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

Abstract

This study presents a structured model to investigate whether sports fans’ team identification and organization-public relations (OPR) directly affect their attitudes toward their favorite teams or related behavioral intentions. In addition, it examines which antecedents, such as sports media consumption or duration of being a fan, affect team identification and OPR, and investigates whether gender works as a moderator in the model. An online survey was used and a total of 673 responses of the National Football League (NFL) fans were analyzed. The results of path analyses show that sports media consumption directly affects team identification and OPR, while the duration of being a fan did not significantly influence OPR and had only a small effect on team identification. Moreover, the degree of identification and relational perception of an NFL fan directly affect attitudes toward his or her favorite team. Finally, a person’s attitudes toward the favorite team directly affect his or her purchase intention of team-related products and attendance intention. Among paths in the proposed model, only one path, from attitude to attendance intention, was significantly different between the male and female groups.

Keywords:

• Organization-public relationships
• team identification
• attitudes
• behavioral intentions
• and sport fans

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eunyoung Kim

Eunyoung Kim (Ph.D., University of Alabama, 2016) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre at Auburn University at Montgomery. Her research interests include sports fans, sports public relations, and relationships management, and crisis communication.

Karla K. Gower

Karla K. Gower (Ph.D., UNC at Chapel Hill, 1999) is the Behringer Distinguished Professor of public relations and Director of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations at the University of Alabama. She is the author of five books and numerous journal articles. Her research focuses on the history of public relations and legal issues affecting the profession.