Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

By incorporating two different types of service satisfaction (core and peripheral service), this study developed and tested a conceptual model delineating the role of team identification in the relationship between consumers’ satisfaction and revisit intent and examined if the research model has the same pattern across different sport contexts. Data were collected from a total of 918 spectators of both major and minor league sporting events. This study showed that the impact of core and peripheral service-related satisfaction varies across sport contexts. The results revealed that core service satisfaction at both league levels has significant impact on team identification development, which in turn has positive impact on revisit intent. However, at the minor league level, core service satisfaction did not have impact on revisit intent, while having marginal impact on the intent at the major league level. This means that the impact of core service satisfaction on revisit intent is fully mediated by team identification at the minor league level, while being partially mediated by team identification at the major league. In addition, the findings confirmed that an increase in team identification can lead sport fans to sporting events. Given the finding that sport consumers’ revisit intent is a direct function of team identification, managers should be aware of the significant impact of team identification on fans’ patronage behaviors.