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The purpose of this study was to compare four different consumer pathway models based on identity theory, attitude/loyalty theory, lifestyle theory and hierarchy of effects theory, each with associated instruments measuring connection to the team.

The authors did a two-study analysis, first collecting data from people aware of an NFL team (N = 218) and then an MLS team (N = 209) to determine which connection item performed better.

The authors found that the Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom based on the hierarchy of effects theory and its associated interest measurement item performed better than the other three frameworks and items. The Interest item shared the most variance with games attended, games intending to attend, games watched via media and games intending to watch via media.

The Consumer Pathway for Sport Fandom represents the entire consumer spectrum from non-aware consumers all the way up to die-hard sports fans. This pathway will allow sport marketers to track their consumers from initial awareness of the product or service all the way through the brand relationship to ultimate loyalty.

National surveys reveal that sports fans exhibit greater support for athletes, sports teams and leagues endorsing social justice initiatives compared to the general population, highlighting the potential of sports for positive social impact. This study investigates whether such responses are influenced by systematic biases.

Replicating a Nielsen national survey, two experiments explore whether biases affect support for athletes' participation in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The study also examines partisan motivated reasoning as a factor driving sports fans' support for BLM.

While avid fans display stronger endorsement of BLM compared to causal/non-sports fans, evidence suggests that systematic biases distort these responses. When sport identity becomes salient, reported support for the BLM movement becomes inflated.

Researchers often employ self-report surveys to gauge audience perceptions of athlete activism or cause-related initiatives, particularly when assessing their impact. This study's findings indicate that this context is susceptible to SDB.

The study underscores the role of systematic biases in self-report surveys, particularly in socially desirable contexts. People tend to over-report “positive behavior,” leading survey participants to respond more favorably to questions that are socially desirable. Therefore, interpreting survey results with caution becomes essential when the research context is deemed socially (un)desirable. It is crucial for researchers to apply appropriate measures to identify and mitigate systematic response biases. The authors recommend that researchers adopt both procedural and statistical remedies to detect and reduce social desirability biases.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of sports sponsorship on brand equity using two managerially related outcomes: price premium and market share.

This study uses a best–worst discrete choice experiment (BWDCE) and compares the outcome with that of the purchase intention scale, an established probabilistic measure of purchase intention. The total sample consists of 409 fans of three soccer teams sponsored by three different competing brands: Nike, Adidas and Puma.

With sports sponsorship, fans were willing to pay more for the sponsor’s product, with the sponsoring brand obtaining the highest market share. Prominent brands generally performed better than less prominent brands. The best–worst scaling method was also 35% more accurate in predicting brand choice than a purchase intention scale.

Future research could use the same method to study other types of sponsors, such as title sponsors or other product categories.

Sponsorship managers can use this methodology to assess the return on investment in sponsorship engagement.

Prior sponsorship studies on brand equity tend to ignore market share or fans’ willingness to pay a price premium for a sponsor’s goods and services. However, these two measures are crucial in assessing the effectiveness of sponsorship. This study demonstrates how to conduct such an assessment using the BWDCE method. It provides a clearer picture of sponsorship in terms of its economic value, which is more managerially useful.

This study aimed to understand better what makes esports fans engage with streamers' live-streaming of esports gameplay. This study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and additionally adopted streamer identification and esports game identification as moderating variables.

Data were collected from streamers' esports content streaming viewers over 18 years of age using an online survey in Amazon M-Turk (N = 307). Based on past esports live-streaming weekly watching hours, which range from 1 to 45 h, the participants were divided into lower (n = 152) and higher (n = 155) frequency groups. PLS-SEM and bootstrapping techniques were used to test the moderated mediation relationships among the constructs.

This study found a negative moderating effect of past watching experience on the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intention, and it positively moderated the path between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention. Also, it was found statistically significant direct impacts of streamer identification (STI) and esports game identification (EGI) on attitude and subjective norms. While the indirect impact of STI on behavioral intention through attitude was statistically significant, there were no significant indirect impacts of EGI on attitude and behavioral intention through subjective norms.

Theoretically, this study extends the TPB model by exploring the two identifications (i.e. streamers and esports games) as antecedents of the focal TPB factors (i.e. attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) and the moderating effect of prior experience based on high/low weekly watching frequencies. Practically, content creators of esports live-streaming and live-streaming platform managers can use the study’s findings to develop strategies to nurture their current and future viewership.

Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.

Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results.

The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally.

Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience.

Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost.

Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.

This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.

To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.

We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.

The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.

This research paper aims to investigate the predictors and outcomes of immersive technology adoption in tourism.

PLS-SEM is used for data collected from tourists visiting the UAE and Egypt to examine predictors and consequences of adoption.

It is revealed that perceived ease of use, enjoyment, immersion, usefulness and attitude towards technology predict immersive technology adoption. It is also revealed that the adoption affects tourists’ perceived value and engagement, which, in turn, affects tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty.

The study has integrated a research model that combines both antecedents and consequences of immersive technology adoption where few empirical investigations were revealed to draw conclusions on this research area. Also, missing relations have been included and tested in the research model.

This study delves into the psychological processes underlying sport fans' post-purchase innovativeness behaviour. This exploratory research aims to establish a theoretical framework that elucidates the formation of sport fans' word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviours, particularly emphasising the structural relationship between motivated consumer innovativeness and satisfaction in using AR live-streaming services.

Utilising an online survey and convenience sampling, the study garnered a total of 243 usable responses from three online baseball fan communities in South Korea. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the psychometric properties of the constructs. Subsequently, a structural equation model was used to probe the influence of motivated consumer innovativeness on WOM, with a particular focus on the mediating role of satisfaction.

Three dimensions of motivated sport fans innovativeness – functional, hedonic and cognitive – showed a positive association with WOM, partly mediated by satisfaction. In contrast, socially motivated sport fans innovativeness did not directly lead to WOM but influenced it solely through satisfaction. The full mediating role of satisfaction in the relationship between socially motivated fans innovativeness and WOM was found.

This research stands out as one of the scant studies exploring motivated sport fans innovativeness in the context of AR live sport streaming. The findings not only corroborate but also augment the extant literature by empirically confirming that three dimensions of motivated fans innovativeness, coupled with satisfaction, are pivotal antecedents to WOM intention.

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss a framework (the Revised Model of Sport Consumer Behavior – R-MSCB; Trail, 2019) to accomplish the following objectives. (1) Provide a framework for sport marketers and sport organizations to use in their own market research. (2) Designate the processes needed to generate results and knowledge that sport organizations, sport marketers and associated corporate partners can use to improve marketing campaigns. (3) Provide suggestions for analytic techniques and measurement constructs/instruments that will facilitate market research within the sport industry.

The author created a 140-item questionnaire for the pre-survey and a 50-item questionnaire for the post-survey. The pre-survey was given at the beginning of the season, and the post-survey was given at the end of the season. The research group has generated a sequence of 13 studies and has collected pre-survey responses from over 7,800 people across 4 continents, 8 sports and 13 teams (data collections), with more teams still planned and over 2,000 post-season survey responses with data collection continuing.

This project, with its 13 studies, will provide sport organizations with the theories/frameworks, knowledge and processes to do their own market research in a more effective and efficient manner and will show sport organizations how to understand the complexities of sport consumer behavior, the motivations behind it and how it varies extensively across individuals. The author will show sports organizations how to collect data from their consumers using valid and reliable measures and constructs that will allow them to segment their consumers, how to effectively market to those segments and how to establish long-lasting relationships that make a satisfied and loyal customer.

This paper provides the framework and guidelines so that sport marketers and researchers can identify specific variables, constructs and relationships that will further their own objectives when attempting to explain sport consumer behavior. Using their own market research, they can implement the results/output in association with the Communications Strategy Model to create more effective and efficient marketing and communications campaigns and consequently drive key performance indicators (KPIs) and improve revenue streams.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.