Aaron C. Mansfield, Elizabeth Delia, K. Reifurth, Matthew Katz
{"title":"How Changes in Team Performance Impact Team Identity","authors":"Aaron C. Mansfield, Elizabeth Delia, K. Reifurth, Matthew Katz","doi":"10.32731/smq.324.122023.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.324.122023.05","url":null,"abstract":"Despite a wealth of team identification research, little scholarship has focused on how considerable changes to a team’s performance may impact the meaning of the team identity (as such a meaning is understood/exposited by in-group members). To this end, we examined fans of a historically poor-performing team that had reversed course, becoming a winner. We conducted semi-structured interviews with supporters of Major League Baseball’s (MLB’s) Chicago Cubs to explore how the team’s 2016 World Series (i.e., championship) win had impacted supporters’ identification with the team. We noted two primary themes defining how the team identity had changed: (1) different expectations for performance following the championship; and (2) the team’s new success representing a threat to interviewees’ understanding of the team identity meaning. We also observed constants in the composition of the team identity, factors unchanged by the success. We make our primary contribution by addressing the role of considerable team performance changes in the meaning of team identity.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138620799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of Authenticity on Celebrity Athlete Social Media Endorsement Messaging","authors":"Eric Nichols, Stephen Shapiro","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.01","url":null,"abstract":"The rise in celebrity athletes’ influence due to social media has had a massive effect on endorsement opportunities. Social media has given celebrity athletes an owned platform from which to leverage their audience into business opportunities, but an understanding of how authenticity affects the consumer was needed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine how the perceived authenticity of celebrity athletes’ social media endorsement posts affects brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Two experiments were conducted using fictitious Twitter posts including celebrity athletes to manipulate authenticity. Study 1 established that authenticity of a post has a significant effect on brand attitudes and purchase intention. Study 2 introduced two new celebrities and one new product. The importance of authenticity remained consistent with Study 1. Additionally, the type of brand had a greater effect when the promoted product required more purchase consideration when compared to an impulse purchase. Lastly, the celebrity promoting the product was not found to be significant. This research expands on the growing stream of knowledge related to authenticity in marketing communications and confirms its vital role.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42921642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dehumanization of Professional Athletes and Implications for Brand Attachment","authors":"Ben Larkin, Brendan Dwyer, Chad Goebert","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.04","url":null,"abstract":"A growing amount of attention has been paid to the topic of dehumanization of professional athletes in recent years, both in mainstream media and in academic literature. Even professional athletes themselves have begun speaking out on the issue. Nevertheless, the academic scholarship on this phenomenon remains sparse, with scholars yet to provide empirical evidence that sport fans do, in fact, dehumanize professional athletes. The current research fills this void by exploring fans’ implicit tendencies to view professional athletes as both machines and animals, with a particular emphasis on the marketing implications of this phenomenon. The results of the implicit association test (IAT) support the idea that participants view professional athletes as animals and displayed a negative association with athlete brand attachment. The findings advance multiple research lines and provide practical implications for sport teams and athlete brand managers.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48786858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Improving the Generalizability of the Effects of Sport Sponsorship on Brand Awareness: A Longitudinal, Multilevel Perspective","authors":"Jonathan Jensen, Jeremy Vlacancich","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.05","url":null,"abstract":"While the effects of sport sponsorship are widely researched, many studies suffer from a lack of generalizability and are oftentimes cross-sectional, given the challenges inherent in the collection and analysis of longitudinal data. This study seeks to remedy these issues by analyzing a longitudinal, heterogeneous dataset comprised of more than 500 sponsorships of North American sport leagues spanning 14 years. Results reveal an 8% increase in brand recognition in the first year following the initiation of the sponsorship. However, lagged variables indicate that the effect is reduced significantly after the second year. A second analysis confirms that effects are generalizable across multiple leagues and sponsorship categories. These results contradict the prevailing assumption that investments in sponsorship necessarily need to be long-term, suggesting that effects on brand awareness are more immediate and that effectiveness wanes the longer a brand remains a sponsor, representing an important and novel managerial contribution.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43064983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Galen T. Trail, Priscila Alfaro-Barrantes, Yukyoum Kim
{"title":"Consolidation of Concepts and Scales Examining External Activation Factors Affecting Sport Consumption","authors":"Galen T. Trail, Priscila Alfaro-Barrantes, Yukyoum Kim","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.06","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout the sport management literature, a plethora of scales exist that measure constructs that impact sport consumption. Although the scales have different names and may be derived from different theories, many of them use the same items. We propose to consolidate those scales in order to create one unified scale. Specifically, the purpose of this paper was to determine whether Keller’s (1993) brand association framework (product attributes, non-product attributes, and product benefits) could consolidate the existing models and theories that purport to measure what impacts people to consume sport. The results suggest that Keller’s model could be modified to include two more categories (organizational constraints and brand management attributes). Also, applying PLS Path Modeling using cSEM showed that the proposed model explained more variance in sport consumption intentions than other models found in the literature.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44316732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"They Saw a Game! Impact of Consumers’ Self-Serving Bias on Moral Disengagement and Subsequent Tolerant Responses Toward Athlete Scandals","authors":"Jin Woo Ahn, Joon Sung Lee, Daniel Wann","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.03","url":null,"abstract":"This research attempted to examine the tolerant responses of sport fans to scandalized athletes by drawing on fans’ self-serving bias and attribution theory. To this end, we conducted a quasi-experimental study (n = 219). The results of SEM analysis indicate that fans with a high team identification reported a greater level of external attribution than those with low team identification, while fans with low team identification reported a greater level of internal attribution than those with high team identification. Also, external attribution had positive impacts on moral disengagement, while internal attribution had negative impacts. We found that sport fans become more forgiving by activating moral disengagement. The present study further extends the literature by investigating how the level of team identification can evoke differential consumer responses toward a wrongdoer and enabling practitioners to make informed decisions on whether they should keep ties with troubled athletes.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42662826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who Says She’s Not a True Fan? Perceptions of Fan Authenticity Among Gen Z Women Sports Fans","authors":"Christina Simmers, Rebecca Rast, Joshua Coleman","doi":"10.32731/smq.323.092023.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.323.092023.02","url":null,"abstract":"While sports have traditionally been perceived as an industry dominated by men, the women’s sports fashion industry is growing both in terms of market power and complexity. This paper explores women’s fanwear fashion choices and others’ perceptions of their fan authenticity among Gen Z sports fans. Through an application of attribution theory, empirical analyses revealed that men generally do not make differential attributions toward a woman’s fan authenticity based on her fashion choice. Women, however, attribute a nuanced variety of motive and authenticity based on fanwear choice. These findings were extended across men’s and women’s sports teams. This research provides a further understanding of Gen Z perceptions of women who wear various styles of sports fan fashion, how others perceive a woman’s fan authenticity, and the degree to which men and women make these judgments.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41718212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Identity, Risk Perception, and Sport Participation: Conditional Process Analysis of Golfers’ Revisit Intent During the COVID Pandemic","authors":"Sungho Cho, D. Kwak, J. L. Lee, J. Won","doi":"10.32731/smq.322.062023.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.322.062023.05","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly politicized in the US. Th is study explored the effect of individuals’ political orientation on the relationship between their risk assessments of COVID-19 and intentions to revisit the golf course. A first-stage moderated mediation model consisting of general risk awareness of COVID-19, perceived risk of playing golf, and revisit intention was introduced to specify when and how political orientation influences an individual’s decision to play golf again. Recreational golfers (N = 199) from a survey panel took part in the study, and results showed that risk awareness of COVID-19 increases the perceived risk of playing golf while suppressing one’s intention to revisit the golf course during the pandemic. However, political orientation moderated the suppressant effect of risk awareness on revisit intent in that only Democrats showed negative effect on revisit intent while Republicans did not show any significant relationship. Findings are discussed in the context of a dual process model of political identity, and the implications for practice as well as future research are presented.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43850860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effects of Commitment to CSR-Linked Sport Sponsorship on Consumers’ Fit Perception, Attitude toward Sponsor, and Word-of-Mouth Intention","authors":"Akira Asada, Meimei Yan, Y. Ko, J. Lee","doi":"10.32731/smq.322.062023.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.322.062023.04","url":null,"abstract":"Corporate social responsibility (CSR)-linked sport sponsorships attract attention from sport marketing professionals and scholars alike. Th e purpose of this research was to examine how the effectiveness of a CSR-linked sponsorship varies depending upon the sponsor’s commitment to the CSR program. Th e results of our experiment showed that a CSR-linked sponsorship could hurt consumers’ fi t perception if the sponsor shows only minimum commitment to the cause. We also found that a CSR-linked sponsorship is more effective than a standard sponsorship in inducing consumers’ positive attitudes toward the sponsor and word-of-mouth intentions only if the sponsor is strongly committed to the CSR program. Finally, our mediation analysis revealed that strong commitment to the CSR-linked sponsorship indirectly increases consumers’ word-of mouth intentions through enhanced fi t perception and attitude toward the sponsor. Therefore, sports organizations and their sponsors should incorporate CSR into their sponsorship only if they can be strongly committed to the program.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47576195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Factors Influencing Fan Acceptance or Rejection of a Sport Team’s Revolutionary Rebrand","authors":"Jason M. Simmons, M. Naraine, C. Greenwell","doi":"10.32731/smq.322.062023.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.32731/smq.322.062023.01","url":null,"abstract":"Using the context of the Washington Football Team, the current study examined the importance of six brand associations (team colors, community integration, culture/traditions, nickname, logo, uniform style) on fan attitudes toward a revolutionary rebrand. Data were collected from 669 Washington Football Team fans through an online questionnaire. A rating-based conjoint analysis was used to test for the relative influence of each brand association on brand desirability and rejection. Separate analyses were conducted based on respondent geographic location, existing attitudes toward the name change, and level of passion for the team. Across all analyses, team color scheme was at least three times more important than any other association. Findings suggest respondents are more likely to view the revolutionary rebrand favorably if the team keeps its existing color scheme. Conversely, brand friction is likely to occur should the color scheme change, as fans continue to wear merchandise associated with the brand prerevolution.","PeriodicalId":47293,"journal":{"name":"Sport Marketing Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48557604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}