Who Goes to the Game? A Model of Organization-Public Relationships and Team Identification with Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

Who Goes to the Game? A Model of Organization-Public Relationships and Team Identification with Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

This study presents a structured model to investigate whethersports fans’team identification and organization-public relations(OPR) directly affect their attitudes toward their favorite teams orrelated behavioral intentions. In addition, it examines which antece-dents, such as sports media consumption or duration of being afan, affect team identification and OPR, and investigates whethergender works as a moderator in the model. An online survey wasused and a total of 673 responses of the National Football League(NFL) fans were analyzed. The results of path analyses show thatsports media consumption directly affects team identification andOPR, while the duration of being a fan did not significantly influ-ence OPR and had only a small effect on team identification.Moreover, the degree of identification and relational perception ofan NFL fan directly affect attitudes toward his or her favorite team.Finally, a person’s attitudes toward the favorite team directly affecthis or her purchase intention of team-related products and attend-ance intention. Among paths in the proposed model, only onepath, from attitude to attendance intention, was significantly differ-ent between the male and female groups.

This study presents a structured model to investigate whethersports fans’team identification and organization-public relations(OPR) directly affect their attitudes toward their favorite teams orrelated behavioral intentions. In addition, it examines which antece-dents, such as sports media consumption or duration of being afan, affect team identification and OPR, and investigates whethergender works as a moderator in the model. An online survey wasused and a total of 673 responses of the National Football League(NFL) fans were analyzed. The results of path analyses show thatsports media consumption directly affects team identification andOPR, while the duration of being a fan did not significantly influ-ence OPR and had only a small effect on team identification.Moreover, the degree of identification and relational perception ofan NFL fan directly affect attitudes toward his or her favorite team.Finally, a person’s attitudes toward the favorite team directly affecthis or her purchase intention of team-related products and attend-ance intention. Among paths in the proposed model, only onepath, from attitude to attendance intention, was significantly differ-ent between the male and female groups.