a la gestión y organización de eventos deportivos (Magaz-González & Fanjul-Suárez, 2012). Por su parte, en el campo de la economía aplicada que estudia la demanda, muchos estudios han analizado el consumo desde el punto de vista de espectador de espectáculos deportivos (Doyle, Filo, Lock, Funk, & McDonald, 2016;Funk, Lock, Karg, & Pritchard, 2016), utilizando instrumentos de medida de su calidad percibida y de sus intenciones futuras (Calabuig Moreno, Crespo Hervás, Núñez-Pomar, Añó Sanz, & Prado-Gascó, 2015) o comprobando la elasticidad de la demanda en función de los precios (Calabuig, Núñez-Pomar, Añó, & Prado-Gascó, 2014). También se han realizado estudios sobre la importancia de las redes sociales en la toma de decisiones del consumidor deportivo (García-Fernández, Fernández-Gavira, Durán-Muñoz, & Vélez-Colón, 2015).…”