The effect of sport setting on fan attendance motivation: the case of minor league vs. collegiate baseball.

Bernthal, Matthew J. ; Graham, Peter J.

A significant amount of prior research in sport marketing has explored the area of fan motivation. This research has addressed topics such as self-esteem as a motivator of fanship (Branscombe & Wann, 1991). Cialdini's seminal work on self-esteem as a fan motivator, for example, found that fans tend to "bask in reflected glory" (BIRGing) when their team wins, and "cut off reflected failure" (CORFing) when they lose (Cialdini et al., 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980). Other research has explored gender differences in fan motivation (e.g., Dietz-Uhler, Harrick, End, & Jacquemotte, 2000; Gantz & Wenner, 1995;) with the general finding that women tend to be relatively more motivated to be a sport fan for social reasons such as watching a game with family/friends, while men tend to be relatively more motivated by the competitive aspects of sport. Further research on fan motivation has examined motivations underlying the preference for certain sports or certain types of sports over others (Warm, Schrader, & Wilson, 1999; Wenner & Gantz, 1989). Sport and entertainment has also been used as a context for examining motivations underlying general consumption (e.g., Arnould & Price, 1993; Holt, 1995).

While existing fan motivation research has provided considerable insight, one area that remains unexplored is fans' motivation behind attending different settings of the same sport. The current study examines, using minor league baseball and collegiate baseball as the settings, the extent to which fans of different settings of the same sport can be differentially motivated in terms of attendance at the events. This study was largely motivated by Wenner and Gantz's (1989) study which compared fan motivation factors by sport and by Wann et al.'s (1999) study which compared fan motivation factors by sport type, and seeks to expand upon these studies and their significant contributions. Wenner and Gantz (1989) found differences among sports in fans' motivation for watching sports on television. For example, fans of collegiate basketball were the most motivated to watch in order to see how their favorite team does, and also the most motivated to learn more about the players and the sport. Baseball fans were the least likely to watch their sport to get "psyched up", particularly compared to pro football fans, who rated this as a relatively stronger motive to watch.

Wann et al. (1999) examined differences in fan motivation on a more aggregate level than Wenner and Gantz (1989) by utilizing sport type as the independent variable as opposed to simply different sports. They identified eight common fan motivation factors that have been identified in prior literature, and which comprise the Sport Fan Motivation Scale (Wann, 1995). These eight motives include eustress (a positive, stimulative, energizing stress), self-esteem enhancement (BIRGing), escape, entertainment, economic motivation (gambling opportunity), aesthetic value (in essence, the "beauty" of the sport), group affiliation/need for belongingness, and desire for family socialization. The authors examined differences in these eight motivations in fans of different sport types, specifically between fans of team (e.g., hockey, football) versus individual (e.g., figure skating, tennis) sports, and between aggressive versus nonaggressive sports. Results indicated that fans of individual sports had higher levels of aesthetic motivation than fans with a preference for team sports, while fans of team sports were relatively more motivated by eustress and self-esteem enhancement than fans who preferred individual sports. Further, they found that fans of aggressive sports were relatively more motivated by economic concerns than fans of nonaggressive sports, while fans of nonaggressive sports were relatively more motivated by aesthetics.

In reflecting on these studies and the body of fan motivation literature, we contend that as fans can be differentially motivated depending on both the specific sport under consideration as well as the sport type (aggressive versus nonaggressive, individual versus team) under consideration, so too can they be differentially motivated within one particular sport depending on the setting of that sport. For example, fans of a National Basketball Association (NBA) game could be hypothesized to be more motivated by the "total entertainment experience" and the opportunity to view "superstars" than fans of collegiate basketball, while fans of collegiate basketball may be relatively more motivated by the group affiliation, in the case of NBA fans being relatively more motivated by the desire to see superstars, it may be the case that different settings of the same sport may be more adept at satisfying certain fan motives, and therefore attract fans more driven by these motives. Most would argue that in aggregate, there is more opportunity to view "superstars", in terms of image and exceptional talent, in the NBA than there is in collegiate basketball. Indeed, different settings of the same sport may be viewed as a contextual factor which may lead to certain fan motivations being more or less present.

Kahle, Kambara, and Rose (1996) found that collegiate football fans were motivated primarily by three factors. First, they were motivated by a desire for a unique, self-expressive experience, meaning they were motivated to achieve some degree of freedom from the stress and anxieties of daily life. Sport helped them do this through elements of fantasy (imagining themselves on the field), personal accomplishment (BIRGing), and excitement. Second, they were motivated by internalization, an overall attachment to and love of the team. Finally, they were motivated by camaraderie, or a desire for group affiliation. The authors state that these three basic motivations for attendance should be present in different degrees for different consumers in different contexts. One contextual factor in Kahle et. al's study can be considered to be the collegiate setting of football. The authors found that in this collegiate setting, compliance and obligation were antecedents to camaraderie. With regard to compliance, fans yield to group influence. Students or fans in the collegiate community thus are motivated to attend in part to meet other expectations of attendance in order to receive rewards or avoid punishment. In other words, they feel a need to attend because they believe they are expected to attend. Obligation is the private side of compliance, where fans feel strongly about team affiliation as a matter of duty. While Kahle et. al find that obligation alone does not necessarily drive attendance, the combination of compliance and obligation form the reference-group influence which they call camaraderie.

As Kahle et. al (1996) acknowledge, camaraderie (as well as the other motives) is a motive that may be more or less present depending upon context. As one context, consider the varying types of football games one might attend: high school, collegiate, professional (and even varying settings of professional, e.g., arena football, National Football League (NFL), etc.) The issue arises, then, as to whether there would be differential levels of motivational factors such as compliance, obligation, and its resultant camaraderie among the varying settings of football or any other specific sport. As an example, consider that Kahle et al. used a student sample in their study of collegiate football attendance motives. It could be argued that collegiate students are part of a relatively tight-knit "consumption community" (Shoham & Kahle, 1996), in which compliance and obligation motives surrounding attendance at their school's major athletic events exists to a large degree, perhaps more than they exist, for example, for the resident of an NFL city with regard to attendance at the games of the NFL team in their city. In essence, the felt pressure for a student to attend their school's home games, for both external and internal reasons, might be greater due to the relatively tight-knit consumption community in which they exist than it would be, for example, for a Charlotte resident's felt pressure to attend Carolina Panther home games. This reasoning leads to the belief that camaraderie would be a relatively less important attendance motivator for NFL fans compared to collegiate football fans.

As another example of how motivational differences might differ between different settings of the same sport, consider possible fan motivations for attending professional golf events. Three potential motivators might be the opportunity to view great golf, the opportunity to view stars of the game, and the opportunity to view great golf courses. Now consider that some fans might prefer to attend regular Professional Golf Association (PGA) events while others might prefer to attend Senior PGA events. We contend that fans of the PGA and those of the Senior PGA would not necessarily have a similar motivational structure in terms of the three listed motives. For example, given that a large part the Senior PGA tour's draw is based on nostalgia, it is possible that the opportunity to view stars of the game is relatively more important for Senior PGA fans than PGA fans. Similarly, given that, in aggregate, PGA tour courses are more challenging than and have greater name recognition than do Senior PGA courses, it might be likely that PGA fans are relatively more motivated than Senior PGA fans by the opportunity to see, walk, and say that they have been to great golf courses. Similar reasoning would be applied to the opportunity to view great golf motive, with fans of the PGA likely being relatively more motivated by this aspect than fans of the Senior PGA. As a final example, older attendees at a Senior PGA event might have an additional motive not present for attendees at a PGA event, and that would be the opportunity to see athlete's ones age performing at a very high level. In sum, while there might be fan attendance motives that encompass all settings of golf, the structure of these motives may differ depending on the golf setting under consideration. More generally, we propose the following hypothesis: Within a particular sport, fan attendance motivation is partially dependent upon the sport setting under consideration. It is to the examination of this hypothesis we now turn.

Method

Settings

We examined the issue of sport setting as a contextual factor related to fan motivation within the sport of baseball. We chose Single A minor league baseball and NCAA Division I collegiate baseball for comparison of fan motivation factors for three primary reasons. First, baseball is a sport that has multiple settings in which fans can attend (i.e., collegiate, A, AA, AAA, Major League Baseball (MLB), etc.), and thus provides an arena in which it would prove fruitful to examine differences in fan motivation among same-sport settings. Second, Single A minor league baseball and strong NCAA Division I collegiate baseball (in the current study, data were collected from fans of a top 20 collegiate program) can be argued to be fairly equal in terms of quality of the baseball itself; examining two settings which do not differ greatly in terms of the quality of play itself provides an interesting initial setting in which to examine other fan motivation differences of more practical interest to marketers. Marketers have little to no control over quality of play. However, findings of relevant differences on other fan motivation factors (e.g., value, desire for group affiliation, etc.) between different settings of the same sport would prove strategically valuable to marketers. Third, the two teams from which we collected data exist in the same city, and therefore draw fans from the same market. This allowed us to examine related relevant issues such as the extent of overlap in the fan base of the two teams. To the extent that there is little overlap, it could be argued that there are differences in the motivational structure between fans of these two settings of baseball. Examining two same-sport settings within the same market allowed for the exploration of the reasons why certain fans of that sport choose to attend one setting over the other.

Participants

Survey data were collected at a minor league team's home games on two consecutive nights. To avoid the presence of fan promotions/giveaways being inflated as a motivator, yet allow this to emerge as a potential motivator, data were collected at one game that contained a fan promotion (a Child/player autograph night) and one that did not. The same survey, simply reworded to reflect the change in team name, was used to collect data at two collegiate games on two consecutive dates. Survey data were collected from 552 fans (200 fans at the minor league games (n = 115 at non-promotional night, and n = 85 at promotional night) and 352 fans at the two collegiate games). Surveys were completed at various locations as fans entered each stadium. After discarding unusable surveys (i.e., key variables not completed), a total of 522 (minor league n = 188, collegiate n = 334) remained.

The average age for minor league fans was 38.6, while the average age for collegiate fans was 47.4. The majority of fans in both settings were married (minor league = 65.2%, collegiate = 70.1%). Collegiate fans tended to be somewhat wealthier than minor league fans, with 67.3% of collegiate fans making $50,000 or above, and 55.5% of minor league fans making $50,000 or above. There were more male than female fans in both settings, (minor league = 58.8% male, collegiate = 63.5% male). Fans' education level was similar in both settings, with both groups being relatively well-educated. Thirty-three percent of both minor league and collegiate fans had attended graduate school, while only 16.6% of collegiate fans and 12.6% of minor league fans had not attended any college.

Participants were asked to indicate how often they attended baseball games of the other team (1 = Never, 2 = Rarely, 3 = Occasionally, 4 = Often, 5 = Very Often). Interestingly, 78.7% of fans surveyed indicated that they rarely or never attended games in the other baseball setting (those surveyed at the collegiate games rarely or never attended minor league games, and vice versa). This suggests the existence of baseball fans who strongly prefer one setting of baseball over the other. That is, there appear to be baseball fans who can be categorized as either "minor league fans" or "collegiate fans". We contend that this is due to the fact that fans who attend predominantly minor league games are motivated to attend differently than are fans who attend predominantly collegiate games. This provided interest in examining the motivational structure of each "type" (minor league and collegiate baseball) of fan further.

Motivation Items

Fan motivation items were generated by asking ten baseball fans to list all of the reasons for which they attend baseball games. This task resulted in 11 items (see Table 1) that were mentioned by more than one fan. Using a seven-point likert-type scale for each item, fans at the minor league and collegiate games were asked to indicate the importance (1 = not at all important, 7 = very important) of these 11 items in their decision to attend a baseball game in general (not only the setting in which they were attending). The question was phrased: "Considering all types of baseball games (including college, minor league, and major league games), for each of the following items please circle the number that best represents that item's importance in your decision to attend a baseball game in general (not only home team name baseball games)".

Results

Factor Analysis of Motivation Items

Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the 11 fan attendance motivation items (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin = .736, suggesting the data were appropriate for factor analysis). Using a varimax rotation and a conservative loading cutoff value of 0.6, four factors were retained (eigenvalues ranging from 3.95 to 0.90) and labeled Baseball (rivalries, quality of play, viewing outstanding players; [varies] = .79), Value (ticket price, overall cost of attendance including parking, concessions, etc.; [varies] = .84), Added Entertainment (promotions/giveaways, in-game entertainment such as mascots, sound effects, etc.; [varies] = .60), and Community (family environment, allegiance to home team; [varies] = .42). Bivariate correlations between the two items within each three two-item factor (value, added entertainment, and community) were all significant at the p<.01 level. This, combined with the Cronbach's alpha for the baseball factor (.79) indicate that the four retained factors demonstrate strong internal consistency. Further, the four factors themselves were significantly correlated (all correlations at p<.01) and explained 70.66% of the variance. Factor structure, loadings, percent of explained variance, and eigenvalues are given in Table 1. Correlations between the factors are given in Table 2. Two items, "opportunity for relaxed socialization" and "love of the game of baseball" did not load highly on any factor.

Motivation Differences by Setting

In order to analyze differences in fan attendance motivation between minor league and collegiate baseball, a one-way MANOVA with game setting (minor, collegiate) as the independent variable and fan motivation factors (baseball, value, added entertainment, community) as the multivariate dependent variables was performed, followed by discriminant analysis. For each factor, summed scores of its individual items were used as the dependent variable. It is important to note here that in order to compare "collegiate fans" to "minor league fans", only those fans who indicated that they never or rarely attended games in the other setting were included in this analysis (n = 411; minor league, n = 138; collegiate, n = 273). The 111 fans who indicated that they occasionally, often, or very often attended games in the other baseball setting were removed. MANOVA revealed a significant between-subjects game setting main effect (Wilks' Lambda = .72; F(4, 376) = 35.81 ;p<.001), with approximately 28% of the variance in the linear combination of fan motivation dimensions associated with game setting differences. Given multivariate significance, we followed with stepwise discriminant analysis. This revealed one significant discriminant function equation in which ali four fan motivation factors contributed to the discriminant function (added entertainment DFC (standardized discriminant function coefficient) = .76, baseball DFC = .65, value DFC = .55, community DFC = .50). With regard to the relative contribution of each fan motivation factor to the discriminant function, structure coefficients were as follows: added entertainment = .51, baseball = .37, community = .37, and value = .34. Using summed factor scores, results indicate that minor league fans consider value (minor league M = 9.57, SD = 3.53; collegiate M = 8.04, SD 3.94) and added entertainment (minor league M = 7.20, SD = 3.41; collegiate M = 5.05, SD = 3.22) to be more important in their decision to attend a baseball game than did collegiate fans. In terms of value, ticket price and the overall cost of attending a baseball game appear to be more salient for baseball fans who prefer to attend minor league games versus collegiate games, though the cost to attend the two is not significantly different in most cases (1). In terms of added entertainment, minor league fans also appear to be relatively more motivated by promotions/giveaways and the "extra" entertainment (in the form of mascots, sound effects, etc.) surrounding a baseball game than do fans of collegiate baseball. Collegiate fans compared to minor league fans considered items related to the baseball game itself to be relatively more important (collegiate M = 14.40, SD = 5.09; minor league M = 11.89, SD = 4.67). This suggests that collegiate fans could be considered to be "truer" fans of the actual game of baseball itself than are fans of minor league baseball. Providing additional support for this contention, while one of the 11 motivational items, "love of the game of baseball", did not load highly on any factor, it was a more important attendance consideration for collegiate fans than for minor league fans (collegiate = 5.95, minor league = 5.48; t = 2.71, p<.01). The community aspect of attendance was also found to be relatively more important in a collegiate fan's decision to attend a baseball game than it is in the same decision for a minor league fan (collegiate M = 11.11, SD = 3.07; minor league M = 9.59, SD = 3.22).

Importance of Motivation Items within Each Setting

While a certain fan attendance motivation factor may be more important in one setting of a sport than another context of that same sport, this does not indicate that the factor is necessarily important in either setting. Therefore, in addition to relative importance of fan motivation factors between the two baseball settings, we examined each factor's importance independently within each baseball setting by comparing the factor's mean score for fans in each setting to the factor midpoint, using one-sample univariate t-tests. If a motivational factor is significantly below the midpoint in a baseball setting, it would be considered a relatively unimportant motivator of attendance in that setting, while if the factor fell significantly above the midpoint, it would be considered a relatively important motivator. The range of the three summed items for the baseball factor was 3-21, with the midpoint being 12, and the range of the two summed items for the value, added entertainment, and community factors were 2-14 each, with the midpoint for each of those scales being 8. Results are given in Table 3. Results indicate that for minor league fans, value and the communal aspects of the game were significantly higher than the midpoint, while added entertainment, though a greater consideration for minor league vs. collegiate fans, was significantly below the midpoint. The importance of "baseball" did not differ significantly from the midpoint. For collegiate fans, both the baseball and the community factor were significantly higher than the midpoint, while entertainment fell below it. Value was not significantly different than the midpoint. We now turn to a more nuanced examination and discussion of each of the four motivational factors.

Discussion

Baseball

The first factor, labeled "baseball", was comprised of the items "rivalries", "quality of play", and "viewing outstanding players". While we contend that collegiate baseball at its highest level rivals Single A minor league baseball in terms of quality of play, those who would argue for a difference on this factor between the two settings would likely favor Single A minor league baseball as being superior to collegiate baseball in terms of the baseball itself, given that it is played at the professional level. However, our results suggest that collegiate fans are relatively more motivated than minor league fans to attend a baseball game due to motivations central to the game itself. One might reasonably argue that as rivalries are more pronounced in a collegiate versus minor league environment, and as rivalries was an item included in the baseball factor, this fact alone might explain the baseball factor as being more central to collegiate versus minor league baseball fans. However, while rivalries was indeed a significantly more important consideration for collegiate (M = 4.96) versus minor league fans (M = 3.56) (t = 6.18, p<.01), collegiate fans also considered each of the other two items loading highly on the baseball factor to be significantly more important in terms of their decision to attend a baseball game than did minor league fans (quality of play: collegiate M = 4.91, minor league M = 4.21, t = 3.60, p<.01; viewing outstanding players: collegiate M = 4.51, minor league M = 4.11, t = 1.94, p = .05). In addition to the finding of this relative difference on the baseball factor between the two groups of baseball fans, we found that in the collegiate context, the baseball factor was indeed an important fan consideration, while fans in the minor league context were relatively neutral in terms of the baseball factor as a motivation to attend, in sum, our results suggest that items central to the baseball game itself are an important consideration for collegiate baseball fans, and while not unimportant to minor league fans, does not appear to be a driving force behind their attendance.

Value

More intuitively, perhaps, we find that value is a more important consideration for minor league versus collegiate fans. Minor league fans considered ticket price and the overall cost of attending a game to be important motivators of attending a baseball game, while those fans who generally attended collegiate games did not consider this factor to be a strong motivator when choosing to attend a baseball game. Minor league teams often position themselves, relative to both direct competition (other professional sporting events) and indirect competition (e.g., dinner and a movie) as a form of entertainment with exceptional value, and our results bear out the appropriateness of this strategy. It is particularly interesting that the collegiate fans did not consider value a significant motivator of attendance in light of the fact that many of the fans attend for free as students or faculty (22.3% of our collegiate sample attended for free), and those that do pay admission often pay (as they did in this study) less than they would for a minor league game. This could be explained by collegiate fans taking value for granted and/or having value overshadowed by the baseball and community motivations which they consider more strongly (see Table 3).

Added Entertainment

With respect to added entertainment, we found that minor league baseball fans compared to collegiate baseball fans were significantly more motivated with respect to promotions/giveaways and in-game entertainment (contests, mascots, sound effects) than were collegiate baseball fans. One might expect this result given the strong relative presence of added entertainment in minor league versus collegiate baseball games. However, interestingly, one-sample t-tests comparing the mean score on this factor to the factor's scale midpoint showed that added entertainment was significantly below the midpoint for minor league fans. Indeed, added entertainment was the least important factor in minor league fans' decision to attend baseball games. Minor league baseball often heavily promotes the added entertainment surrounding its events, with the belief that this factor is a strong motivator of attendance. That is, minor league promoters often operate with the mindset that fan-oriented promotions, in large part, drive a significant number of fans to attend their games. Our results, while based on a single study, suggest that this factor might not play as important a role as a general driver of attendance (they are clearly valuable as a targeting tool) as these promoters believe. Importantly, one of the two games for which we collected data involved a fan-incentive promotion. Therefore, a significant number of minor league fans completing the survey had the potential to be strongly motivated by this promotion. Our data suggests that they were not. In order to further examine the effects of promotions/giveaways as a motivator of minor league baseball attendance, we compared the mean score on the individual promotion/giveaway variable between fans who attended the promotion night at the minor league games and the fans who attended the non-promotion night. On the seven-point scale, those who attended the on the promotion night did not report being more motivated by this variable than those who attended the non-promotion night (M = 3.57 promotion night, M = 3.49 non-promotion night; t = 0.22, p = .82). Thus, isolating the fans who attended the promotion night does not significantly alter our results. This suggests that sport managers/promoters should examine fan motivation factors carefully before assuming that certain fan motivation factors are significant drivers of attendance. We are not suggesting that fan promotions/giveaways do not ever influence attendance. Indeed, they do. However, their success may differ by the setting of the sport under consideration.

Community

Community was revealed to be a relatively stronger motivator for collegiate versus minor league fans. Recall that Kahle et al. (1996) found that camaraderie and its building blocks of obligation and compliance were significant motivators for collegiate football attendance. Our results parallel theirs in that elements of both obligation and compliance are present within the community factor (i.e., allegiance to home team item). Thus, our earlier contention that fans in a collegiate setting of a sport are likely to be relatively strongly motivated by obligation and compliance (due to the relatively tight-knit consumption community in which fans of a college team exist) is supported.

While community was a stronger motivator for collegiate versus minor league fans, it nonetheless played a large role in motivating both groups of fans to attend baseball games (recall that the mean summed score for the community factor was significantly above the midpoint for both the collegiate and minor league samples). Thus, we find that while there are indeed differences in fan motivation between different same sport settings, there are also common motivators present in different same-sport contexts. Our results suggest that, like for other sports (Kahle et al., 1996; Wann et al., 1999) a need for affiliation is one such factor in baseball. As a further example of common motivators for a sport, regardless of context, consider the motivational item in this study's survey labeled "opportunity for relaxed socialization" (an item not loading highly on and therefore not included in any of the four factors). Baseball has often been assigned the moniker the "National Pastime". One reason for this is that the unique form of baseball, with its slow pace and sporadic action allows for families and friends to engage in "relaxed socialization" relatively more so than other sports. Baseball, relative to many other spectator sports, allows fans to converse and otherwise socialize with each other. Indeed, of the 11 fan motivation items, it had the highest mean score for minor league fans (M = 5.48) and the third highest mean score (M = 5.25) for collegiate fans. Due primarily to the form of the game itself, this opportunity for spectator socialization is strong in baseball relative to other spectator sports, and it remains strong regardless of the setting of the sport.

Conclusion

Prior research on fan motivation has shown that motivational differences exist for fans of different sports (e.g., tennis, baseball, college basketball, pro football) and for different classifications of sport (e.g., aggressive versus nonaggressive sports). We have sought to expand this research to show that motivational structures (specifically, attendance motivation structures) also differ depending on different settings within a particular sport (e.g., collegiate vs. minor league baseball vs. major league baseball; Arena football vs. NFL vs. collegiate football; Senior PGA vs. PGA, etc.). This study is an initial step toward that end. While examining only two settings of one sport, we have nonetheless shown that attendance motivation structures do differ between these settings. Given that one of the fundamental requirements of successful marketing is that marketing managers understand exactly what drives consumers to purchase their product, it is imperative that sport marketers discover exactly what motivates fans to attend their events. While sport marketers can look to prior research to gain initial understanding of the reasons fans attend the particular sport that they are marketing, our research indicates that they could increase their probability of success if they would also pay heed to the specific sport setting in which they operate. For example, advertising campaigns should appeal to fan's primary attendance motivators. Our results indicate that for minor league baseball, advertising focusing on total entertainment value would prove fruitful, while for collegiate baseball, advertising focusing on school support/spirit and elements of the event central to the game of baseball itself(e.g., rivalries, quality of play, etc.) would prove, relative to minor league baseball, more successful. With regard to our earlier golf example, if it were shown that fans of the Senior PGA were significantly motivated by the opportunity to see athlete's ones own age performing at a high level, the Senior PGA tour might borrow from the PGA's "These Guys Are Good" ad campaign and institute a "These Guys Are Still Good" campaign. Understanding specific fan attendance motivation by sport setting would benefit not only advertising campaigns, but other elements of the marketing mix as well. If fans of a particular setting of a sport were significantly motivated by camaraderie, for example, this would suggest that marketers of that sport setting provide ample opportunity for group attendance through the use of various group ticket packages. Such packages would be less important if camaraderie was not a significant motivator.

The body of fan motivation literature provides a foundation into the understanding of what motivates fans of sport in general and what leads a fan to prefer specific types of sports over others. Sport marketing researchers should continue this quest to understand fan motivation by furthering the journey into contextual factors that might affect it, and, from an academic and practical standpoint, particularly those contextual factors that might affect attendance at events. Our research provides initial support for the contention that sport setting is one of these factors.

Limitations and Future Research

Ideally, the validity and reliability of any scale used to determine differences in fan motivation would be determined prior to its use. This could be accomplished through the use of a scale such as the Sport Fan Motivation Scale (SFMS) (Wann, 1995). However, in order to show that fans of certain settings of a particular sport (e.g., baseball: minor vs. collegiate) can be motivated differently not only when considering motivation items general to most sports, but motivation items that are more specific to that sport itself, we refrained from using a sport motivation scale such as the SFMS that contains primarily global (non-sport specific) motivational items. Instead, we purposely included in our item inventory items that are both general to most sports (e.g., "quality of play", "rivalries"), and specific to the sport of baseball (e.g., "love of the game of baseball", "opportunity for relaxed socialization").

Three of the emergent motivational factors consisted of only two items each. While this is not ideal, it can be attributed to the fact that we did not begin with a large number of items (11), the fact that it was impossible to determine how many factors would emerge, and the nonloading of two of our initial items ("love of the game of baseball" and "opportunity for relaxed socialization"). This might potentially be avoided by beginning with more than 11 items. However, we generated our items by asking ten self-described "baseball fans" to list the reasons that they attend baseball games for the purpose of generating motivational items more specific to baseball itself than those contained in previously validated sport motivation scales (such as the SFMS) for reasons described earlier, and to give a more emic perspective to the research and results.

This area would prove fruitful for future research efforts. First, future research could use scales such as the SFMS to examine whether and where motivational differences among different same-sport settings exist when using more general and established sport motivation scales. A second area for further exploration is the examination of the extent to which sport setting influences attendance motivation among different sports. Our study was limited to two settings within one sport, and given the unique structure of various sports, this type of contextual difference may be more or less present depending upon the sport under consideration. That is, while motivational differences exist between fans of collegiate versus minor league baseball, they may be less present, for example, between fans of various settings of minor league baseball (A, AA, AAA). In any case, as can be seen from our PGA versus Senior PGA, and NFL versus collegiate football examples provided earlier in this paper, the opportunity exists in many sports to study motivational differences within different settings of a particular sport.

As a final example of expanding this research to different sports, consider men's professional tennis versus women's professional tennis. Women's tennis has garnered greater popularity than men's tennis over the past several years. Tennis commentators have argued that two of the reasons for this are the sex appeal of several of the top female players and the fact that the points in women's tennis last longer and are, as a result, more entertaining to watch. Both of these arguments lead to the hypothesis that those tennis fans who currently prefer women's to men's tennis are relatively more motivated by aesthetics. On the other hand, those who still prefer men's to women's tennis might be relatively more motivated by power; thus they are relatively less attracted to the longer points in women's tennis and enjoy the power and resultant shorter points in the men's game. The research of Wann et al. (1999) was indeed an important contribution to the sport motivation literature. Regarding our tennis example, their research suggests that fans of individual, nonaggressive sports such as tennis are relatively more motivated by aesthetics than are fans of aggressive and/or team sports. Our example above hypothesizes that while we concur with this, aesthetics likely plays a more important role in some settings of tennis versus others. Future research examining such differences within many sports would prove fruitful.

Table 1

Factor Analysis of Fan Motivation Items

 Factor

 Baseball Value Added Community
 Entert.

Eigenvalue 3.95 1.63 1.30 0.90
Percent Variance Explained 35.92 14.77 11.77 8.20

Factor Loadings
Rivalries .758# .003 .006 .109
Quality of play .814# .146 .141 .236
Viewing outstanding players .821# .142 .212 .165
Ticket price .009 .907# .156 .117
Overall cost of attendance .121 .900# .216 .009
Promotions/giveaways .121 .220 .807# .006
In-game entertainment .217 .136 .834# .134
(contests, mascots,
sound effects, etc.)
Family environment .004 .009 .425 .768#
Allegiance to home team .338 .002 .123 .723#
Opportunity for relaxed .153 .472 .005 .525
socialization
Love of the game of baseball .323 .276 .279 .439

Note. Items loading on each factor are in bold.

Note. Items loading on each factor indicated with #.

Table 2

Fan Motivation Factor Correlations

Factor Baseball Value Added Community
 Enter-
 tainment
Baseball 1 .305 ** .324 ** .449 **
Value .305 1 .360 ** .324 **
Added entertainment .324 ** .360 ** 1 .235 **
Community .449 ** .324 ** .235 ** 1

Note. ** p<.01.

Table 3

One-Sample t-tests on Minor League and Collegiate Fan Motivation
Factors

Factor Mid- Minor League Collegiate Factor
 point Factor

Baseball 12 11.89 (t = 0.28) 14.40 (t = 7.64 **)
Value 8 9.57 (t = 5.15 **) 8.04 (t = 0.16)
Added entertainment 8 7.20 (t = 2.70 **) 5.05 (t = 14.81 **)
Community 8 9.59 (t = 5.73 **) 11.11 (t = 17.41 **)

Note. ** p<.0l. t-values represent tests within each setting of the
mean summed factor score against the midpoint of the summed factor
scale.

Footnotes

(1) Where there is a difference, tickets and concessions are usually less expensive for collegiate baseball games than minor league games. For example, the average ticket prices for the two teams in the current study were $6 for the minor league games, and $5 for the collegiate games.

References

Arnould, E. J., & Price, L. L. (1993). River magic: Extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter. Journal of Consumer Research, 20(June), 24-45.

Branscombe, N. R., & Wann, D. L. (1991). The positive and self-concept consequences of sports team identification. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 15, l 15-127.

Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R.(1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366-375.

Cialdini, R. B., & Richardson, K. D. (1980). Two indirect tactics of image management:Basking and blasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 406-415.

Dietz-Uhler, B., Harrick, E. A., End, C., & Jacquemotte, L. (2000). Sex differences in sport fan behavior and reasons for being a sport fan. Journal of Sport Behavior, 23(3), 219.

Gantz, W., & Wenner, L. A. (1995). Fanship and the television sports viewing experience. Sociology of Sport Journal, 12, 56-74.

Holt, D. B. (1995). How consumers consume: A typology of consumption practices. Journal of Consumer Research, 22(June), 1-16.

Kahle, L. R., Kambara, K. M., & Rose, G. M. (1996). A functional model of fan attendance motivations for college football. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 5(4), 51-60.

Shoham, A., & Kahle, L. R. (1996). Spectators, viewers, readers: Communication and consumption communities in sport marketing. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 5(1), 11-19.

Wann, D. L., (1995). Preliminary validation of the Sport Fan Motivation Scale. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19, 377-396.

Wann, D. L., Schrader, M. P., & Wilson, A. M. (1999). Sport fan motivation: Questionnaire validation, comparisons by sport, and relationship to athletic motivation. Journal of Sport Behavior, 22(1), 114.

Wenner, L. A., & Gantz, W. (1989). The audience experience with sports on television. In L. A. Wenner (Ed.), Media, sports, and society (pp. 241-268). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Address Correspondence To: Dr. Matt Bernthal, Department of Sport and Entertainment Management, College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208

Matthew J. Bernthal and Peter J. Graham

University of South Carolina