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Major sports events have the potential to offer significant benefits to any city, but at the same time are likely to entail immense resource utilisation and enormous risk. Focussed at the organising committee level, and drawing upon general management and project management literature, aims to collect empirical data to identify current management practice used in the bidding process, and determine key factors in successful bidding. A self‐administered postal questionnaire was sent to 220 randomly selected major sports event organisers from ten different countries. Targeted at the chief executive officer level or equivalent, the questionnaire provided general contextual detail and focussed on present sports event management practices and processes. To gain more in‐depth understanding of successful applications, three semi‐structured interviews were administered in England. The findings reveal that the primary motivations behind local authority involvement are heightening area profile and sport promotion. Successful public sector applications were found to use bounded rational decision‐making, driven largely by political reasoning rather than detailed objective analysis. Specifically identifies and discusses five key factors behind successful national and international governing body approval.

This paper aims to explore the nature and relationships among the dimensions that constitute expectations, anticipation and post-experience assessment of cultural events, before and after an aesthetic experience, namely, a live Norwegian opera or ballet performance.

A triangulation approach is used to combine qualitative and quantitative analyses. Quantitative data collection was conducted at the site before and after a performance experience.

Expectations, anticipation and post-experience assessment are found to be multi-dimensional. Expectations and anticipation are identified as distinct constructs. Three dimensions of expectations of quality are extrinsic cues: building and functional attributes, available services and level of employee service. In addition, two dimensions of pre-experience anticipation are identified: anticipation of information gathering activities and anticipation of the event. Post-experience assessment has two dimensions: satisfaction and pride in the building. Two post-experience associations are enthusiasm and inclusiveness. Anticipation of the event and enthusiasm, not expectations, are found to be predictors of satisfaction.

An understanding of the role of anticipation in consumer engagement and satisfaction with aesthetic experiences could be broadened and enriched by studies that include other service or arts disciplines and within a more complex model of consumer engagement.

Anticipation is a significant pre-experience phenomenon. Enthusiasm is identified as a post-experience association.

Sport events have become an important component of many city marketing plans. Media coverage is believed to increase awareness of the host city. This study reports the results of a content analysis of 2002 NCAA Women's Final Four telecasts. Event logos provide the most exposure for the host city, with little obtained via city images. Icons were found to effectively differentiate the city from competitors. Practical implications and future research extensions are suggested.

The concept of sport team identification has been widely used as a theoretical framework in explaining sport fan behavior. However, limited attention has been devoted to the consequences of distant (i.e., foreign) team identification. The purpose of the current research was to examine the way in which fans (local and distant) can increase their levels of collective and personal self-esteem due to their team identification.

Data were accumulated from three Greek websites (N = 742). Among them, 623 subjects were grouped as local and 119 as distant football fans. A structural invariance analysis was followed.

The results revealed how team identification, enduring team-related social connections, and basking in reflected glory are interrelated to affect collective and finally personal self-esteem. Moreover, no differences were found between local and distant fans regarding the paths from eam identification to collective self-esteem and from collective self-esteem to personal self-esteem.

This is one of the first endeavors to examine the psychological consequences of distant team identification and to test the invariance across local and distant fans concerning the mechanisms that their personal self-esteem can be enhanced because their psychological connection to their favorite sport team.

As an industry, sport business (SB) has seen significant growth since the early 2000s. Concurrently, the number of postsecondary sport management programs has also expanded dramatically. However, there remain concerns about whether these programs are meeting the demands of both employers and graduates. To address these concerns, this study examines the credential and competency demands of the SB labor market in the United States.

Researchers conducted an analysis using a broad sample of employment postings (N = 613) for SB positions from two different years, 2008 and 2018.

Results support that a complex set of SB qualifications exist, and the credentials and competencies included in SB employment postings have evolved over the past decade.

A noteworthy finding is that meta-skills are found to be particularly important for employability, including items such as communication, emotional intelligence and analytical thinking and adaptability.

The Asian financial crisis has not only reduced foreign investment in the transition economies of South‐east Asia, but has also impacted on the domestic financial structure with associated implications for strategy and marketing. Despite reform, the formal, state‐dominated banking systems continue to struggle, particularly with competition from the traditional informal financial institutions such as moneylenders, gold dealers and credit circles, a form of competition which is probably much less significant in Western economies. In this context, understanding and explaining consumer savings decisions can most usefully be developed by using ideas from its commitment construct. Implications for marketing and promotional strategies are offered, which include recommendations for strategic alliances with local organisations where consumer commitment already exists.

Supporting distant teams is a frequent phenomenon. Through the lens of the social identity theory, this research aims to examine differences between local and distant fans regarding drivers of team identification.

A multigroup structural equation model was employed. The data were collected through an online survey with 1,285 sports fans.

Team distinctiveness constitutes an important aspect fueling identification for all fans, whereas congruence between own and team personality is important for local and displaced fans only. Team prestige does not impact identification for either group.

To build up a base of highly identified supporters, clubs should emphasize those aspects of team brands that fans consider distinctive. When targeting local fans, clubs should also focus on communicating the brand's unique personality aspects.

This is the first study that assesses the potential differences behind fans' social identification with local and distant teams.

This paper aims to examine the antecedents of brand passion and brand community commitment, namely, self-congruity and athlete attraction, as well as their effects on online brand advocacy in online brand communities.

The sample comprises members of a Facebook football fan club brand community. An online survey measuring athlete-level factors, team-level factors and online brand advocacy provides data to test the conceptual framework using structural equation modeling with partial least squares (PLS-SEM).

The findings of this paper support the positive spillover effect from athlete subbrand to team brand advocacy, as self-congruity exerted positive effects on brand passion and brand community commitment, while athlete attraction influenced brand community commitment, leading to online brand advocacy.

The findings validate the dimensions of online brand advocacy and advance research on sports brand hierarchy in brand architecture by establishing the transference effect from athlete to the team brand.

To effectively manage their brands online, brand managers need to pay attention to the powerful and multifaceted tool of online brand advocacy. Brand managers can capitalize on their active advocates by working closely with them to co-create uplifting and authentic brand stories that are worthwhile for sharing, especially in times of crisis.

Building on the developmental trajectory of brand love and vicarious brand experience, the findings verify the directionality of the spillover effect and offer insights into the development of brand advocacy across different brand levels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Chinese youth’s attention to and involvement with Chinese soccer and its professional league, the Chinese Super League (CSL), on their level of satisfaction.

A survey study was employed to test the hypotheses. Research participants (n=948) were students from five major universities that represented each of the five main geographic regions of China. Data were randomly assigned into two halves: one half for CFA (n=474) and the other half for structural equation modeling (SEM) (n=474). Mplus 7.0 was used to conduct both the CFA and SEM.

The findings of this study indicated an overall lack of attention to and involvement with Chinese soccer and CSL among Chinese youths. Discussions have been presented on the causes of the lack of youth passion for Chinese soccer and suggestions have been articulated to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of policy formulation, business operation and marketing strategy.

The present study built on the extant sport management literature, demonstrated the complexity of consumers’ cognition and conation in the professional soccer setting, and revealed counter-intuitive relationship between attitudinal traits and behavioral patterns, which in turn provided unique insights for Chinese professional soccer marketers, managers and administrators.