Which senses matter more? The impact of our senses on team identity and team loyalty.
Lee, Seunghwan ; Heere, Bob ; Chung, Kyu-soo 等
Introduction
Building strong brand commitment, such as brand identification and
loyalty, has become a core challenge for modern businesses (Keller,
2012). In search of how brand commitment is built, research in consumer
behavior has recognized the importance of consumers' experiences
with brands because such experiences provide consumers with memorable
and personal meanings (Pine & Gilmore, 1999). Particularly, it is
well recognized in branding research that brand experiences relate to
human senses--sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste (Lee, 2010). It has
also been found that sensory experiences are an important part of the
overall brand experience (Gentile, Spiller, & Noci, 2007). A higher
quality sensory experience that entertains and excites consumers is
considered a key factor that can differentiate one brand experience from
another (Gobe, 2001). Moreover, it has also been shown to influence a
higher level of consumer satisfaction (Lindstrom, 2005; Schmitt, 1999).
This is why the world's most successful firms try to distinguish
their brands by appealing to consumers' five senses to construct
competitive advantage. For example, Starbucks utilizes sensory marketing
by providing a pleasant interior and lighting, relaxing music, the smell
and taste of freshly ground coffee, and comfortable armchairs (Hulten,
Broweus, & van Dijk, 2009).
Previous research in sport consumer behavior has mainly focused on
physical surroundings (i.e., sportscape) as a primary driver of
consumers' experiences at sport venues and consumers'
cognitive evaluations of the venue, its amenities, and associated
services (e.g., Wakefield, Blodgett, & Sloan, 1996; Wakefield &
Sloan, 1995). While this is an important element in understanding sport
consumer behavior, consumers tend to be driven more by the subconscious
sensory aspects of the consumer experience than the functional features
of products and services (Zaltman, 2003). For instance, negative
cognitive evaluations that sport consumers have about the sport venue
can be offset by a positive affective experience. This positive
affective experience is often grounded in the sensory experiences at the
stadium (cf. Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009).
Recognizing the importance of the sport consumers' sensory
experience, Lee, Lee, Seo, and Green (2012) proposed "the
sensoryscape" model that extended the scope of the conventional
sportscape by taking a more multifaceted sensory perspective. Their
study found that the overall sensoryscape construct (a combination of
spectators' stadium experiences through all five senses) had a
significant and positive impact on stadium satisfaction in both major
and minor league baseball settings. While this finding is valuable, it
may be more useful to understand which dimensions of the sensory
experiences are more predictive in consumer behavior. This would provide
sport marketers with a starting point for experiential marketing that
leverages each of the five senses.
In addition, although the sensory experience is predictive in
stadium experience satisfaction, no study has examined the role of such
sensory experience for its effect on more stable consumer behavior
constructs, such as team identity or team loyalty. It is important to
note that while sensory experience and subsequent stadium satisfaction
may occur together in the sport venue, the effect of the sensory
experience on team identity and team loyalty seems to be less direct. It
has been recognized in organizational behavior that organizational
commitment, such as identification with or loyalty to a particular
organization, takes longer to develop and is seen as a more stable
construct than satisfaction (Dougherty, Bluedorn, & Keon, 1985).
This is the case in spectator sport in the sense that team identity and
team loyalty tend to be constructed by more complex factors (e.g., team
history, success, player attributes, stadium services) rather than by
only stadium-related factors (e.g., facility aesthetics and parking,
crowding) (Wann, 2006). While it is important for the sensoryscape to
affect overall stadium satisfaction, unless it predicts more stable
consumer behavior constructs, it is not a particularly useful construct.
Consequently, it is necessary to examine the relationship between the
sensoryscape and other important consumer behaviors.
The purpose of this study is to understand how our senses affect
brand commitment to sport teams. To measure the five different senses of
sport consumers, we implemented an instrument developed by Lee et al.
(2012), which proposed a "sensoryscape" model containing all
five senses. To measure the perception of the brand commitment, we
relied on instrumentation to measure team identity and team loyalty.
The Sensoryscape
Human senses undoubtedly influence experience because people
perceive and understand the world around them through the sensory system
(Myers, 2004). It is well recognized in consumer research that
consumers' sensory experiences play a key role in their perceptions
of the value of products or services that companies offer (Schmitt,
1999). Realizing the importance of human senses, a growing body of
consumer behavior research has begun to pay close attention to
consumers' experiences via their five senses: sight, sound, touch,
smell, and taste (Hulten et al., 2009; Lindstrom, 2005; Schmitt, 1999).
Schmitt (1999) proposed a conceptualization of brand experiences that
consist of five components: sense, feel, think, act, and relate.
Specifically, the author emphasized the importance of consumers'
sensory experiences with brands in that such experiences can impress
their senses, and gain access to the hearts and minds of the consumer.
In a similar vein, Gentile et al. (2007) conceptually proposed six
dimensions of the customer brand experience: sensorial, emotional,
cognitive, pragmatic, lifestyle, and relational components. Their study
found that the sensorial component is the most important one for
experiential brands among the six brand experience components. Although
both works proposed the conceptualization of sensory experience and
emphasized its importance in consumer behavior, they did not develop
scales to measure such an experience. More recently, Brakus et al.
(2009) developed a brand experience scale that consists of four
dimensions (i.e., sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral).
Although this scale provides a subscale to measure consumers'
sensory experience with brands, it can measure only the overall sensory
experience (e.g., "I find this brand interesting in a sensory
way"), and not each of the five sense dimensions.
Realizing the importance of the sensory aspect of consumer
experience, this study focuses on the role of the five senses of the
sensory experiences in sport consumer behavior. Rather than focusing on
the sensory experience as a whole, understanding what constitutes each
dimension of the sensory experience is important because the sensory
experience that appeals to only one or two senses may not ensure that
the experience exists in a consumer's mind. According to Schacter
(1996), when people engage multiple senses with stimuli, they are more
likely to remember the stimuli. In the context of brands, Lindstrom
(2005) suggests that there are strong relationships between
multi-sensory brands and the perceived value of a brand. In this sense,
a sport venue might be regarded as a unique container that, by appealing
to all five senses of spectators, produces memorable experiences.
Spectators are able to appreciate the visual attractiveness of a stadium
or an arena's architecture, hear inspiring music, enjoy the
physical proximity of other fans supporting the home team, take in the
aromas from tailgate parties, and savor the tastes of concessions.
Realizing the importance of the sensory experience, Lee et al.
(2012) developed the Sensoryscape scale to measure spectators'
stadium experiences via the five senses. The Sensoryscape scale consists
of five sense dimensions with 22 items. The sight dimension of the
sensoryscape has six items: a stadium's architecture, landscape,
sightlines, scoreboards, decorations, and colors. The sound dimension
has four items: the sound of cheering, the stadium's sound system,
the stadium's announcer, and its music. The touch dimension has
three items: physical contact with other spectators, comfortable
seating, and the spatial arrangement of the aisles and seats. The smell
dimension has five items: a stadium's unique smells, past, pleasant
memories evoked by the stadium smells, crowd smells, stadium food
smells, and tailgate party smells. The taste dimension has four items: a
wide range of food and beverage choices, the taste of stadium food,
psychological taste (i.e., feeling of better taste at the stadium), and
an escape from everyday life by eating at the stadium. The Sensoryscape
scale was not strictly limited to physical senses of consumer
experiences at the sport venues; rather, it took a broader view of
sensory experiences that encompasses not only physical senses but also
associated psychological senses and states (e.g., stadium's foods
taste better than those purchased outside, release from routine life by
eating at the stadium). The authors found that the overall sensoryscape
construct (a combination of spectators' stadium experiences through
all five senses) had a significant and positive impact on stadium
satisfaction in both major and minor league baseball settings.
It is important to note here that this distinction in the
perception from different senses does not necessarily mean that the five
senses operate in isolation. It is widely recognized in cognitive
psychology that there exists sensory interaction, suggesting that one
sense influences another (Power, 1980). For example, the smell of
stadium food may combine with its taste, and the entertaining
scoreboards to watch may be closely related to the quality of the sound
system. Deriving from the previous findings, the following hypothesis is
proposed:
[H.sub.1]: Each of the sensory experience dimensions will be
correlated with one another.
Impact of Our Senses on Team Identity and Team Loyalty
Team identity or team identification is defined as sport spectators
or fans' tendency to connect to their teams and as experiencing the
teams' successes and failures as their own (Ashforth & Mael,
1989). It is well recognized in sport consumer behavior that team
identity influences a variety of consumer behaviors, such as basking in
the reflected glory (BIRGing) or cutting off reflected failure (CORFing)
tendencies (Wann & Branscombe, 1990), group-supportive behavior
(Fisher & Wakefield, 1998), game attendance (Wakefield & Sloan,
1995), and merchandise consumption (Kwon & Armstrong, 2002).
Regarding the relationship between sensory experience and team
identity, sport consumer researchers have paid little attention to the
potential of sensory experience as a key antecedent of team identity.
Rather, they have primarily regarded psychological (e.g., desire for
belonging and affiliation), environmental (e.g., interactions with
socialization agents), and team-related factors (e.g., team performance)
as key antecedents of team identity (cf. Wann, 2006). However,
considering the powerful impact of sensory experience on consumer
behavior (Lindstrom, 2005), a more elaborated understanding of the
relationship between sensory experience and team identity is required.
Recent work in brand research found that consumers' satisfaction
with brands facilitates their identification with brands (Kuenzel &
Halliday, 2008). Brakus et al. (2009) revealed that overall brand
experience including sensory experience has a positive impact on
consumer satisfaction. In the context of the stadium experience, Lee et
al. (2012) found that sensory experience positively influences
spectators' satisfaction with the stadium. If sensory experience
affects consumer satisfaction and the satisfaction influences brand
identification, it is reasonable, by extension, to assume that the
sensory experience is a potential antecedent of brand identification
Heere and Dickson (2008) define team (attitudinal) loyalty as
"the result of the interaction between negative external changes
and the highly developed attitude of an individual, which is
characterized by persistence, resistance to change, biasing in cognitive
processing, and a guide to behavior based on the interaction between
negative external changes and the individual's attitude" (p.
233). Similar to team identity, team loyalty influences sport consumer
behavior, especially future attendance intentions (Hill & Green,
2000; Wakefield & Sloan, 1995). Although both team identity and team
loyalty represent the relational constructs between sport fans and sport
teams, team loyalty seems to be a stronger construct in explaining sport
consumer behavior. That is, team loyalty represents a more resistant,
persistent, biased cognition associated with sport teams and is also
more solid in the level of commitment to the teams (cf. Funk &
James, 2006; Funk & Pastore, 2000). This explains why Chicago Cubs
fans are renowned for loving their team despite the team's scant
success, current or past (Holt, 1995).
Previous studies in consumer behavior have suggested that sensory
experience is a major predictor of brand loyalty (Brakus et al., 2009;
Lindstrom, 2005). According to Brakus et al. (2009), brand loyalty was
affected by overall brand experience; such experience includes sensory,
affective, cognitive, and behavioral components. According to a study by
Lindstrom (2005), sight is the most important sense in our evaluation,
followed by smell, sound, taste, and touch. More specifically, 37% of
his sample indicated sight as being the most important sense followed by
23% indicating smell to be the most important. All of this of course
depends on the product category. For Coke and Pepsi, for example, taste
is the most influential factor on brand loyalty, followed by smell and
sight. For Sony and Panasonic in the home entertainment system category,
sound is naturally the most important factor concerning brand loyalty
(Lindstrom, 2005). Finally, previous studies in sport consumer behavior
have demonstrated that team identity has a positive impact on team
loyalty (Bodet & Bernache-Assollant, 2011; Wu, Tsai, & Hung,
2012). Based on these findings and logical extension, the following
hypotheses are suggested:
[H.sub.2]: Each of the sensory experience dimensions will
positively affect identity with the team.
[H.sub.3]: Each of the sensory experience dimensions will
positively affect team loyalty.
[H.sub.4]: Team identity will positively affect team loyalty.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Method
Sample and Procedure
Data for the study were collected via classroom surveys, as the
researchers could not obtain access to survey fans onsite. The
participants in this study were 367 undergraduate students at two large
public universities in the Southwestern United States. The use of a
student sample was considered appropriate in that they are not only a
captive, easily reached audience, but also represents a significant
group of sport consumers (Ross, James, & Vargas, 2006). Along with
the distribution of survey questionnaires, each participant was randomly
assigned to one of the two versions of the survey questionnaires with
different orders of the sensoryscape, team identity, and team loyalty
questions in order to reduce order effects. Of the 367 surveys
collected, 27 surveys were eliminated due to their incompleteness, and
30 surveys due to the lack of actual attendance of their favorite
teams' sport facilities. Therefore, 310 usable surveys in total
were analyzed for the study. Female participants made up 42.3% (n = 131)
and males 57.7% (n = 179) of the total sample. Participants ranged in
age from 18 to 40 years (M = 21.5, SD = 2.5). Participants'
favorite teams consisted of professional teams from football (30.3%),
baseball (29%), basketball (19.2%), soccer (11.4%), and ice hockey
(10.1%).
Measure
Participants were first asked to write down the name of their
favorite professional sport team. Since some of the participants may not
have actually attended their favorite team's games, the screening
question was asked, "Have you ever attended your favorite
team's game(s) before?" Consequently, as stated above, 30
responses were eliminated due to the lack of actual attendance of their
favorite teams' sport facilities. Participants' sensory
experience with their favorite team's facilities was measured with
the Sensoryscape scale (5 dimensions- 22 items) developed by Lee et al.
(2012). Since the Sensoryscape scale was developed in the context of
professional baseball, this study used a term, "stadium/arena"
instead of "stadium" to measure sport consumers' sensory
experience across different professional sports. Participants rated each
item of the Sensoryscape scale on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Team identity was measured
with Trail and James' (2001) three items using a 7-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Team
loyalty was measured by Heere and Dickson's (2008) four items using
a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree). The demographic question asked for the participants' gender
and age.
Data Analysis
The measurement model was assessed through a first order
confirmatory factor analysis with the seven latent constructs (i.e.,
sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, team identity, and team loyalty)
using AMOS. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to measure
the structural model--the relationships among the seven constructs. The
study tested convergent validity for the seven constructs with average
variance extracted (AVE). Fornell and Larcker (1981) consider a
construct to show convergent validity if AVE is at least .50. The study
also examined discriminant validity with Kline's (2005) suggestion
that construct correlations lower than .85 indicate the discriminant
validity. Reliability of the study was examined via Cronbach's
alphas greater than .80 (cf. Lance, Butts, & Michels, 2006). Hu and
Bentler (1999) recommend utilizing a combination of indicators to
evaluate model fit. Thus, cut-off criteria used in this study were:
Comparative Fit Index (CFI) greater than .95, Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA) less than .06, Standardized Root Mean Square
Residual (SRMR) less than .08, and chi square/degree of freedom ratio
([chi square]/df less than 2.
Results
Measurement Model
The measurement model posits no unidirectional paths between latent
factors. Instead it allows correlations between latent factors by
connecting each latent factor with every other latent factor. Overall,
the measurement model shows a good fit to the data ([chi square]/df =
1.921; CFI = .943; RMSE[ALPHA] = .055; SRMR = .048; Hu & Bentler,
1999). Cronbach's alphas for all factors were greater than that of
the suggested cut-off value of .80 therefore suggesting that all the
measures used in this study are internally consistent (Lance et al.,
2006). In addition, all factors revealed AVE greater than .50 (Fornell
& Larcker, 1981). All items loaded significantly on their respective
factors (p < .01) ranging from .56 for Touch 1 to .93 for Team
Identity 3. These results provided support for evidence of convergent
validity of the measurement model. The factor loadings, Cronbach's
alphas, and AVE are shown in Table 1. Further, the measurement model
satisfied the discriminant validity suggested by Kline (2005), which
means that the correlations between the latent factors are lower than
.85. The correlations between the factors are shown in Table 2.
Structural Model
Once the measurement model was confirmed using CFA, the structural
model was proposed. The hypothesized relationships among the five
dimensions of the sensoryscape, team identity, and team loyalty were
tested through SEM using AMOS. The structural model shows an acceptable
fit to the data across different professional sport contexts ([chi
square]/df = 2.296; CFI = .920; RMSE[ALPHA] = .065; SRMR = .076; Hu
& Bentler, 1999). All correlations among the five dimensions of the
sensoryscape were significant (.30 < r < .57, p< .01).
Therefore, [H.sub.1] was supported. Four (sight, sound, touch, and
smell) of the five dimensions of the sensoryscape had a positive impact
on team identity. Consequently, [H.sub.2] was partially supported. Three
(sight, touch, and smell) of the five dimensions of the sensoryscape had
a positive impact on team loyalty. Therefore, [H.sub.3] was partially
supported. Lastly, the path between team identity and team loyalty was
significant. Thus, [H.sub.4] was supported. The structural model
indicated that the five dimensions of the sensoryscape explained 38.8%
of the variance in team identity and that the five senses and team
identity predicted 57% of the variance in team loyalty.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Discussion
The authors extended Lee et al.'s (2012) work by testing the
relative impacts of the sensoryscape dimensions on team identity and
team loyalty across five different professional sports (e.g., baseball,
basketball, football, hockey, and soccer) rather than the overall impact
of the sensoryscape. The proposed model is a powerful one, with the
sensoryscape predicting over 38% of the variance in team identity.
Together, they explained 57% of the variance in team loyalty. As
expected, all five dimensions were correlated with one another. This
implies that while sport consumers, to some extent, holistically
experience the sport venues through their five senses, these senses
individually contribute to the team identity and team loyalty among
fans. More importantly, each of these senses has a different level of
effect on outcomes such as team identity and loyalty.
Past research on team identity has mainly focused on psychological
(e.g., desire for belonging and affiliation), environmental (e.g.,
interactions with socialization agents), and team-related factors (e.g.,
team performance or player attractiveness) as antecedents of team
identity rather than spectators' experience at the sport venue (cf.
Wann, 2006). This study revealed the possibility that sport venue
experience through consumers' senses can be an antecedent of team
identity. The study found that sight explained for the most variance in
team identity, followed by the smell, touch, and sound dimensions. It is
interesting that the effect of smell dimension on team identity was
almost as powerful as that of sight dimension (see Figure 2). Although
traditional sport facility research suggests the importance of the sight
element (e.g., facility aesthetics, scoreboard quality) as a major
determinant of sport consumer behavior (e.g., Wakefield & Blodgett,
1996; Wakefield et al., 1996), this finding suggests that the smell can
also be a key antecedent in the creation of team identity. Little
attention has been paid to smells at sport venues, but smells are a
powerful stimulator of past memories (Willander & Larsson, 2006).
Therefore, smells can evoke spectators' previous associations with
the sport venues or teams and provide even a "sense of place"
(Davies, Kooijmanb, & Warda, 2003). In this sense, smells can be a
strong trigger of team identity. In a study of consumer decision making,
Mitchell, Kahn, and Knasko (1995) found that when smells were congruent
with the product class, "subjects spent more time processing the
data, were more holistic in their processing, and were more likely to go
beyond the information given, relying more on inferences and
self-references" (p. 236). However, we still know little about what
kind of smells at sport venues sport consumers like. Future research
should identify experimentally the smell that sport consumers prefer and
explore the impact of the identified smells on the breadth and depth of
consumers' behavior.
It is also interesting that the touch dimension is the third most
influential factor on team identity when considering that touch is the
least important sense when people evaluate environmental stimuli (cf.
Lindstrom, 2005). This is in line with Wakefield et al.'s (1996)
finding that seating comfort and spatial arrangement of the aisles and
seats are important factors for consumer behavior, such as perceived
crowding and satisfaction. However, this study extended the effect of
the physical environment as the touch dimension by incorporating
"physical contact among spectators when cheering." In fact,
sport venues have been widely recognized as an important outlet for
social interaction in a society (Westerbeek & Shilbury, 1999), and
experiencing the spectator-induced stimuli (e.g., fans' supporting
behavior for their home team) enhances the stadium atmosphere (Uhrich
& Benkenstein, 2010). In this regard, the challenge in leveraging
the touch dimension is not merely a matter of the spatial arrangement of
sport venues, but also depends on the ways that spectator participation
in creating an exciting sport venue atmosphere is facilitated, designed,
and implemented. Future research should identify the tactile activities
that fans may want to engage in during games and examine the effect of
the identified tactile activities on their behavior.
The sound dimension is the fourth influential factor on team
identity. Stadium experiences are only half as fun without the auditory
excitement--the stadium music playing, the announcer's voice
resonating, and the overwhelming sound of cheering echoing throughout
the stadium. These sound experiences would boost spectators'
stadium experience. However, we still know little about what kind of
stadium music and what type of in-game tone of stadium announcers can
lead to more exciting fan experiences and the antecedents to crowd
cheering. Consequently, more research is needed to identify the types of
stadium music and announcer's tone and the key antecedents to crowd
cheering.
The study found that the taste dimension did not contribute to team
identity. Intriguingly, while most people consume some kind of food or
drinks during a sport event, this was not associated with team identity.
While we can only hypothesize why taste did not contribute to team
identity, one of the most likely reasons might be is that students are
less likely to purchase food or drinks during the sport event, because
of their limited budget. Second, traditionally, sport teams have been
extremely isomorphic when it comes to their menu offerings, and most
teams outsource their food and drinks services. In that regard, while
each team might have a unique sight, sound, touch, and smell that
separates them from other teams and thus contributes to the team
identity, taste is more associated with the overall experience of
attending a sport event and does not help towards setting the team apart
from its competitors. Future research should examine the concept of
taste more closely, and explore other sport settings in which taste
might be a significant predictor of team identity.
This study also revealed that the sight, touch, and smell
dimensions had a positive impact on team loyalty while the sound and
taste dimensions did not. The sight dimension was the most important
predictor of team loyalty followed by smell and touch. This finding is
in line with Lindstrom's (2005) finding that a multisensory appeal
directly influences brand loyalty, but in general, three sensory
dimensions play a key role in loyalty. Compared with team identity, the
sight dimension had a much greater impact on team loyalty than the smell
dimension. However, the smell dimension still was the second most
influential predictor of team loyalty.
As expected, the study found that team identity had a positive
impact on team loyalty. This implies that the sound dimension only has
an indirect impact on team loyalty via team identity while the sight,
touch, and smell dimensions had a direct and indirect impact on team
loyalty. In summary, team loyalty is a function of the four dimensions
of the sensoryscape and team identity.
As with all research, research limitations should be acknowledged.
A primary limitation comes from the sampling procedure employed in this
study. Although the classroom sampling used a screening procedure to
obtain actual game attendees, the classroom survey may constrain the
ability of respondents to recall their sport venue experiences, compared
to an on-field survey. Future research should seek to confirm the
proposed model via an on-site method.
Managerial Implications
Each of the five senses can be leveraged to enhance team identity
and team loyalty. The study found that the visual dimension of the
sensoryscape was the most significant predicator in both team identity
and team loyalty, being in line with Lindstrom's (2005) work that
showed that sight is the most important sense in our evaluation. This
finding suggests that from a sport marketing point of view, sport teams
can build a stronger and longer-lasting connection with sport fans by
maximizing the visual aspects of fan experiences. First, the visual
aesthetics of a sport venue can appeal to sport consumers' behavior
(Wakefield et al., 1996). One of the ways for creating a visually
attractive sport venue is to represent its locality with the
architectural appearance or interior design. Heere and James (2007)
proposed that a major reason people identify with a sport team is the
community it represents. In that sense, inserting symbols for the
overall community within the facility could increase the sense of
community for the fans as fodder for team identity and team loyalty. For
example, the Houston Astros incorporated the left-field train into
Minute Maid Park as a symbol of early industrial Houston, and the venue
was decorated with giant Texas boots (Rein, Kotler, & Shields,
2006). Therefore, spectators and visitors can experience the spirit of
Houston as a city and Texas as a state. Second, as sightlines are an
important factor in a fan's experience (Dethlefs, 2007), sport
teams need to ensure that the fan's views are not obstructed.
Although the conventional sportscape has primarily emphasized the
importance of facilities' visual aesthetics, without good
sightlines some of the vital elements of the visual experience could be
missed by the sport consumers (Gaffney & Bale, 2004; Lee et al.,
2012). In this regard, good sightlines should be given priority when
sport teams design and build new stadia and arenas or renovate old
facilities.
The collective cheering, songs, and chants not only are a key part
of the game experience but they can also heighten the sporting event
atmosphere (Rein et al., 2006). Many of these sounds at sport venues
tend to be spectator generated and spontaneous. The challenge to sport
teams is to facilitate spectators to develop their own sounds, songs,
and chants. Once these spontaneous sounds are established by fans or by
cooperation between fans and teams, sport teams can use cheerleaders or
announcers to prompt spectators to engage in those activities. This
would make the game atmosphere and experience more exciting. Many sport
teams have been over-playing similar songs at their venues over time,
and, therefore, some fans may think that these stadium songs are cliche
(Banks, 2011). Therefore, sport teams should pay more attention to
having or developing their own unique stadium music or cheering songs
that can appeal to sport consumers.
In addition, sport teams need to provide comfortable and quality
seats with appropriate aisle space that can optimize spectators'
tactile evaluations of the sport venue. However, this is not necessarily
limited to seating areas. Rather, quality surfaces throughout the
stadium can also augment fans' tactile assessments of the sport
venue. Further, in terms of cross-leverage between sight, sound, and
touch, sport teams can use scoreboards with stimulating music to
encourage physical contact with other fans during a seventh inning
stretch of a baseball game or during fan rituals such as the Wave. These
activities may motivate the fans who already experienced the sense of
immersion in the activities to continually attend future games.
Furthermore, as sport consumers engage in these multiple sensory
experiences, they would have a more memorable stadium experience
(Schacter, 1996).
As noted earlier, the smell of sport venues was the second most
influential factor in team identity and team loyalty. One way to create
unique smells is to integrate smell and locality. AT&T Park, the
home of the San Francisco Giants, built a reputation by bringing the
views and the smells of the San Francisco Bay into the ballpark through
its location and architecture. Another way to create unique smells is to
maintain the consistency of smells at the sport venue as such
consistency can contribute to powerful olfactory triggers to memoires.
For example, the smells of tasty food and beverage around spectators may
evoke positive memories of attending a game with friends or family.
Lastly, smell is strongly related to the fifth sense; taste. Food
is a very powerful way to service both smell and taste, and surprisingly
enough our results show that taste did not have a significant effect on
identity and loyalty. Increasingly, professional sport teams have
endeavored to offer a wide range of good tasting food. For instance,
Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, opened a Shake Shack concession
stand and is serving up its locally famous burgers, dogs, and shakes to
their fans (Collins, 2009). Nevertheless, our sample of sport consumers
does not seem to recognize stadium food services as a point of
differentiation that can contribute to the formation of team identity
and team loyalty. This is not to suggest that taste is not an important
factor in sport consumer behavior. In fact, it has been reported that
food service quality had a positive effect on spectators' desire to
stay at the sport venue (Wakefield & Sloan, 1995). In this regard,
particular sport teams could undergo a more elaborated effort to develop
and provide various stadium menus that can reflect sport fans'
needs by working together with their food and beverage services
partners. At the practical level, they can provide locally famous dishes
or special dishes only available at their stadia through cooperating
with their food providers. If this effort is successful, sport teams may
be able to use food and beverage as a competitive advantage to
differentiate them from their competitors.
Conclusions
A sport venue serves as a key sensory space in which sport
consumers obtain entertainment through the visual, auditory, tactile,
olfactory, and gustatory experiences. A positive, sensory experience of
the sport venue plays a substantial role in the formation of team
identity and team loyalty among fans. This sensory approach to
understanding the team identity and team loyalty provides a significant
counterbalance to an overreliance on team success and provides a new
perspective by creating a facility experience that is more encompassing
than the performance on the field. By creating a more enjoyable sensory
experience, sport teams can cultivate more stable fan base through
enhanced team identity and team loyalty.
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Table 1
Summary of Measures and Convergent Validity
Constructs/Items [lambda] [alpha] AVE
Sight
The stadium/arena's architecture is .77 .86 .51
attractive.
The stadium/arena's landscape .76
is attractive.
The stadium/arena provides good .72
sightlines to watch the game.
The stadium/arena's scoreboards are .59
entertaining to watch.
The stadium/arena's decorations are .72
enjoyable.
The stadium/arena's colors .72
are attractive.
Sound
The sound of cheering in the stadium/ .57 .88 .67
arena adds excitement.
The stadium/arena has a quality .88
sound system.
The stadium/arena announcer .89
is entertaining.
The music at the stadium/arena .89
is exciting.
Touch
Physical contact with other spectators .56 .80 .61
when cheering is exciting.
The stadium/arena provides .85
comfortable seating.
The stadium/arena has appropriate .89
spatial arrangement of the
aisles and seats.
Smell
The stadium/arena has a unique smell. .81 .87 .58
The smells at the stadium/arena .86
bring back pleasant memories.
The smell of the crowd is exciting. .75
I like the smell of stadium/arena foods. .76
The smell of the tailgate parties .60
is exciting.
Taste
The stadium/arena offers a wide range .78 .88 .64
of food and beverage.
When eating at this stadium/arena, .76
I feel like I am released from
everyday life.
It feels like foods purchased inside the .78
stadium/arena taste better than foods
purchased outside.
The stadium/arena provides good .88
tasting food.
Team Identity
I consider myself to be a "real" .92 .94 .85
fan of my favorite team.
I would experience a loss if I had .90
to stop being a fan of my favorite team.
Being a fan of my favorite team is .93
very important to me.
Team Loyalty
I would still be committed to my .88 .91 .72
favorite team regardless of the
lack of any star players.
I could never switch my loyalty from my .90
favorite team even if my close friends
were fans of another team.
I would still be committed to my .81
favorite team regardless of the
lack of physical skill among
the players.
It would be difficult to change .79
my beliefs about my favorite team.
Table 2
Correlations among Latent Factors
Factors 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Sight --
Sound .342 --
Touch .381 .561 --
Smell .354 .366 .306 --
Taste .313 .331 .362 .300 --
Team Identity .277 .476 .485 .465 .342 --
Team Loyalty .237 .488 .548 .550 .374 .677 --
Note: All correlation coefficients are significant at .01 level.
