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The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate if the three service quality dimensions (service environment, interaction and outcome quality), proposed by Brady and Cronin (2001), influence the development of event loyalty, among runners of the “‘Alexander the Great’ International Marathon”, and to test if running loyalty moderates the relationship between event quality and event loyalty.

In all, 368 runners participated in the study and filled the Sport Event Quality Questionnaire (Theodorakis et al., 2015) and an adjusted version of the Leisure Involvement Questionnaire (Kyle et al., 2010).

The results indicated that only the service environment and outcome dimensions contributed significantly to the prediction of event loyalty, while, and in contrast to other sport services, interaction quality was not shown to be an important determinant for the development of event loyalty. Furthermore, running involvement was shown to play a moderating role in the relationship between event quality and event loyalty. Service quality is more important for the development of event loyalty among low- than high-involved runners. The theoretical and applied implications of these results are discussed.

The study provided results on how high- and low-involved runners perceive event quality, and for which of these groups the event quality is an important antecedent for the development of event loyalty.

Investigating the moderating role of involvement on the relationship between service quality and loyalty has also applied value. While committed runners have been traditionally seen as a key target group for event marketing professionals, the majority of runners in city marathons today are more leisure oriented. The increase in the number of leisure runners is actually the reason for the rapid growth of city marathons in the last few years. Meeting the needs of these leisure runners and increasing their loyalty levels is therefore a key task for marathon marketers today.

This study contributes to the literature, as for the first time it explores the moderating role of involvement on the relationship between service quality and loyalty in the context of a sport event.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sources of inspiration for active participants in sport events, and the link between inspiration sources and event-related outcomes (i.e. life satisfaction and behavioral intentions).

Research questions were examined using a Greek (n=264) and a US (n=103) sample of participants of two small-scale running events. Content analysis was used to identify and code the themes of inspiration, while a multivariate analyses of variance was performed to test the inspiration group differences on life satisfaction and behavioral intentions.

The qualitative findings revealed three categories of inspiration source identified in each sample. The quantitative results showed that the interaction between inspiration source and event type had an overall effect on participants’ life satisfaction and future participation intention. Specifically, findings highlighted the different roles of inspiration on influencing life satisfaction and participation intention of short-distance (i.e. 5 and 10k) event participants than those of long-distance (i.e. marathon) runners.

This study identifies the sources of inspiration in small-scale sport events and provides preliminary empirical evidence where inspiration source and event type jointly influence participants’ life satisfaction and behavioral intentions.

Understanding the sources of inspiration provides event leveraging opportunities to inspire citizens to become more active in sports. Given that the sources of inspiration vary among different segments of event participants, event managers need to adopt differential communication and promotional activities geared to the needs of these targets.

The study provides the first empirical work exploring the sources of inspiration among active participants in small-scale sport events.

The purpose of this paper is to test if the service quality model, proposed by Shonk and Chelladurai (2008), can be applied in the context of a small-scale sport event.

This model proposes the following dimensions: access quality, venue quality and contest quality. Furthermore the study aimed to test if satisfaction acts as a mediator of the relationships between service quality and behavioral intentions.

The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided support for the factorial validity of the service quality model. The psychometric properties of all the scales were satisfactory. In terms of the mediation analysis the results provided partially support for the hypotheses. Satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between access, venue quality and intention and partially mediated the relationship between contest quality and intentions. Furthermore, satisfaction partially mediated all the relationships between the quality dimensions and word-of-mouth communications. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

This paper fulfils a need to develop a service quality model and its influence for visitors’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions at small-scale sport events.