Sports Marketing and the Psychology of Marketing Communication

The Impact of Reference Groups on the Purchase Intentions of Sporting Products: The Case for Spectatorship and Participation

“…Past literature (e.g., Burnett et al, 1993;Sun et al, 2004) has tried to classify the types of sports consumers based on various factors such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs (McDonald, Milne, & Hong, 2002), social interaction and entertainment (Stewart et al, 2003), co-created value (Woratschek, Horbel, & Popp, 2014), and demographics (James & Ridinger, 2002). Stewart et al (2003) argued that sports marketers need to choose marketing strategies to fit with the types of sports consumers.…”

“…From the definition of sports consumers, Shoham and Kahle (1996) characterise participation as a consumption community and spectatorship as a communication community. These terms are categorised based on value perspective, which is related to the psychology and lifestyle of the consumer (Sun et al, 2004). Prensky and Wright-Isak (1997) argue that it is important to understand the social context when investigating value in the consumer behaviour domain.…”

“…Spectators are people who spend their time following and watching sports (Trail & James, 2001). The main members of the spectatorship group are spectators, viewers, and readers, but not athletes (Shoham & Kahle, 1996;Sun et al, 2004). People are motivated to be interested in sports for many reasons, such as social, community, economic, and political (Ratten, 2016).…”

“…Sports marketing is the adaptation of a marketing strategy and marketing process for use, specifically with sporting products (Mullin, Hardy, & Sutton, 2000). Scholars (e.g., Filo, Lock, & Karg, 2015) have tried to explore the marketing factors that affect sports consumers' purchase decisions, such as demographics (Bennett, Ferreira, Lee, & Polite, 2009), brand equity (Underwood, Bond, & Baer, 2001;Watkins, 2014), motivators and constraints (Kim & Trail, 2010), gender of the sports fans (Farrell, Fink, & Fields, 2011;James & Ridinger, 2002), and typologies of sports consumers (Stewart, Smith, & Nicholson, 2003;Sun, Youn, & Wells, 2004). The reference group is one factor that affects the purchase intentions of sports consumers.…”

“…It is not only the reference groups but also the type of consumer that can affect the consumers' purchase intentions. Sports scholars (e.g., Burnett, Menon, & Smart, 1993;Drayer, Shapiro, Dwyer, Morse, & White, 2010;Kurpis, Bozman, & Kahle, 2010;Shoham & Kahle, 1996;Sun et al, 2004) have classified sports consumers into two types: spectatorship and participation. Spectatorship is explained as consumers attending or watching sports on television or at a stadium (Bennett et al, 2009).…”