Flag football participants in Mexico and NFL consumption

Abstract

This study explored flag football participants in Mexico as potential consumers of games and merchandise of the National Football League (NFL). An online questionnaire was administered through a flag football organization in Mexico. Using K-mean cluster, participants were grouped into four categories based on a combined score of identification with flag football and American football: ‘avid flag football participants’, ‘dedicated football participants’, ‘avid American football participants’, and ‘casual participants’. MANOVA tests were conducted to see whether there is a main effect for different clusters in terms of current and future consumption of NFL games and merchandise. Gender differences were also examined. Different clusters showed different levels of consumption, which was seemingly influenced by their identification with American football. Females showed higher levels of flag football identification than males while males had higher identification with American football than females. Male participants were prominent consumers of both NFL media and merchandise.

Keywords:

• American football
• flag football
• identification
• sport consumer behavior
• adoption and diffusion theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.