Cognitive and Affective Determinants of Fan Satisfaction with Sporting Event Attendance

TLDR

The study proposes and tests a structural model of fan satisfaction with attending a sporting event. The authors used a two‑stage sample of 232 women’s basketball fans to test a recursive model linking expectancy disconfirmation, team identification, and opponent quality to enjoyment and basking in reflected glory, which in turn predict satisfaction. The refined model outperformed alternatives, confirming a disconfirmation‑affect‑satisfaction hierarchy where team identification most strongly drives affect and enjoyment most strongly drives fan satisfaction.

Abstract

AbstractThe current study proposes and tests a structural model of fan satisfaction with attending a sporting event. Specifically, three cognitive antecedents (expectancy disconfirmation, team identification, quality of opponent) are related to two affective states (enjoyment, basking in reflected glory) which are, in turn, related directly to satisfaction judgments in a recursive model. Two-stage sampling was used to collect data from 232 individuals attending one of four women's basketball games at a major Division I-A university. The hypothesized model performed better than two alternative models and was further refined through a series of hierarchical model comparisons. The final model is supportive of a disconfirmation-affect-satisfaction hierarchy. In particular, team identification was found to have the dominant influence on affect and enjoyment had the dominant influence on fan satisfaction.KEYWORDS: Fan satisfactionexpectancy disconfirmationopponent qualityteam identification