This conceptual paper extends the debate about sustainability and sport management by transcending the dominant natural environmental perspective and offering a systems approach. Addresses the question, 'Is sustainability in sport management possible?' The nature of sustainability in sport management is discussed in the context of the tensions between the current growth model of sport, sport management research and teaching, and the sustainability imperative. Sustainability in sport management is concerned with a composite problem, and its goal is to understand and shape the interactions between complex adaptive natural systems and sport organizations as soft socio-economic entities at individual, organizational, and societal levels. A key feature that distinguishes sustainability in sport management from its current mainstream understanding and practices based on the ideology of growth ought to be its explicit prioritization of all types of sport participants as citizens, as opposed to treating them as consumers. At present, sustainability in sport management remains an impossibility.
This study explores the cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which fans preserve loyalty to a struggling athlete, using the case of Pakistani cricketer Babar Azam during a period of public criticism and poor performance. Employing grounded theory methodology, the research draws on primary interviews to inductively develop the Conspiracy-Driven Loyalty Preservation Model (CLPM). The CLPM reveals that fan loyalty is sustained through five interlinked stages: emotional displacement, cognitive reframing, identity anchoring, moral justification, and reputation repair. At each stage, conspiracy narratives (e.g. media bias and political interference) serve functional roles - such as offering scapegoats, enabling moral disengagement, and constructing coherent alternative realities. These mechanisms help fans reduce dissonance, protect identity, and justify continued allegiance, even amid widespread criticism. The research offers theoretical and practical insights for athlete brand management and public relations, particularly in South Asian contexts where national identity, media credibility, and collective emotions intersect.
In the increasingly saturated digital media landscape, sport leagues are in need of developing branding strategies that go beyond conventional awareness-building to build emotional connection and fans' advocacy. The current study proposes and examines the effect of brand knowledge on sport fans' word-of-mouth intention through serial indirect effects of perceived social media activities and brand coolness and a moderating effect of brand identification. A conditional process analysis was conducted with a sample of 229 U.S. sport fans of major leagues (i.e., NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS). The results revealed that brand coolness consistently emerged as a significant factor enhancing word-of-mouth intention. Specifically, the effect of brand knowledge on word-of-mouth intention was significant only through its indirect path via social media activity and perceived brand coolness. Notably, these relationships vary by different levels of brand identification. For example, the direct effect of brand knowledge on word-of-mouth was significant and stronger among highly identified fans, whereas these effects depended more on these mediated pathways among low-identified fans. These results highlight the crucial role of brand coolness and social media activities in fostering sport fans' word-of-mouth intention. Our model provides a novel viewpoint on how emotional, symbolic, and cognitive elements interact to influence sport fan behavior.
Despite growing attention to live streamers' roles on social media, limited research addresses the unique attributes and value of sports live streamers. This study identified key traits shaping the brand images and examined their effects on viewers' flow, satisfaction, and re-viewing intentions. A three-tier human brand image model was developed, including performance (communication skills, speech skills, and sports knowledge), attractiveness (humor, voice, appearance), and marketable value (relationship effort, self-concept consistency, and economic achievement). Then structural equation modeling was applied to 413 survey responses. Results showed that streamers' brand image was positively associated with both flow and satisfaction, which in turn was associated with re-viewing intention. Satisfaction exhibited a stronger mediating role than flow, highlighting the evaluative rather than experiential pathway in sustaining engagement. These findings provide insights for platform managers, sports organizations, and sponsors seeking to leverage streamers' attributes to enhance viewer engagement and support industry growth.
This study investigates the impact of volunteering in a 'Sport for Development and Peace' (SDP) event-specifically, a women's athletics event in Tanzania-on local female university students. Grounded in Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory, we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight Tanzanian female university students who volunteered at the event. Through qualitative analysis, the findings suggest that participants underwent a transformative shift in their understanding of SDP, developed greater confidence in women's participation in sport, and reimagined their future aspirations to advocate for expanded opportunities for girls and women in Tanzania. The results underscore the importance of structured volunteer experiences in challenging gender norms and nurturing leadership capacities among young women. By integrating local volunteers into SDP initiatives, this study highlights the potential of grassroots engagement to enhance program sustainability. However, the findings should be interpreted with caution, as participants may have aligned their responses with perceived expectations of prominent institutions.
Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) emphasizes the alignment of crisis response strategies with perceived organizational responsibility, yet its application in the sports context remains underexplored. This study examines the effectiveness of accommodative crisis communication strategies in managing reputational damage and shaping fan behavior following a high-responsibility sports scandal. This research evaluates the relationships between perceived accommodative crisis response, organizational reputation, supportive behaviors, and word-of-mouth (WOM). Findings reveal that perceived organizational reputation fully mediates the relationship between accommodative responses and supportive behaviors. Conversely, WOM is influenced both directly by accommodative responses and indirectly through reputation. These results underscore the importance of tailoring crisis communication to stakeholder expectations, as fans' emotional investments demand transparent, sincere, and proactive organizational responses. This study extends SCCT to the sports domain, offering theoretical insights into the dynamics of fan perceptions during crises and provides practical recommendations, emphasizing the critical role of reputation-building and coordinated responses to scandals.
This article examines the role of football agents in commercial representation of athletes and presents the conceptualization of this role as a construct with three dimensions: the development of athlete brand, the utilization of athlete brand, and the commercial partnerships and relationships. This conceptual framework is developed through empirical data generated through a qualitative research methodology involving semi- structured interviews with agents (N = 15). The findings underline that agents undertake a broad brand management role when performing commercial representation of athletes, taking managerial responsibility of the athlete brand and its commercialization. Hence, the agent's role in commercial representation extends beyond pure representation of talents involving acting and decision-making on their behalf. A brand management-oriented role needs to be understood as an integral component of the modern-day football agent in the world of football.
With the rising public awareness of climate concerns, sports are expected to contribute to sustainable development. In particular, major sports events are assumed to raise awareness and stimulate climate action through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. However, empirical evidence of impact on behavior remains limited. To address this gap, this study investigates whether the CSR communication of UEFA Euro 2024-which promoted environmentally friendly mobility-influenced the audience's intended behavior. Grounded in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), two pre-registered Structural Equation Models were tested on survey data from 432 Swiss individuals. Results indicate that exposure to Euro 2024 increased familiarity with its CSR initiatives, which positively influenced attitude and subjective norms, ultimately enhancing intentions to use eco-friendly transport. Moreover, familiarity with these initiatives was positively associated with UEFA's reputation, suggesting mutual benefits for both the organization and society. These findings suggest that sport events can foster sustainable behavioral intentions.
Our study conducted a joint assessment of mandatory versus voluntary cause-related fees added onto a ticket purchase to examine perceived motives and attitudes. Additional fees influence the way consumers view a seller and their desire to purchase a product. However, the effectiveness of incorporating cause-related marketing (CRM) into these fee formats has not been fully explored. Hence, this study examined consumer responses to mandatory and optional cause-related fees added to ticket prices through causality orientations theory. Our study conducted an online survey and collected 395 usable responses. A one-way MANOVA was used. Our results suggest both fee formats are perceived cause-centered, however, optional CRM fees are preferred, improving consumer attitudes toward their brand. Although customers can opt out from optional CRM fees, teams should implement optionality, which not only still raises money but also improve brand image and enhance brand equity.
Tau he purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing runners' experiences throughout their customer journey and to propose experience-driven service improvements by applying the Customer Experience Modeling (CEM) method. A qualitative approach involving 26 semi-structured interviews and five participant observations were employed. Data were analyzed using the Grounded Theory methodology. The application of the CEM method identified four key factors shaping runners' experiences: digital support services, safety within service systems, human interactions, and the availability of event-related services during pre- and post-race stages. This study theoretically contributes to customer experience understanding by emphasizing the interplay and orchestration of multiple factors that collectively shape the event experience, rather than focusing on isolated elements. Furthermore, it offers practical recommendations for sports event organizers, proposing new service improvements to enhance participants' overall experience.
Studies on sports event management have focused on how host residents perceive the event and its impacts, but very little is still known about how such experiences can facilitate organizational learning (OL) in host sports organizations. The study explores the potential of major sports events to generate human and social capital amongst the public and the ensuing process of OL for host sports organizations. Using the 2023 Asian Men's Handball Qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games held in Qatar, a mixed-method concurrent nested design was employed, collecting quantitative (survey questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) data from event attendees and event managers, respectively. The interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge, as well as individual and collective learning, stimulated a combination of low levels of organizational formalization and specialization and individual (i.e., tacit) knowledge, which has resulted in an 'operational adhocracy' form of OL in sports organizations dominated by embracing knowledge.
Through the lens of a macro-theory of human motivation, this study investigated how the dynamic esports ecosystem - comprising playing, viewing, and competitive participation - enables a diverse range of esports gamers to fulfill innate and universal basic psychological needs. A deductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews grounded in self-determination theory (SDT) was used to theorize and interpret the experiences of individual esports gamers. Participants suggested that esports provides a favorable environment where gamers' basic psychological needs can be fulfilled and supported through participating in esports. We highlighted how participating in esports allows esports gamers to fulfill their basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy on the multi-level aspects. Furthermore, we identified the conditional factors (i.e., technology; vicarious achievement) in facilitating gamers' psychological outcomes associated with esports participation. Our findings extend the understanding of esports consumption by demonstrating how gamers' basic psychological needs are satisfied within an interconnected ecosystem, sustainably motivating their engagement across diverse activities.
Drawing on media system literature, this study explored the media framing of Olympic legacy by Korean and Chinese news outlets during the bidding and event preparation phases of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. A comparative case study design was employed, and 256 newspaper articles from the Korean and Chinese news outlets were analyzed using content analysis. All news outlets framed value-neutral legacy types (cultural, human capital, sport, and social legacy) positively. However, while Korean news outlets used mixed tones for value-laden legacy types (economic, environmental, urban, and the context-specific peace legacy), Chinese news outlets consistently framed all value-laden legacy types positively, including crisis management legacy. This study provides theoretical insights into how media systems influence Olympic legacies framing across nations and offers practical implications for future mega-sport event hosts and relevant stakeholders in obtaining public support through media.
Impulse buying of team-licensed merchandise has been scarcely researched, despite the importance of the revenue of these items for a sports team, as well as the symbolic importance for sports fans. This study explores how comparing oneself with other sports fans may instigate positive or negative emotions (according to how one fares against the comparison target), which may lead to stronger impulse buying tendencies of team-licensed merchandise. The role of team identification is also tested, such that those who identify more strongly with a team should feel stronger emotions, and so a stronger impulse to buy team-licensed merchandise, after a social comparison situation, than those who identify more weakly. The data was collected through an online questionnaire (n = 167) with an experimental design in which participants were exposed to either an upward or a downward social comparison with other sports fans. The results generally confirm the hypotheses and are discussed in relation to their usefulness to consumer behavior research, as well as to marketeers and sports fans.
The commercialization and globalization of football have fostered the rise of Multi-Club Ownership (MCO), where investors control multiple clubs across leagues to optimize talent development, operations, and financial returns. While offering brand expansion and cost efficiencies, MCO raises concerns over fair competition, governance, and local identity. This study strengthens the theoretical understanding of MCO by applying three frameworks: the Resource-Based View (RBV), Synergy and Economies of Scale, and International Business Strategies. Drawing on 12 in-depth interviews with senior MCO executives, it explores how shared resources, cross-club synergies, and transnational strategies shape performance, value creation, and sustainability. Comparisons with conglomerates in other industries highlight both parallels and football-specific traits. Findings show that MCO delivers operational and financial benefits but faces cultural integration and equitable resource allocation challenges. By linking practice to theory, this research advances sport management literature on complex, resource-driven ownership models.
There is a contention that sport organizations provide significant potential as platforms for fostering environmentally conscious behavior among their consumers. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how credibility connects to the change and persistence of sport consumers' pro-environmental behavior. A notable aspect of this study is to clearly explain how perceived credibility correlates with desired outcomes over different timescales in social marketing. Data were collected at two measurement points conducting a panel research design (N = 203). The results indicate that perceived credibility of sport organization is positively associated with perceived influence of campaign and the variations of two specific behaviors. Additionally, the perceived influence of campaign was found to have a mediating effect on both environmental credibility and the two dependent variables. This study contributes showing that a sport organization's credibility on environmental issues significantly impacts how spectators perceive the influence of campaigns.
The esports industry, facing slowing growth and revenue challenges, is actively seeking innovative monetization strategies to revitalize its revenue generation capabilities. This study investigated the adoption of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a viable tactic to these challenges. NFTs, unique digital assets secured by blockchain technology, are becoming increasingly integrated into the esports landscape. Guided by a Diffusion of Innovations framework, we analyzed factors influencing the attitudes and purchase intentions toward NFTs of 294 competitive esports gamers. Results revealed that the adoption factors had a significant impact on attitudes toward NFTs, and thus significantly influenced purchase intentions. Notably, investment intentions did not moderate the relationship between attitude and purchase intention, suggesting that the intrinsic value of NFTs drives their appeal, rather than their potential solely as financial instruments. This research underscores the importance of leveraging NFTs' ability to provide exclusive content and experiences, thereby enhancing fan engagement, diversifying revenue sources, and fostering a more sustainable business model.
Most volunteer motivation scales are based on Western sport events, yet China's increasing role as a host necessitates investigation of a context-specific measure. This study develops and validates a scale to assess volunteer motivation at Chinese major sport events. An initial item pool was derived from a literature review and a focus group discussion. A sample of 838 volunteers from the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games was utilized. The data were randomly divided into two subsets: one for exploratory factor analysis (n = 419) and the other for confirmatory factor analysis (n = 419). The results identified a nine-factor model and supported its validity and reliability. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by (a) identifying virtual social interaction as a new volunteer motivation, (b) introducing value as a context-specific factor that combines national pride and altruism, and (c) expanding the conceptualization of sport enthusiasm to include individuals with little prior sport experience.
As the 2024 Olympic Games edition is the first one with an equal gender distribution of the participating athletes, this study aimed to analyze whether this gender equality is also represented in media by the individual National Olympic Committees (NOCs). Thus, this study examined gender representation and user engagement variables on social media posts by NOCs. Chi-square and ANOVA analyses were conducted on data from 827 posts, collected from Instagram and Facebook of different NOCs of the Ibero-American region. Engagement was significantly higher when only one gender was depicted and not both in the same post. Considering the interaction variables, a preference was revealed for female athletes on Instagram, with higher interaction compared to posts featuring males or both sexes. Facebook showed a similar trend for shares but with differences in likes and comments not only between posts showing only women and those showing both sexes, but also between men and both. The analysis also highlighted an imbalance in representation across NOCs. The findings suggest that, despite progress toward gender equality in participation, social media representation remains skewed. This underscores the importance of equitable gender representation by NOCs to achieve congruence with the Olympic Games' gender equality goals.
