The Japanese Professional Soccer League (J. League) began in 1993 and was the first professional soccer league in Japan. After an initial period of strong interest, spectator support for the League has declined. The primary purpose of the current study was to develop a means for measuring...

Research on sport spectators and sport fans is examined to develop a model of the psychological connections that individuals experience with sports or sport teams. The Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) is introduced. It provides an extended view of sport spectator and sport fan involvement,...

Although the attitude construct has received considerable attention in the social psychological literature, its application to better understand how people form strong, stable and continuous involvement with athletic teams remains largely unexplored. Following a review of attitude strength...

Attitude-related research in the existing sport literature has focused on measurement of the affect component to examine existing attitudes towards sport teams. Recent studies question sole reliance upon affective reactions to assess sport consumers' attitudes towards sport teams. Current...

The present study used the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) to further our understanding of how motivation can be characterised as individual difference factors among sport consumers. The SII was augmented through qualitative feedback involving four focus groups, a pilot test (n = 80) and later...

This paper examines the relationship between brand associations (anything in the consumer's mind linked to a specific team brand) and brand loyalty in US professional sport. To study the relationship between 13 brand association dimensions and brand loyalty, a survey of professional sport...

A 30-item Sport Interest Inventory (SII) was developed and validated for measuring ten unique motives related to consumer interest at an international sporting event. Spectators (N=1,321) attending five different US venues during the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup were administered the SII....

The present data illustrate the effectiveness of utilizing theoretically guided models to develop consumer-based micro-segmentation strategies. The results provide marketers with a powerful discriminant function calculated from six variables to profile consumers and make informed decisions...

This paper examines the impact of the national sports lottery (toto) in 2001 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup for the Japan Professional Soccer League - J. League. In 2001 J. League attendances grew dramatically and were sustained in subsequent years, even though member clubs did not change many of...