Sport Management & Marketing

Attending live sporting events is a popular leisure and entertainment activity in contemporary European societies, none more important than football (the sport Americans refer to as soccer). For example, according to Deloitte’s (2014) annual report about the football industry, the top 20 European clubs generated combined revenues of over €5.4 billion in 2012-13, including almost €1.2 billion in gate receipts. However, due to myriad aspects such as the difficult economic environment in many countries, the increased competition of other leisure/entertainment activities, the importance of selling broadcasting rights, and the development of new technologies, clubs now face the challenge of retaining and even increasing this high demand. In this sense, clubs need to look for the games as regular opportunities to strengthen the link with current and prospective spectators by providing memorable consumption and/or entertainment experiences that include more than just the competition between two teams on the field, court, ice, track, or better yet, the stage.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an in-house, in-seat marketing survey of a professional National Hockey League (NHL) hockey team. A total of 1,783 surveys were collected over a five game period. The data collection instrument was designed by the marketing and ownership group of a professional NHL franchise. Specific research questions examined issues ranging from ticket usage, demographics, motivation to attend, barriers to future attendance, customer satisfaction, intent to purchase and media preferences of ice hockey spectators. Results indicate a very distinctive pattern

In this research the questions “What are critical success factors in sport sponsorship deals?” and “How are sponsorship deals in esport beneficial for the sponsor?” are answered through a literature review on sports sponsorship and a discussion of the main themes that emerged.
The literature review showed models and theories that cover different phases of sport sponsorships, which helped answering the questions eventually.
It was concluded that several key success factors in various phases in sponsorships determine outcomes. However, they are dynamic and complex in nature which makes sponsorships very context specific.
It was furthermore found that the sponsor benefit from sport sponsorships in terms of sales, market share, brand equity, image transfer, and competitive advantage.

This research aims to examine football fans’ awareness of their team sponsors and to compare sponsorship awareness  between season ticket holders and casual spectators. Data was collected from among fans of a professional football team and results revealed that spectators recall ‘top of mind’ those sponsors with their logo displayed on the team shirts. Thus, being visible from the stadium stands is important to ensure recall rates. Fans are typically able to properly recognise sponsors and non-sponsors of their team. However, some competitor brands engaged in football sponsorship are incorrectly recognised as sponsors of a team. Finally, the number of brands recalled and recognised correctly by season ticket holders is significantly higher than for casual spectators. The research findings, managerial implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Destinado a profissionais de educação física ou interessados nos fundamentos básicos da Gestão, Compliance e Marketing no Esporte;
Aimed at physical education professionals or those interested in the basics of Sports Management, Compliance and Marketing

Because sport team identification plays an important role in facilitating higher levels of sport attendance and consumption , sport management and marketing professionals are often interested in determining variables that serve as antecedents of identification. Some authors have suggested that the need to belong may be one such variable . Thus, two studies were designed to examine the relationship between need to belong and identification. Study 1 involved 119 US college students completing measures of demographics, identification, fandom, and the need to belong. Consistent with expectations, the need to belong was positively correlated with level of identification with a local sport team, but not identification with a distant team or mere sport fandom. Study 2 contained a sample of 100 Greek university students and replicated the positive relationship between identification with a local team and the need to belong. Discussion centres on the causal relationships among the variables, implications for fans of distant teams, and suggestions for sport marketers and managers.

Sponsorship studies have generally been focused on attitudinal measures of fan loyalty to understand the reactions to abstract sponsors. This study examines the relationships between both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty with sponsorship awareness, attitude toward two actual sponsors, and purchase intentions. Data were collected among fans of a professional soccer team, and the results of a structural equation model provide evidence that attitudinal loyalty impacts the attitude toward both sponsors and purchase intentions. Behavioral loyalty influences sponsorship awareness, and impacts differently the attitude and purchase intentions toward each sponsor. Sponsorship awareness influences significantly the attitude toward both sponsors, while the attitude toward the sponsor was the strongest predictor of purchase intentions. These findings highlight the importance of examining actual sponsors and suggest managerial implications, such as the need for sponsors to help attract fans to the stadium and to design additional activation strategies to improve sponsorship value.

Since its creation in 1903, the Tour de France has remained the biggest of all professional cycling events. This chapter aims to present three aspects of the economic history of the Tour de France and what they tell us about the economic history of sport. First, the Tour has always been owned by private newspaper and media companies. This is why I analyze the level and composition of these companies’ turnover, their business strategies and the reasons for their overall success. Second, Tour riders have always been professionals. This is why I analyze riders’ incomes and prize money and their distribution, which shows clear “winner-takes-all” aspects. Third, the demand for sport shows by Tour spectators reveals broad trends in Europe’s economic history since the early 20th century: the diffusion of bicycles, newspapers and mass consumption, the increase in leisure time, and the advent of the mass media.

Although empirical and theoretical examinations of sport fans and spectators appear to be increasing, there is still limited information on cross cultural analyses of fandom. To partially fill this research void, the current investigation involved an examination of sport fandom in Greece. Specifically, four research questions were reviewed: "To what degree do male and female Greek university students engage in behaviors commonly associated with sport fandom?", "To what extent do parents, friends / peers, school and community contribute to their socialization into the sport fan role?", "Which one of the aforementioned socialization agents is most influential?", and "How strongly do students identify with their favorite team?" The questions were answered by testing a convenience sample of 351 students at the department of physical education and sport sciences of a metropolitan university in Greece. The participants completed a questionnaire packet assessing demographic, sport fandom, sport fan behaviors, team identification, and the impact of various socialization agents. The results revealed a number of interesting findings including gender differences in sport fandom (males greater than females), the importance of fathers as a agent of socialization, and the large percentage of Greek teams listed as one's favorite team. In the Discussion section, the current work is compared and contrasted with research of fans from other cultures, namely North America and Norway.

One of the main sponsorship benefits sought by a firm is a positive effect on corporate image through the association of their brand with a sporting entity. Given the increasing incidence of crises in sport, it can be argued that the sponsorship decision may be viewed as a form of risk-taking behaviour. Drawing on the crisis management and public relations literature, this paper examines the utility of established models within the domain of sport marketing and sponsorship. Specific emphasis is given to definitional and future research issues pertaining to athlete-triggered crises. The need for research in this area is evident given the potential brand risk associated with sponsoring athletes or teams within crisis-prone sports and the limited attention on this issue in the current literature. This paper explores the relevance of some pertinent terms that are central to an established structured crisis typology such as crisis, transgression, faux pas and terrorism and concludes with a direction for future research.

This paper argues for Grounded Theory (GT) to be more widely used to allow emergence of socially constructed sport related processes. The aim of GT is to explain social phenomena and the resources that are required to support social processes. GT is attractive to researchers as it uses the natural setting where the phenomena studied takes place to examine and understand social constructions. This paper demonstrates the importance of using GT by using a sport management study to exemplify GT processes and assess its efficacy in the discipline. Integration of GT method will strengthen sport management research and enable researchers understand social constructions associated with sport.

This study investigates an emerging alternative to event sponsorship based on corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate support of major sporting events. The outcome of the 2005 FINA World Aquatic Championships presented a unique case of sponsorship and the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors which led to the development of corporate support as a viable alternative to sponsorship. Factors included the organising committee's leadership, the positioning of the event (including the event/sport as a social cause, the benefits of hosting the event, CSR, and contextual limitations), and accessing corporate presidents directly. The cost of not getting involved and corporate peer pressure were found to moderate the event president's decision to offer corporate support to the event's organising committee. A model showing the interrelationship between the various factors is also proposed.

In the sport management literature, limited attention has been devoted to the conceptualization and measurement of fan engagement. Two quantitative studies were completed to validate the proposed fan-engagement scale composed of three defining elements (management cooperation, prosocial behavior, and performance tolerance). The results from Study 1 provide evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the threefactor model of fan engagement. In Study 2, we assess nomological validity by examining the antecedents and consequences of fan engagement and found that team identification and basking in reflected glory played a particularly important role in increasing the three dimensions of fan engagement. Furthermore, the results indicate that performance tolerance has a positive effect on purchase intention. These findings highlight the importance of the sequential relationships between team identification, performance tolerance, and purchase intention.

“The future of sport management and its professoriate as respected entities in the academy will rest, in large measure, on the quality of the scholarship produced” (Parks & Bartley, 1996, p. 119).
The purpose of this study was to examine one of the Sport Management field’s journals, the International Journal of Sport Management (IJSM). Examining the sport management literature has become an identifiable area of research whose purpose is to determine the state of the body of knowledge toward identifying its strengths and weaknesses. Such examination leads researchers, academics, and editors to strengthen the body of knowledge by addressing the weaknesses. The current study was a content analytic analysis of the general state of IJSM since its inception. Results include that this journal has had one editor since its beginning (for the period analyzed in this study), a majority of its editorial board members are male, and there are disproportionate numbers in some of the areas examined in the papers in this journal in sport management content areas, sport business industry segments, and gender of focus.

Football is one of the most rooted sports worldwide attracting millions of spectators, but clubs face an increasing competition of other leisure activities. Understanding how to increase spectators' behavioral intentions towards their favorite football teams is paramount for sport managers, given that a behavioral intention represents a measure of how much a person is willing to engage in a specific behavior. Thus, the purposes of this study were (1) to explain the role of spectators' behavioral intentions, and to highlight its antecedents within the football context. In doing so, this study starts by providing a review of consumption-related aspects that have been associated with football spectators' behavioral intentions, such as emotions experienced during the games, service quality, team brand associations and satisfaction. Subsequently, the main findings from previous studies conducted with football spectators are highlighted and managerial implications are suggested in order to aid football clubs at providing good overall consumption experiences to their spectators, and thus contributing to increase attendance levels. Finally, future research avenues are suggested in order to expand our understanding on how to strengthen the link between football spectators and their teams, with subsequent associated benefits.

The popularity of the video aggregation website YouTube has led some sporting organisations to establish a presence on the site. These can come in the form of channels, web pages that host all of a user's video clips. Other YouTube users can subscribe to these channels, meaning a channel's updates appear on a user's YouTube home page. Among the entities utilising this inexpensive way of disseminating video messages is 16-year-old professional soccer league Major League Soccer (MLS). Researchers examined whether a sport organisation (i.e., MLS) can use such a website to practice agenda-setting through the posting of certain kinds of videos. Results showed that agenda-setting is being accomplished on a small scale, but can potentially be accomplished on a larger scale by using YouTube as if it were a traditional mass medium.

Pedagogical innovation involving smartphone technology paired with complementary applications may offer sport management faculty the opportunity to create an environment of engaging instruction. Technologically enhanced and innovative assignments have the potential to stimulate student interest and critical-thinking skills by presenting new experiences and active learning opportunities via participatory education. Through the discussion of technology integration and pedagogical innovation when teaching millennial students, the purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework—namely, the concerns-based adoption model (CBAM)—to introduce mobile technologies, such as Socrative and Twitter, into the sport management classroom.

There is a growing debate on the professionalisation of non-profit sports clubs (e.g., more paid staff) and the remuneration of sports volunteers. These voluntary sports organisations are, together with for-profit fitness and health clubs, the main types of sports providers at the grassroots level in Flanders (Belgium). They both are non-public organisations, active in the same market, but differ regarding to their objectives and their human resources (i.e., volunteers versus paid staff). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the hypothetical HR-cost of volunteer work in non-profit sports clubs, based on a market price of equivalency model, with the actual HR-cost of for-profit sports providers. The results show that fitness and health clubs are found to be more efficient, in terms of the unit human resources cost. However, non-profit sports clubs have a distinctive economic structure and own rationality. Hence, it seems not appropriate to transfer the economic efficiency approach of for-profits blindly to non-profit sports clubs as the added value of volunteer work to individuals, organisations and the society as a whole (c.f., positive externalities) are neglected.

Globalisation has been one of the most significant determinants of growth in the sports industry worldwide, especially with the increasing importance of brand creation, brand awareness, brand image, brand identity and brand equity. Professional sports teams have ...

Sponsorship studies have generally been focused on attitudinal measures of fan loyalty to understand the reactions to abstract sponsors. This study examines the relationships between both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty with sponsorship awareness, attitude toward two actual sponsors, and purchase intentions. Data were collected among fans of a professional soccer team, and the results of a structural equation model provide evidence that attitudinal loyalty impacts the attitude toward both sponsors and purchase intentions. Behavioral loyalty influences sponsorship awareness, and impacts differently the attitude and purchase intentions toward each sponsor. Sponsorship awareness influences significantly the attitude toward both sponsors, while the attitude toward the sponsor was the strongest predictor of purchase intentions. These findings highlight the importance of examining actual sponsors and suggest managerial implications, such as the need for sponsors to help attract fans to...

Researchers have suggested that brand equity is vital for professional sport teams by focusing on the examination of sport fans in general. The current study aims to examine the differences in team brand equity perceptions between fan club members and non-members, and the predictive role of brand equity dimensions on behavioral intentions. Data were collected from fans of a professional football league (n = 2287) with an adapted version of the spectator-based brand equity scale. The results gathered through a confirmatory factor analysis provide evidence of fair psychometric properties of the measurement scale. A multi-group CFA analysis showed factorial stability of the model in both groups, while the latent mean comparisons revealed significant differences in the dimensions of brand mark, social interaction, commitment, team history, organizational attributes, team success, head coach, management, stadium, and internalization. In addition, a multi-group SEM analysis revealed that the relationships between brand equity dimensions and behavioral intentions are not significantly different among the groups. Social interaction, team success and internalization were the significant positive predictors of behavioral intentions among the overall sample. These findings highlight the importance of studying different types of consumers and suggest managerial implications, such as the need for clubs to establish reciprocal relationships with fans in order to increase their levels of internalization and contribute to increased behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this study was to understand the implications of athlete brand among fans. Using a conceptual framework derived from a literature review as a starting point, a set of interviews was conducted with fans from three different countries in order to develop a better understanding of the role of athlete brand on fans' responses towards an athlete, and the associated teams and sponsors. The findings indicate that fans' responses towards an athlete include media following, creating their own narratives, positive word-of-mouth, and resistance to changing a favourite athlete. In addition, responses to the athlete's team include potential team substitution when the athlete is transferred, support for multiple teams and increased revenue generation. Finally, the sponsors of the athletes may also have benefits among fans including brand recognition, positive image, purchase intentions and ignoring rival sponsors. The implications of these findings for building and managing an athlete's brand are discussed, and directions for future studies are provided.

The benefits that congruence between a sports club and its main sponsor delivers to the club are not well understood. This study tested a preliminary model that examined the direct and mediated relationships between the motivations for club membership, perceptions of the club and sponsor, evaluations of club-sponsor image congruence, and in turn, sponsor patronage, and satisfaction with club membership. A sample of 299 football club members provided ratings on these measures through a structured questionnaire. Results revealed that members who identified highly with the club, and who responded positively to efforts to maintain club traditions, were more likely to have a positive image of the sponsor and to report higher levels of sponsor patronage. Sponsor image partially mediated the relationship between club identification and traditions, and overall satisfaction with the club. A direct positive relationship between the congruence score and members' patronage of the sponsor's products was also observed.

This study uses the List of Values (LOV) approach to investigate the differences in social values of amateur basketball tournament participants and spectators. The data from the survey of tournament attendees (N = 399) were utilised to demonstrate that social values can be used to predict the likelihood of a person becoming either a participant or a spectator in an amateur sport tournament. The value orientations are discussed in the context of demographic differences between the two groups. The sense of accomplishment and excitement values were positively related to tournament participation. In contrast, the warm relationship with others and security values were positively related to tournament spectatorship. Practical implications of these findings for marketing and management of amateur sport tournaments are discussed.

This study determined the perceived motivators and barriers of sport management majors to participate in a college-sponsored study abroad experience. An online survey was administered to 180 undergraduate and graduate sport management students from across the United States. The top motivators were (1) overall life experience, (2) the opportunity to live in another country or culture, and (3) résumé builder, while the top barriers were (1) finances, (2) missing social time and events on campus, and (3) lack of knowledge about opportunities relatively consistent with both open-response and rank-order question types. Not highlighted in previous research, open-response questions revealed that "meeting new people and having fun" (6.7%) and "uncomfortable being away from home" (19.4%) were mentioned as a top motivator and barrier, respectively. Most notably, only 2.8% of the sport management student sample had studied abroad. This article discusses implications of these findings, focusing on recommendations for increasing participation in college-sponsored international experiences for sport management students.

This investigation extends the study of brand community integration to niche sports by examining online and offline community involvement in a minor soccer league. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spatial groups and brand community integration dimensions and assess the relationship between brand community integration and behavioural intentions between spatial groups. A sample of 890 brand community members from a minor soccer league in North America were asked to rate their level of online and offline involvement with the brand, level of integration with the brand community, and level of intent to attend future league games. Results indicate brand community members of teams in this league can be distinctly classified as online or offline community members, brand community integration is stronger among online members, and higher degrees of community integration yield higher levels of intent to attend future games. These findings suggest brand community integration is enhanced through online interactions with the brand. This illustrates the importance of brand communities in niche sports and highlights the opportunity for marketers to develop community integration relatively inexpensively via online involvement. . His current projects focus on analysing brand community, customer satisfaction, and the identification of value propositions in business-to-business markets for season tickets.

Studying sport in the academia has been in existence for several decades. The educational pursuits in sport have been rooted in such disciplines as history, management, sociology, marketing, organisational behaviour, and law. Communication is another of these established academic disciplines upon which the study of sport has been juxtaposed. One way for the intersection of sport and communication -sport communication -to continue to grow as its own academic discipline is through defining the field itself. Therefore, this analysis proposes a unified definition for the academic study of sport communication and examines the unique and integrated elements involved. Such a definitional inquiry assists in the development of the disciplinary parameters and research possibilities of the field of sport communication.

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers' loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cronin's (2001) three-dimensional model (interaction, physical environment, and outcome quality), while place attachment was measured with Kyle et al.'s (2004a, b) two-dimensional model (place identify and place dependence). A sample of 288 skiers participated in the study. Men were 57.6% of the sample. The mean age of the sample was 32.4 years, ranging from 14 to 56 years old. The data were collected from two skiing resorts in North Greece. Using structural equation modeling, the results provided support of the proposed model. Place attachment had a mediation effect on the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty. These results improve our theoretical understanding of the factors that contribute to the development of skiers' loyalty with skiing resorts. Marketing implications, in terms of developing strategies to increase consumer loyalty, are discussed.

In the sport management literature, limited attention has been devoted to the conceptualization and measurement of fan engagement. Two quantitative studies were completed to validate the proposed fan-engagement scale composed of three defining elements (management cooperation, prosocial behavior, and performance tolerance). The results from Study 1 provide evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the threefactor model of fan engagement. In Study 2, we assess nomological validity by examining the antecedents and consequences of fan engagement and found that team identification and basking in reflected glory played a particularly important role in increasing the three dimensions of fan engagement. Furthermore, the results indicate that performance tolerance has a positive effect on purchase intention. These findings highlight the importance of the sequential relationships between team identification, performance tolerance, and purchase intention.

Mixed martial arts emerged as a major player in the sports industry during the 2000s, with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) growing into the sport's foremost promotion. Critical to the promotion's management is understanding fan consumption choices. Using economic demand theory, we draw on the spectator motivation and team sports demand literatures to provide an empirical analysis of what drives demand for mixed martial arts events. Our regression models show that economic and scheduling considerations explain the variation in UFC attendance. The popular notion that The Ultimate Fighter reality series served as the impetus for the UFC's growth is unsupported by time series analysis and numerous independent variables in our model.

The present study examined the relationship between service quality, place attachment, and customer loyalty in the context of recreational skiing. Specifically, it was hypothesised that place attachment would mediate the relationship between service quality and skiers' loyalty. Service quality was measured with an adjusted version of Brady and Cronin's (2001) three-dimensional model (interaction, physical environment, and outcome quality), while place attachment was measured with Kyle et al.'s (2004a, b) two-dimensional model (place identify and place dependence). A sample of 288 skiers participated in the study. Men were 57.6% of the sample. The mean age of the sample was 32.4 years, ranging from 14 to 56 years old. The data were collected from two skiing resorts in North Greece. Using structural equation modeling, the results provided support of the proposed model. Place attachment had a mediation effect on the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty....

The purpose of this study was to examine specific leadership qualities identified as important by stakeholders of large-scale sporting events. The 2005 'Fédération Internationale de Natation' (FINA) World Aquatics Championships was used to build a case for determining what leadership qualities were necessary throughout the evolution of the event. The data, collected through means of archival material and interviews of the organising committee and its stakeholders, emphasised the importance of networking and human resource management as key leadership skills. Leadership qualities depended on the organising committee's mode (planning, implementation, wrap-up) and included, for example, financial skills, ability to access resources, credibility, and communication and public relations. Each of the qualities could then be classified as either an antecedent or a consequence of networking, thus supporting networking and its political, business and sport components as being a critical leadership quality.

Streszczenie: W artykule została przedstawiona logistyka organizacji wybranej imprezy sportowej. Autorzy omawiają podstawy teoretyczne terminu imprezy sportowej oraz jej organizacji. W dalszej części artykułu opisane zostały główne fazy organizacji imprezy, opis regulaminu, jako najważniejszego dokumentu gwarantującego sprawne przeprowadzenie imprezy, warunki sprawnego przeprowadzenie imprezy sportowej oraz specyfikę logistyki imprezy sportowej. Analizowanym przedsięwzięciem sportowym był X Polsko-Ukraiński Festiwal Siatkówki organizowany przez KU AZS Politechnika Częstochowa. Słowa kluczowe: impreza sportowa, sport, logistyka Wprowadzenie W literaturze naukowej oraz w słownikach obcych termin impreza oznacza przedsięwzięcie, zazwyczaj jednorazowe, najczęściej z udziałem publiczności, o różnym charakterze. Z uwagi na charakter imprez wyróżnia się m.in. imprezy sportowe, zabawę, koncert itp.. W przypadku imprez sportowych wyróżnia się dwie kategorie: zawody, gdzie rezultat współzawodnictwa jest nieprzewidywalny, oraz widowiska wyreżyserowane, gdzie wynik jest powszechnie znany i nie zawsze jest on najważniejszym w danej imprezie. 1 W literaturze można także spotkać liczne definicje terminu widowiska sportowego i tak według Czesława Matusewicza widowiskiem sportowym jest zdarzenie społeczne dostępne percepcji wzrokowej o charakterze sportowo-rekreacyjnym, zaistniałe z racji organizowanej rywalizacji sportowej zawodników, przebiegające zgodnie z uznanymi regułami (przepisami), w którym uczestniczą jako strony, sędziowie, organizatorzy i widzowie tworzący widownię. 2 Inną definicję tego samego terminu podaje Mosz według którego pojęcia widowiska sportowego używa się w dwóch przynajmniej znaczeniach:-neutralnym jako określenia będącego synonimem pojęcia wydarzenia sportowego, wskazującego na atrakcyjność zawodów sportowych, 1 Ryba B., Organizacja imprez sportowych (wyd. III), Polska Korporacja Menadżerów Sportu,

Time management is an important part of game strategy in the National Football League (NFL), especially in the second half of a game that could be decided by a field goal. This paper determines the in-game factors that contribute to an NFL offensive team's total time taken to reach field goal range during the final six minutes of regulation in games that are within three points or less. Using data constructed from 2009-2011 NFL regular season games, we find that neither quarterback rating nor the number of All-Pro players affect the speed at a which a team reaches field goal range. However, counter to conventional wisdom, using an offensive timeout during the final drive of the game extends the time it takes to reach field goal range by 22 seconds. On the other hand, the mere availability of an offensive timeout decreases the time it takes to reach field goal range by 19 seconds. Both of these effects are found in games where the offense is behind by 1, 2, or 3 points, but not in tied games. These findings inform in-game coaching decisions for football head coaches.

Although prior research examined sponsorship announcements, differences in abstraction and when sponsorships are announced have been neglected. Based on Construal Level Theory, the effects of sponsorship announcement informativeness (abstract/concrete), personal level of construal (PLC; high/low), and temporal distance (proximate/distant) are investigated here in two experiments. Contrary to previous advertising research, results show that matching announcement informativeness with associated construal level or temporal distance is suboptimal. Instead, sponsors and sponsored properties should provide concrete informativeness regardless of temporal distance or consumers' PLC. Concrete informativeness enhances attitude and purchase intent for consumers with high PLC and for distant events.

This research focused on the impact of customer service quality on business performance in the hospitality industry in Qatar. The study centered on determining the impact of customer service quality (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles) on the business performance of hotels in the Qatari hospitality industry. Primary data were collected from 243 tourists of ten 5-star hotels in Qatar using structured questionnaire. Multiple regression and analysis of variance were the statistical tools employed for data analysis and interpretation. The findings of the study revealed that reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles had a significant impact on business performance of hotels in the Qatari hospitality industry. Therefore, the study reached the conclusion that service quality had a significant impact on the business performance of hotels in the Qatari hospitality industry. The paper is of specific relevance to the Qatari hospitality industry as it is witnessing steady growth and there is an emphasis on the improvement in service quality for sustainable business performance.

There is a growing debate on the professionalisation of non-profit sports clubs (e.g., more paid staff) and the remuneration of sports volunteers. These voluntary sports organisations are, together with for-profit fitness and health clubs, the main types of sports providers at the grassroots level in Flanders (Belgium). They both are non-public organisations, active in the same market, but differ regarding to their objectives and their human resources (i.e., volunteers versus paid staff). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare the hypothetical HR-cost of volunteer work in non-profit sports clubs, based on a market price of equivalency model, with the actual HR-cost of for-profit sports providers. The results show that fitness and health clubs are found to be more efficient, in terms of the unit human resources cost. However, non-profit sports clubs have a distinctive economic structure and own rationality. Hence, it seems not appropriate to transfer the economic efficiency approach of for-profits blindly to non-profit sports clubs as the added value of volunteer work to individuals, organisations and the society as a whole (c.f., positive externalities) are neglected.

Companies have the opportunity through sponsorship to benefit by linking themselves to an organization that, for some individuals, constitutes a part of their self identity. Fans with high team identification are more likely to view sponsors as members of the same group. The results reported in this study suggest that team identification and involvement with a sport have an important contribution in predicting fans’ willingness to buy sponsors’ products.However, when the interaction between the two constructs in relation to purchase intentions was examined, fans’ identification with a professional sport team was shown to have a fully mediating effect on the relationship between involvement and the sponsorship outcome in question.

Athletes often use social media to help build their personal brand, communicate with stakeholders, and promote endorsements. Research suggests that athletes who elicit greater engagement on social media are more valuable to endorse brands than those who simply have a large number of followers. From a regulatory perspective, it is important for athlete endorsers to disclose the commercial nature of sponsored posts. Therefore, based on social influence theory (SIT), the purpose of this study was to examine Olympic athletes' follower engagement on social media with a focus on brand mentions and disclosures of the relationships. Utilizing a content analysis of 190 US Olympic athletes' tweets during the 2018 PyeongChang Games, findings revealed statistically significant differences in follower engagement based on the athlete's gender. Non-brand-related posts received statistically significant greater engagement than brand-related posts, and only 12.90% of the posts that mentioned a brand disclosed a brand relationship. Implications and future research also are discussed.

Purpose - This paper examines how reference to a rival or favorite sports team within cause-related sports marketing (CRSM) campaigns affects fans' intentions to support the cause. The purpose of the studies is to assess the perils of featuring a specific team in league-wide activations of cause-related marketing.
Design/methodology/approach - The research comprises three experiments. Study 1 employs CRSM advertising to test fans' responses when rival or hometown team imagery is featured by Major League Baseball (MLB). Studies 2 and 3 utilize a press release to activate a cause partnership in MLB and the National Basketball Association (NBA) and assess the potential influence of team involvement and schadenfreude toward the rival team.
Findings - Contrary to previous research, results demonstrate that rival team presence in league-wide activation can reduce intentions to support the cause effort across both leagues, but not in all circumstances. The influence of rival team exposure on perceived sincerity is moderated by team involvement with the cause in MLB, but not the NBA. However, sincerity consistently enhances cause support across all studies. While conditional effects of schadenfreude are noted, it is not a significant moderator of cause support.
Research limitations/implications - This research exposes the nuance of league-wide CRSM activations. Specifically, the rival team effect on perceived sincerity seems to be league dependent, and subject to team involvement with the cause. Moreover, these results are limited to the leagues studied.
Practical implications - League administrators and their cause-related partners should exercise due diligence when promoting their affiliation using specific teams and levels of involvement with the cause.
Originality/value - These studies produce results that differ from the limited prior research within the domain of league-wide CRSM, and therefore advance the conversation regarding how best to activate such campaigns.

Mixed martial arts emerged as a major player in the sports industry during the 2000s, with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) growing into the sport's foremost promotion. Critical to the promotion's management is understanding fan consumption choices. Using economic demand theory, we draw on the spectator motivation and team sports demand literatures to provide an empirical analysis of what drives demand for mixed martial arts events. Our regression models show that economic and scheduling considerations explain the variation in UFC attendance. The popular notion that The Ultimate Fighter reality series served as the impetus for the UFC's growth is unsupported by time series analysis and numerous independent variables in our model.

It is widely recognised that many sports organisations rely heavily on income from corporate sponsorship. This paper selectively discusses the literature examining sponsorship, following the approach of Lynall et al. (2003). The paper adopts a meta-framework that encompasses multiple framing to develop complementary views and multiple theoretical perspectives of the nature of sponsorship. Using a major New Zealand sports event as an illustration, we suggest that insights about the nature of sponsorship can be better understood through the mutually informing use of multiple frames as methodology and the development of mutually informing insights arising from different perspectives. A future research agenda is also proposed.

One of the dominant strategies currently used to address increased complexity in competitive business environments is to adopt technology at all levels of the enterprise. New media is a dimension of technology that is being adopted almost universally by sport enterprises worldwide. The purpose of this paper which is based on meta-analysis, secondary sources, technical reports and interviews, is to build on current knowledge related to sport new media to discuss: (1) new media technologies relevant to the sport industry and (2) considerations for developing and implementing sport new media projects. Within the complex global business environment, sport managers should be prepared to identify: (1) sport new media resources and technologies relevant to and appropriate for their enterprise and (2) benefits and potential opportunities offered by new media adoption.

Previous research has focused on the salaries of athletes and players in professionalised sports. Currently, there is a lack of evidence regarding the income of elite athletes in non-professionalised sports who represent their home country in various competitions (e.g., during the Olympics). For this paper, a theoretical model has been developed to explain the income of elite athletes as a function of individual factors and consumption capital of spectators generated through media exposure of the sport. The model is tested using data from a nationwide survey of elite athletes in Germany who are supported by the German Sports Aid Foundation (n = 1,133). The results show that being an Olympic champion, age, age-squared, being employed, attending school, and the media exposure of the sport have a significant impact on the income of elite athletes in non-professionalised sports.

This paper investigates the mechanism under which attitude formation takes place in corporate co-branding in the context of sport sponsorship. We developed a conceptual model that syntbesises three theoretical frameworks (evaluative conditioning, relationship marketing and brand equity), aiming to explain corporate co-branding in the context of sport sponsorship. Specifically, the proposed model posits that, in sport sponsorship, close consumer relationships with a sport brand leverage sponsor brand equity elements (brand familiarity, brand personality and brand image) and can lead to positive outcomes (wordof-mouth communications). We tested the proposed model using data collected from fans of two professional soccer teams {N= 280).The results of the study confirmed the proposed relationships and furtber provided new insights regarding the role of brand equity elements in creating 'backward' effects to the sport brand (team). Moreover, the findings suggest that sport sponsorship might be the ideal context for co-branding partnerships between mature/ high-equity brands.

One of the most valuable assets a sport entity possesses is its brand. However, existing sport branding research has largely examined brands at an individual level and not taken into account the relationships between connected brands or the actual behavioral outcomes of branding. This article provides an overview of the current state of sport branding research; proposes an extended conceptualization of sport brand architecture within a sport brand ecosystem framework to guide future examination of sport branding research; introduces the four articles published in this special issue; and presents insights from industry experts from diff erent brand entities within the sport brand ecosystem. Thus, this article provides a foundation to further examine brand relationships and actual behavioral outcomes of sport branding to contribute to our theoretical and managerial knowledge on sport brand architecture within the sport brand ecosystem.

Different models of school sport delivery, such as intramurals (IM), may attract students who are less skilled or less interested in traditional varsity sports (VS). The purpose of this study was to examine whether school sport delivery models (IM or VS) differentially influence middle school students' motivations to participate in school sports. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual framework, participants in school sponsored sport programs (n = 2,021) from four middle schools (2 IM; 2 VS) completed a school sport participation questionnaire at the beginning and end of a school year. Results suggest that intentions to participate in sport either increase or are maintained through participation in school sports, and the intentions of non-participants decrease over time. A singular model of school sport that only includes highly competitive varsity sports may limit opportunities for children to play sport and diminish their intentions for enduring sport participation. (2012) 'Determinants of middle school sport participation: a comparison of different models for school sport delivery', Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 12, Nos. 3/4, pp.159-179.

Researchers have identified the stages of inter-organisational relationships (IOR) (i.e., formation, management, and evaluation), however, few have examined how these stages are enacted over time from the partners' perspectives. We conducted a case study of a dyadic IOR between a non-profit provincial sport organisation (Tennis PSO) and a public sector sport and recreation department over three years. Our analysis revealed that partner motives for forming the alliance differed as one partner focused on determinants of necessity, efficiency, and reciprocity, while the other partner sought increased legitimacy . Both partners were satisfied with the management approach because expertise and resources were shared, clear lines of responsibility and communication were established, and power struggles were avoided. Achieving a mutually desired outcome early helped sustained the IOR, even though only marginal increases in tennis participation occurred. Links between the stages of IOR and the implications of the findings are discussed.