Structural Relationship among Loss Aversion, Emotion, and Sport Consumption: The Case of NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Bracketology

The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, known to fans as March Madness, is one of the most popular annual sporting events in the United States. Despite its economic impact on the sports industry, relative few studies have examined phenomena surrounding the March Madness bracket. Some (e.g., Kaplan &Garstka, 2001; McCrea &Hirt, 2009) have focused on how to make accurate predictions for the tournament. However, sports marketers need to understand why and how participants make decisions when filling out their brackets, and no studies have investigated this behavior. To fill this void, the current project was conducted to explain the decision-making process of NCAA tournament bracket participants based on loss aversion theory. Two studies were conducted. Study 1(N= 258) was to test participants’ loss aversion tendency by adopting Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) value function. Participants were grouped according to four win-loss scenarios, and the loss aversion tendency was found. The purpose of study 2 (N= 223) was to develop a framework for the emotional loss aversion tendency on the decision to choose an opposing team over a favorite team in the high likelihood of a negative game outcome between the highly identified fans and the lower identified fans

Dimensions of Event Quality Associated with High School Football Games: Scale Development

The current study was the first attempt to develop a scale that measures high school football event quality that could lead to sport consumption. With continued improvement of the scale, the EQS-HSF has great potential to be a valuable marketing tool to examine sport consumption behavior associated with high school football games

Identifying Key Market Demand Factors Associated with High School Basketball Tournaments

High school sports are popular in the United States and the associated state championships are often publicized, well-attended special events providing an economic impact on host communities. Understanding attendees, particularly those variables affecting market demand for high-profile interscholastic sporting events, would help athletic directors and state associations improve marketing efforts. Through an abridged adoption of the Theory of Reason Action, this study was conducted to develop a consumer profile of high school tournament spectators by understanding their sociodemographic characteristics and market demand variables. Based on a review of literature, we identified four market demand factors to influence attendance (Event Attractiveness, Economic Consideration, Local Attractiveness, and Venue Accessibility) and studied high school regional basketball tournament attendees (N = 647). The factors were tested in a confirmatory factor analysis and t-tests and general linear model found three of the factors influenced attendance, while one influenced economic spending

Football v. Football: A Comparison of Agent Regulation in France’s Ligue 1 and the National Football League

Baker, Heitner, Broçard and Byon, in their article Football v. Football, analyze agent regulation in the NFL and compare it to how agents are regulated in France for Ligue 1. The article begins with a brief discussion on the concept of a sports agency that includes analysis of governmental regulation of agency in both the United States and in France. The article continues by exploring how agents are regulated in their representation of the NFL and Ligue 1 football players. Subsequently the article concludes with a discussion that includes suggestions concerning future agent regulation for both the NFL and Ligue 1

Effectiveness of Green Olympic Initiatives on Reasons Affecting Residents’ Actions to Support the Olympic Movement

The world faces major environmental challenges that affect the well-being of human beings, plants, and wildlife. The Olympic Games, one of the most influential sport events, should pay special attention to environmental issues. In 1996, the environmental element became a central factor of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) (IOC, 2009). To scientifically and comprehensively evaluate the impact of the Olympics on the host city, the IOC launched the Olympic Games Global Impact (OGGI) study in 2003 (IOC, 2006). This study begins two years before the host city is selected, and terminates two years after hosting the Games (IOC, 2006). One of the reasons to do an 11-year OGGI study is likely because the social, economic, and environmental impact of the Games may vary throughout the whole process. To a great extent, these technical reports remain internal to the IOC. A majority of previous studies on mega sport events have focused on the economic impact (Twynam & Johnston, 2004). Few studies have emphasized the environmental aspect of major sport events. It would be constructive to investigate the environmental impact of the Beijing Games over eight years, from the moment of being named as the host city to one year after hosting the event. Based on the environmental measures applied in Beijing, there were five critical time periods that should be considered in order to comprehensively understand the effectiveness of the Beijing Green Olympic initiatives, including July 2001 (Time 1) when Beijing was named as the host city for the 2008 Olympic Games, August 2007(Time 2) when it was one year before the Games, August 2008 (Time 3) when it was during the Games, December 2008 (Time 4) when it covered close-out and summary period of the Games, and December 2009 (Time 5) when it was one year after the Games. Research has suggested that local residents play an important role in achieving successful and sustainable impact of mega sport events (Deccio & Baloglu, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine residents’ perceived effectiveness of Beijing Green Olympic initiatives, by investigating their awareness, perception, attitude, intention, and actual behavior through conducting a time-series analysis. Based on a comprehensive review of literature, a questionnaire was developed that included the following sections: awareness, perception, attitude, behavior intention, and actual behavior associated with Beijing Green Olympics initiatives. All items were phrased in a 7-point scale (1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly agree”). The questionnaire was phrased into five versions, corresponding with the five key time periods. Each version had a different leading statement and, to increase recall accuracy, a historical scenario/picture reflecting a specific time period. Five sets of pictures depicting significant events that happened in China during each time periods were collected and their accuracy of time representation was verified by two professors and three graduate students in sport social science from a leading Chinese university. Items within each time period were put in a random order to reduce carry-over effect in the repeated measure research design. The questionnaire was then double-translated to ensure translation accuracy. A community intercept approach was adopted and data were collected at shopping centers, city libraries, parks, restaurants, municipal offices, and transportation centers in Beijing, China. A total of 119 subjects, who were 18 years or older in 2001 and considered Beijing as his/her primary residential location since 2001, were included in the study. A doubly repeated measure MANOVA was conducted, which revealed that the vector mean scores of the Green Olympics’ effectiveness variables (i.e., awareness, perception, attitude, behavior intention, and actual behaviour) were significantly (p \u3c .05) different over the five time periods. The research findings indicate that the perceived environmental impact by residents had been formed, developed, and altered as a result of different environmental efforts applied in Beijing. To a great extent, these reflected the effectiveness of the Green Olympic programs across five key periods of the Games. Further discussions are conducted on expanding environmental programs and policies beyond 2008 and the city of Beijing, and moving China toward environmentally sustainable development

Influence of Social Motivations on Spectator Consumption Behavior of a Formula One Grand Prix Event

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between spectator motivation and sport consumption behavior in the context of F-1 events. Respondents were spectators from three Formula One (F-1) races held in Shanghai, China. Through a structural equation modeling analysis, Achievement Seeking and Salubrious Effects were found to be related to repurchase intentions. Three motivating factors (i.e., Achievement Seeking, Entertainment, and Catharsis) were also found to be associated with Word-of-Mouth intentions concerning F-1 events

Moderating Effect of the Power–Distance Belief on the Relationship between Employees’ Service Failures and Customers’ Behavioral Outcomes in the Sport Service Industry

This study was designed to examine the moderating effects of the power–distance belief (PDB) on the relationship between employees’ service failures and customers’ transactional and non-transactional outcomes in a fitness center context. To test the relationships among these variables, we employed two pretests and a main experiment. In Pretest 1, a critical incident technique (CIT) was used to identify the employees’ service failure situations in fitness centers. Then, in Pretest 2, we developed two written scenarios that described employees’ service failures according to low and high severity and confirmed the differences between these two scenarios with a manipulation check. In the main experiment, we employed scenarios to examine the relationships among service failures’ severity, PDB, and customers’ non-transactional and transactional outcomes. We used Hayes’ PROCESS macro to test the PDB’s single moderating effect on the relationship between the service failures’ severity and the customers’ responses. According to the results, the moderating effect on the relationship between the service failures’ severity and fitness center customers’ non-transactional and transactional behaviors was confirmed. We extended the understanding of fitness center customers’ reactions, depending upon individual PDB to service failures, by comparing low- and high-service failure situations. Our findings also suggest that segmenting fitness center customers may help managers recognize that their customers’ varying responses depend on PDB