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This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that analyzed use of traditional and targeted sponsorship approaches by eight companies involved in the 1998-99 Canadian Hockey Association women's corporate support program. The study found the sponsors used methods from direct and relationship marketing to support corporate goals of sales, advertising, community-involvement and brand image and awareness. Several factors are discussed that would improve the sponsorships' effectiveness in the women's market.

A 30-item Sport Interest Inventory (SII) was developed and validated for measuring ten unique motives related to consumer interest at an international sporting event. Spectators (N=1,321) attending five different US venues during the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup were administered the SII. Analysis revealed that sport and team interest, excitement, supporting women's opportunity in sport, aesthetics and vicarious achievement explained 35 per cent of the variance in spectators' interest in the event. Results provide sport marketers with consumer-based marketing strategies, particularly for women's sport.

There are few studies examining the marketing characteristics of intercollegiate women's volleyball spectators. The purpose of this paper is to examine intercollegiate women's volleyball spectators from the perspectives of sociodemographics, market demand and consumption. Spectators (N=265) from seven intercollegiate women's volleyball games at three National Collegiate Athlete Association Division-I universities participated in the study. The findings indicate that there is a need to emphasise the market demand factors when marketing intercollegiate women's volleyball games.

This article sheds light on how fans, as consumers of sports, perceive environmental factors at collegiate sporting events and how these consumer perceptions relate to positive affect toward the event for men's versus women's intercollegiate basketball customers in the USA. Gaining a deeper understanding of environmental factors and their relation to attitudinal favorableness is important as sports marketers continue to strive to satisfy sports consumers better. This work is especially important because environmental factors are often under the control of sports marketers — as opposed to uncontrollable factors such as winning percentage and player personnel. A mail survey was distributed to exiting customers at four basketball games at a large northwestern US university (two men's games and two women's games, n = 759). The overall favorableness of women's basketball customers exceeded the overall favorableness of men's customers on environmental factors tested. Women's customers placed more emphasis on atmospheric factors such as the courteousness of staff as well as facility and hospitality factors such as seating and concessions in rating their overall favorableness. Men's customers emphasized secondary entertainment factors, such as the band, as important environmental sources of favorableness.

Despite multiple structural changes since its 2011 inception, many English Women's Super League (WSL) clubs have recorded losses and carried debt, leading to concerns about the financial health of the league. This study is the first to analyse the financial health of any professional women's sports league in the world. The authors examine WSL club finances between 2011 and 2019, theoretically situate the findings within joint production, and make policy recommendations.

In total, 73 annual accounts of 14 WSL clubs between 2011 and 2019 were scrutinised.

Since 2011, club revenue has increased 590% but is outstripped by club debt increase (1,351%). The authors find poor financial health throughout the league, which may damage both its and the clubs' future growth. Findings also indicate an emergent group of dominant clubs on and off the pitch, which may threaten long-term sporting integrity and disrupt the joint production of the WSL product.

Women's football exists at an important crossroad, and its next moves need careful consideration in relation to its governance structures and league design.

The authors provide a road map for necessary action (e.g. revenue distribution, licensing criteria, rewards) to protect the financial health of the WSL's clubs and promote sporting competition to assist the sport to capitalise further on positive gains in recent years.

Women’s football has received increasing attention in the academic literature, partly due to its growing popularity worldwide. However, women’s football research remains scattered across numerous academic domains. Focusing on the social sciences, humanities and management disciplines, the purpose of this paper is to map and organise contributions, and to identify research directions for future studies within these disciplines.

Using the keywords “women”, “girls”, “female” and “football” or “soccer” to initially identify articles, an integrative approach was followed to evaluate and analyse relevant literature. In all, 117 academic journals were classified and subsequently divided into 26 themes according to the subject area, topic and level examined.

Results of this integrative review show an increasing trend of journal publications since 1998, with a large representation of studies related to historical and sociological research, where qualitative methods are dominant. Articles investigating economic, managerial and marketing areas appeared in more recent times. Women’s football has been researched from different perspectives (players, fans, sport organisations) and across various countries.

The restricted scope of this review (i.e. its focus on social sciences) and the manual classification of articles represent two limitations of this study. However, the synthesis of academic literature provided may assist scholars who are interested in women’s football and women’s sports research to fill identified research gaps and contribute to further advance academic investigations in this area.

This paper provides an overview of salient research avenues and represents the first attempt to critically appraise the direction of academic contributions in women’s football for the purpose of advancing scholarly inquiry in this sport.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between spectators’ event quality perceptions and revisit intention in both men's and women's basketball events by focusing on gender influence.

The study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) on data collected by questionnaire survey from a total of 623 spectators of two college men's basketball events (n=292) and two college women's basketball events (n=331).

The results indicate that for men's basketball events, game performance and staff quality had a significant influence on the revisit intention of spectators, regardless of the spectator's gender. For women's basketball events, game performance and in‐game entertainment were significant determinants of spectator revisit intentions, again regardless of gender.

The current research collected data from division I‐A men's and women's basketball events in only one higher education institution. Further the current research adopted only four salient event quality factors (i.e., game performance, in‐game entertainment, staff quality, and physical surrounding). Finally, current research measured only revisit intention as a dependent variable.

The findings suggest that game performance was found to be the most significant event quality factor regardless of gender in both men’s and women’s sporting events. Furthermore, in‐game entertainment was another critical event quality factor for the revisit intention for women’s basketball events. In addition, females have more sensitive event quality perceptions in both men’s and women’s basketball events.

This study investigated the moderating role of gender in the relationship between specific event quality factors (i.e., game performance, in‐game entertainment, staff quality, and physical surrounding) and revisit intention for both men's and women's college basketball events. The study's findings yield insight into service research and offers meaningful implications to managers for future improvements of their services and development of marketing strategies in this context.

This study aims to examine diversity and inclusivity in sports from a sexual orientation perspective. A literature review summarizes known findings on attitudes and perceptions of and towards nonbinary individuals in sports. Adopting Herek’s (2007) Sexual Stigma perspective, an experiment is conducted exploring the differences in fan attitudes and behavioral intentions towards nonbinary athletes in both women’s and men’s sports.

A systematic review of extant literature identified 24 peer-reviewed primary studies examining nonbinary individuals in sports. A 2 (Sport: Women’s vs. Men’s Basketball) × 2 (Nonbinary Indicator: Indicator vs. No-Indicator) experimental study was then designed to further explore fan attitudes towards nonbinary athletes.

The study revealed that, among sports fans, there was no perceived performance difference in women’s or men’s basketball linked to athletes’ nonbinary status (as measured by athletic ability, future performance, sportsmanship, talent and quickness). However, measures of fan support (sport engagement, intention to buy team merchandise and team fanship) were lower when the athlete was perceived as nonbinary. For women’s basketball, team fanship and intention to buy team merchandise were significantly lower, while the difference was not significant in men’s basketball.

Along with an inclusive review of prior literature, this is the first empirical study to examine the differences in fans’ attitudes towards nonbinary athletes in both women’s and men’s sports at the same time via an experimental design.

Niche sports such as women's professional sport leagues face many challenges to developing and expanding their fan base. Understanding sport fans, segmenting consumer bases and targeting them effectively can assist in both developing the fan base and competing for investments like sponsorships and media rights. The purpose of this study was to explore consumer segments of the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), a niche softball league, by identifying demographic and psychographic characteristics of the segments and developing a persona for each segment.

Data were collected from 3,463 NPF consumers with the assistance of NPF league officials using their social media outlets. A two-step cluster analysis was performed employing both categorical and continuous variables to inform the segmentation, which was followed with chi-squared statistics and two MANOVAs to compare the segments' demographic characteristics, points of attachment (POAs) levels and attendance and viewership of NPF games.

Three distinct consumer segments with unique demographic, POA and softball participation characteristics were identified. Differences among these segments' consumption of NPF games validated the existence of three distinct consumer segments.

This research is the first to examine consumer behavior in women's softball, and it expands the sport marketing literature through the identification of consumer segments of a niche sport league with a novel cluster analysis. Blending theory and practice by incorporating both demographic and psychographic variables into market segmentation, the research uniquely serves this niche sport and thereby informs improved marketing practice.

Women's football faces an existential threat from COVID-19. Using case studies, the authors explore the COVID-19 responses of three highly ranked national football associations (Australia, England and the USA) and their professional women's football leagues to (a) compare and shed new insights into the wide range of phased responses and (b) establish recommendations for other nations to navigate major crises with their social and ethical responsibilities to women's football.

Drawing on institutional theory, a framework analysis was undertaken examining 71 articles to analyse the gendered global impacts of COVID-19 on women's football.

Results highlight several important recommendations for nations to consider during the pandemic: (1) maintain active communication with the community to allay worries about the future of women's football, (2) gather support from health and government officials, (3) seek out commercial and broadcasting partnerships to drive revenue, and (4) the interests of women's football are best served when responsibility for the elite women's league does not rest (solely) with national football associations.

The authors argue that sport is an interwoven part of society and cannot be separated from gender equality issues irrespective of the pandemic.

The study is first to explore institutional pressures and football governing bodies during COVID-19 and provides a framework for nations to manage major crises.