Study on relationships among sports spectator motivations,
satisfaction and behavioral
intention: empirical evidence from Chinese marathon
Yanling Duan and Bing Liu
Economics and Management School, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China, and
Yan He
School of Business, Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose–The paper aims to examine the relationships among marathon spectator motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention in China.
Design/methodology/approach–Date were collected from three Chinese marathon races. The paper presents the conceptual model of the study and adopted a mixed method to identify the motivations of marathon spectators; structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the measurement and substantive models; regression analysis was used to detect the specific effects of the various spectator motivations on spectator satisfaction and behavioral intention.
Findings–The paper provides empirical evidences about how marathon spectator motivation affects the behavioral intention. The research results from a path analysis of the spectator motivation–satisfaction– behavioral intention model show that: spectator motivation has significant positive effects on behavioral intention, the indirect path dominates the total effect of motivation on behavioral intention via satisfaction as a mediating variable; satisfaction is positively associated with behavioral intention, and it plays mediate role between spectator motivation and behavioral intention. The result of regression analysis indicates that various spectator motivations have different influences on the satisfaction and behavioral intention, motives of excitement and diversion have significant effect on satisfaction and behavioral intention, but socialization motive is not significantly associated with the satisfaction and behavioral intention.
Originality/value–This paper first fulfills an identified need to explore mass sports event spectator motivations and its influential mechanism on behavioral intention among Chinese marathon races by survey. It contributes greatly to the literature of mass sports spectator motivation and consumption theory, provides important managerial implications for Chinese sports organizations as to how to improve spectator orientation degree.
KeywordsSports spectator, Motivation, Satisfaction, Behavioral intention Paper typeResearch paper
Introduction
Spectators are an indispensable resource for sports events because they are numerous and important to enterprises’finances. Thus, sports spectators have attracted increasing interest from scholars in the field of economics and marketing. In particular, spectator quantity and participation in marathon races are the key determinants of success (Hallmann and Wicker, 2012;Wickeret al., 2012). Moreover, spectator sports have become increasingly popular to ordinary people (Trailet al., 2000). The popularity and potential reasons for many spectators to be attracted in sports have likewise caught the attention of scholars (Funket al., 2007,2009;
Wanget al., 2013;Ramchandaniet al., 2017).
Research on spectator motivations can facilitate the understanding of the consumer decision-making process and meet the needs of sports spectators to substantially maintain
Sports spectator motivations and satisfaction 409
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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Received 16 April 2018 Revised 2 August 2018 Accepted 12 November 2018
International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship Vol. 21 No. 3, 2020 pp. 409-425
© Emerald Publishing Limited 1464-6668 DOI10.1108/IJSMS-04-2018-0034
their interest (Duran and Hamarat, 2014). For sports marketers, identifying the reasons to watch or attend sports events has become their most important assignment (Sit and Lindner, 2005;Funket al., 2009;Kimet al., 2009). At present, the number of studies on spectators’ motivation conceptions and empirical studies based on the framework of spectator motivation and its impact on the behavior of the spectators are rapidly increasing (Grove et al., 2012). Many existing studies have focused on sports consumer motivation (Funket al., 2007;Shipway and Jones, 2007), predicting sports consumer attitude and loyalty (Wanget al., 2011) and assessing the impact of recommendation through word of mouth on revisits (Wang et al., 2013;Lee and Kang, 2015). A few scholars have adopted sports participation motivation to segment the sports tourism market (Hallmannet al., 2012). At present, inconsistent conclusions have been drawn on predicting sports spectators’ motivation in different backgrounds (Byonet al., 2010;Wuet al., 2012). Hence, such inconsistency presents a few challenges in substantially understanding their motivations and effects on sports consumer behavior (Wanget al., 2013).
In recent years, the rapid development of the Chinese economy and improvement of the people’s quality of life have resulted in the accelerated growth of many sports events in China. In particular, marathon races have become the most popular approach in the progress of building healthy China. The official website of the Chinese Athletic Association (CAA) reported that the number of CAA-registered marathon and marathon-associated races reached 1,102 sizable games (above 800 and 300 runners in road and cross-country races) in 2017. The total number of direct participants was 4.98m and involved 234 cities (i.e. 70.06% of China’s prefecture-level cities). At the same time, the marathon races have attracted more and more local and foreign spectators, which greatly promotes the development of sport tourism and national fitness in the host cities.
According to our survey, on average, each marathon participant was accompanied by 1.5 people, each spectator from outside the host city would stay for three days, a considerable number of marathon spectators were tourists visiting the destination specifically to attend the marathon event. Moreover, the support of local residents is the necessary condition of a successful sport event, watching marathon is regarded as residents’support for the event, as a result, measuring spectator attendance has become the important task of estimating the impact of free-to-view sport events (Davieset al., 2010), the number of spectators has become the symbol of the success of marathon race in China. In order to retain and attract more marathon spectators, sport organizations and host cities all want to understand the spectator motivations and its influencing effect on their behavioral intention. Within sport industry, spectator sport and participant sport are two distinct categories. Marathon running has grown in popularity since the 1970s, it was more of a spectator sport (Koo et al., 2014, p. 128). Marathon spectators also have the potential to make a significant economic contribution compared their spending per person with that of participants (Kruger et al., 2012), marathon spectators should be understood because they were valuable and profitable segment of sport market (Kruger and Saayman, 2012). Hence, it is an important task for mass sports event entities to improve their research capabilities with the target spectators especially. At present, marathon has become the most popular and influential mass branding event in China. Meanwhile, the interest of researchers on Chinese sports spectator motivation model is increasing (Wanget al., 2011;Xie and Sun, 2017). However, empirical evidence is limited, particularly on the effects of spectator motivation on sports consumption behavior that is based on domestic sport events in China. The current study conducted a questionnaire survey involving the spectators of three marathon races held in the cities of Wuhan, Shanghai and Hangzhou in 2017 to investigate spectator motivations and their impact on the behavioral intention of spectator sports consumption.
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Literature background and hypotheses
Relationship between spectator motivations and behavioral intention
Motivation is the internal factor that stimulates and promotes target guidance behavior.
Moreover, motivation is defined as“the drives, urges, wishes or desires which initiate the sequence of events known as behavior”(Bayton, 1958, p. 282). Motivation, which is primarily generated by psychological or physiological needs and desires, could initiate, command and integrate individual behaviors and activities (Yolalet al., 2009). Motivation surfaces when the need of a person is activated (Solomon et al., 2012). At present, research on spectator motivations is mainly focused on Western sports events and based on a variety of research fields. Moreover, the majority of these studies focused on the sports or tourism setting. In recent years, the emergence of sports tourism has prompted research on spectator motivations based on this field (Aicheret al., 2015;Nishioet al., 2016).
The different research needs and perspectives have resulted in a variety of viewpoints on the concept and measurement of sports spectator motivation. Various theories could facilitate the understanding of sports spectator motivation, includingMaslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs, expectancy-value theory (Lewin, 1938), premise of push–pull factors (Crompton, 1979), escape-seeking model (Iso-Ahola, 1982), achievement goal theory (Nicholls, 1989) and reversal theory (Apter, 1989). The variety of theoretical paradigms has challenged the assessment of sports spectator motivation (Funket al., 2009). Several operationalization concepts of this motivation are discussed in the literature.Trailet al.(2000)identified five spectator motives from the underlying intrinsic needs, namely escape, aesthetics, achievement, knowledge and family.Trail and James (2001)developed the Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption (MSSC), including the nine factors involved, namely achievements, knowledge, aesthetics, drama, escape, physical skills, social interaction, family and physiological attraction. MSSC had been proven stable and valid in various sports backgrounds (Byonet al., 2010).Byonet al.(2010) adopted MSSC to measure the spectator motivation of wheelchair rugby games, particularly the following seven motivation factors: vicarious achievement, knowledge, aesthetics, drama, escape, physical skill and social interaction. The typical measure scale developed byFunk et al. (2009) was relatively simplified and comprised five aspects, namely socialization, performance, excitement, esteem and diversion (i.e. called SPEED), to measure sports participation motivation. With regard to marathon attending motivation,Masterset al.(1993) developed the Motives of Marathoners Scales (MOMS) including nine factors, namely health orientation, weight concern, self-esteem, life meaning, psychological coping, affiliation, recognition, competition and personal goal achievement.Slak Valeket al.(2015)found that the main attending motives of marathon included entertainment, participating at the event, recreation, gathering with other runners, obtaining a result, self-confirmation and other. The marathon spectator motives are different from those of participants and the focus is on the opportunity to be able to support the runners and the race itself (Krugeret al., 2012); a survey fromAristidiset al.(2017)indicated that marathon spectators attended the event because their friends or relatives participated in the race and their interest in sport. In general, the elements of spectator motives have overlapping components from different perspectives, while different motives of sports spectator are specifically observed in various countries (Kim et al., 2009).
In recent years, Chinese domestic scholars have begun to study the sports spectator motivations.Chenet al.(2014)identified the main motivation factors of Chinese professional football spectators, namely live experience, interests, emotion relief, and starchaster.Zhang et al. (2016) conducted a comprehensive survey on spectator sports, such as football, basketball, track and field and swimming, and developed a spectator motivation model that measures six motives (seeking knowledge, team attribution, entertainment, aesthetics, emotional venting and atmosphere experience). Scholars have noted varying motives for different sports and for different sports consumer segments (Bilyeau and Wann, 2002;James
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and Ridinger, 2002;Wanget al., 2013). The current study focuses on the motives of Chinese marathon spectators and the impact on their postconsumption behaviors, such as satisfaction and revisits.
Spectator motives have been used as drivers of sports spectator behavior (Funket al., 2002;Trailet al., 2003;Wanget al., 2011,2013;Hallmannet al., 2012). Moreover, motivation is often used to directly predict the frequency of the aforementioned behavior (Funket al., 2009;
Wanget al., 2011). Many studies on spectator motivation have shown that motivation is an important predictor of past and future participation of spectators (Funk et al., 2009).
Attendance in and the induction of sports events have a considerable influence on the attitude of spectators.Ramchandani and Coleman (2017)concluded that attending sports events could further fuel the existing desire of contemplators to enhance their participation.Pease and Zhang (2001) found a significant relationship between spectator motivation and the participation of National Basketball Association (NBA).Byonet al.(2010)also argued that spectator motivation was the key predictor of repurchase intention. Therefore, these observations lead to the following hypothesis:
H1. The extent of spectator motivations is positively related to the behavioral intention.
Relationship between spectator motivation and satisfaction
Sports events are regarded as an effective tool for regional marketing and destination image promotion, as well as play an important role in the people’s social and cultural life; these events provide important recreation and consumption channels for residents and tourists (Ramchandani and Coleman, 2017). Empirical evidence has indicated that sports events have a potential mechanism to improve the well-being and quality of life of residents (Kaplanidou et al., 2013;Inoueet al., 2017). As a recreational activity, spectator sports events provide people with an environment that can create life meaning, which is the core of maintaining and improving life satisfaction (Iwasaki, 2007). Leisure enjoyment and intrinsic interest can provide spectators with psychological resources (Hallmann et al., 2013) and personal development opportunities (Doerrenberg and Siegloch, 2014). Research results have shown that sports event spectators can experience a positive emotion and sense of alternative achievement, reduce pressure from daily life (Doyleet al., 2016a,b) and maintain and improve happiness through psychological participation with the team and its members (Inoue et al., 2015).
Consumer satisfaction, which is an inevitable requirement of competitive market orientation, is a pleasurable fulfillment response to a product or service (Oliver, 1997) or an emotional state of the consumer response to the evaluation of a product or service (Westbrook, 1981). Research has shown that consumer satisfaction depends on the perceivable quality of service, consumer sentiment, social interaction and other experiential factors (Pantouvakis and Lymperopoulous, 2008). The concept of sport consumer satisfaction was originated from consumer satisfaction (Kooet al., 2014), the research approach of sport consumer satisfaction was based on consumer satisfaction angle;van Leeuwen (2002)established the Sport Spectator Satisfaction models (SSSM), provided a platform for further research of spectator satisfaction. Koo (2009) conceptualized sport spectator satisfaction as a function of overall satisfaction with multiple experiences of the sport event, which was measured based on consumer satisfaction. In this study, spectator satisfaction refers to evaluating their experience of attending the event globally.
A close relationship exists between the motivation and satisfaction of spectators.
Motivation can explain the overall satisfaction of tourists in over 90% of destinations (Ross and Iso-Ahola, 1991).Inoueet al.(2017)explained that on-the-spot spectators can directly improve life satisfaction, trigger spectator emotional support and promote life satisfaction
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thereafter by indirectly identifying with sports teams or members.Song (2014)found that leisure motivation has a significant positive impact on people’s life and leisure satisfaction based on the analysis of the Chinese leisure survey in 2013. The different dimensions of sports spectator motivation mainly reflect that people are enthusiastic to meet their needs and obtain benefits by experiencing sports, including the desire to interact with family, friends and others; perceive the artistic beauty of sports; experience the excitement of competition;
seek substituted achievement; and escape from daily affairs to relieve stress (Funket al., 2009). In existing spectator literature, a large number of studies have demonstrated that spectatorship has the capacity to deliver individual-level benefits (Doyleet al., 2016a,b).
Based on the survey of 2016 Taiwan Miaoli Road Race,Changet al.(2017)found there was a causal relationship between motivation and satisfaction. Hence, the greater the spectator motivations for watching a sports event, the higher the spectators’recognition of the event. In addition, the stronger emotional support, the higher the level of satisfaction of an event.
Therefore, this study presents the following hypothesis:
H2. The extent of spectator motivations is positively related to the satisfaction.
Relationship between spectator satisfaction and behavioral intention
Behavioral intention is defined as the individual behavioral tendencies based on the feeling, cognition or evaluation of experiences (Spears and Singh, 2004). This tendency includes the aspects of favorable and unfavorable behavioral intentions (Ladhari, 2009). Favorable behavioral intention refers to the intention of revisiting sports events in the future and spreading a positive word of mouth to potential consumers (Zeithaml et al., 1996).
Accordingly, satisfied consumers will have commitment to the company, product or service (Choiet al., 2004), including brand loyalty, positive word of mouth and repurchase intention (Kooet al., 2014). Numerous studies in the marketing field have indicated that satisfied consumers tend to repurchase (Kotler and Dupree, 1997;Homburget al., 2005). The sports consumption literature indicates that consumer satisfaction is significantly related to future behavioral intentions (Croninet al., 2000;Kwonet al., 2005).Lee and Kang (2015)conducted a survey involving 224 spectators in a South Korean men’s professional basketball game, the survey results showed that spectator satisfaction of sports events has a positive impact on team identity and revisit intention.Kooet al.(2014)studied an American marathon race and determined that the satisfaction of the participants in the competition has a significant positive effect on their behavioral intention.Wickeret al.(2012)investigated the participants and visitors of a German urban marathon race and found that the main motivation of consumers to revisit the city and marathon race is the perceived competition image and satisfaction degree.
Consequently, this study presents the final hypothesis:
H3. The satisfaction of spectators positively affects the behavioral intention.
To sum up, the aims of our study is to analyze the relationships among spectator motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention, as shown inFigure 1.
Satisfaction
Behavioral intention
Motivation H1
H2
H3
Figure1.
Conceptual framework and research hypotheses of the study
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Research method Sampling and data collection
To test the hypotheses, this research selected three marathon races held in three major cities (i.e. Wuhan, Shanghai and Hangzhou) in China. Our data were mainly obtained through a standard self-completion questionnaire for each event administered by trained investigators.
To improve the data quality, we selected 20 trained postgraduate students to conduct an on- site investigation. Data collection was performed during several key time points on the race days to ensure that the spectators had watched all or part of the events. A total of 1566 valid responses were obtained across the three races: 542 from Wuhan Marathon, 700 from Shanghai Marathon and 324 from Hangzhou Marathon. Among them, male spectators (59.6%) are more than female spectators (40.4%), 79.5% spectators are in the 19–45 years range, 49.4% spectators in the individual average annual income are in range of U50,000RMB–U200,000 RMB and 70.3% spectators had university or postgraduate education level.
Variable measures
This study adopted existing measures or adapted to fit the purpose of this study. All purified scales were seven-point Likert scales. A mixed method to measure the motivation of marathon spectators is adopted (Rohmet al., 2006). Twelve senior marathon spectators and five marathon operational managers were conveniently selected for the interview; a semistructured interview was conducted to distinguish the motives of the spectator. Lastly, three types of motives, namely socialization, excitement and diversion, were identified from the interviews. The current study adopted and refined the existing motive scales from the literature (Trail and James, 2001;Funket al., 2009). In a few studies, overall satisfaction was measured by a single item (Cronin and Taylor, 1992;Chen and Li, 2010;Prayag and Grivel, 2014). The present study adopted a multi-item scale fromChen and Li (2010)andPrayag and Grivel (2014), which has three items that mainly measure the level of spectators’enjoyment, desire and satisfaction of an event. The sports consumption behavioral intention scale was adopted fromChen and Li (2010)andPrayag and Grivel (2014), which has three items that mainly measure the level of spectator revisiting, participating in and recommending the event in the future.
Results
Results of exploratory factor analysis of the spectator motivations
This study performed an exploratory factor analysis using the SPSS16.0 software on the motive of spectators to identify and extract the three factors of the feature with values above 1. The item of the load factor that was below 0.5 was excluded and ten measurement items were retained: the socialization motive had three items, the excitement motive had four items and diversion had three items. The KMO (Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin) and Bartlett test results were 0.928 (sig.50.000). The factor could cumulatively explain that the total variance contribution rate was 74.19%, thereby possibly reflecting and measuring the information of spectator motivations.
Reliabilities and validities of variables
The reliability and validity of all measures are assessed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Table 1shows the means, standard deviations, correlations, reliability assessed by Cronbach’sα, composite reliabilities (CR), average variances extracted (AVE), the validity of all measures estimated by discriminant validity. As shown inTable 1, all the constructs’ Cronbach’sαcoefficients (ranging from 0.727 to 0.917) and the CRs (ranging from 0.801 to
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0.957) indicate the accepted reliability. In addition, all the AVEs are greater than 0.50 cutoff (ranging from 0.586 to 0.792). CFA yields a model that fits the data well with NNFI, NFI, CFI, IFI and RFI all exceeding 0.90 and RMSEA below 0.1 (χ2/df5 2.92; RMSEA 5 0.091;
NNFI50.91; NFI50.92; CFI50.93; IFI50.93; RFI50.91).Table 2shows the loadings of the first-order variables ranging from 0.55 to 0.96, and the loadings of the two-order variable ranging from 0.76 to 0.90 are significant at 0.01 level, which indicates that convergent validities of all measures are acceptable. The square root of each measures’AVE is higher than the correlation coefficient of the row and column; therefore, the discriminant validities of the all measures are significant. Meanwhile, the content validity of the measures can be guaranteed because all scales were adopted from the extensively used maturity scale in the literature and combined with specific marathon races in China.
Findings about main effects
The structural equation model was used to test the research hypotheses (see results in Figure 2). Overall, the model fit indices indicate that the conceptual model developed in this study is appropriate with acceptable goodness of fit with NNFI, NFI, CFI, IFI and RFI all exceeding 0.90 and RMSEA below 0.9 (Chi-square/df 52.41, NNFI 50.91, NFI50.92, CFI 5 0.92, IFI 5 0.92, RFI 5 0.90). The endogenous variable behavioral intention performance has been explained 76% by this model.
The results of the study showed that spectator motivations have significant positive effects on behavioral intention under the 0.05 level (β50.09;t52.01), supporting H1. The path coefficient from motivation to satisfaction is significant under the 0.001 level (β 5 0.70;
t510.24), so H2 is supported. Spectator satisfaction has a significant and positive effect on behavioral intention under 0.001 level (β50.81;t515.84), thus, H3 is supported.
Table 3 shows the effect analysis results of motivations and satisfaction on spectator behavioral intention. As shown inTable 3, motivation has significant direct effect (β50.09;
t52.01) and indirect effect (β50.56;t59.05) on the behavioral intention, satisfaction has significant indirect effect on behavioral intention(β50.81;t 515.84), the total effect of spectator satisfaction ((β50.81;t515.84) on behavioral intention is higher than that of the spectator motivation (β50.65;t510.17).
Findings about regression analysis
Regression analysis was used to detect the specific effects of the different spectator motivations on spectator satisfaction and behavioral intention (as indicated inTable 4). At
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
(1) Socialization 0.765a
(2) Excitement 0.542*b 0.842
(3) Diversion 0.498* 0.648* 0.889
(4) Motivations 0.835
(5) Satisfaction 0.618* 0.867
(6)Behavioral intention 0.549* 0.623* 0.826
Mean 4.836 5.274 5.255 5.137 5.265 5.107
S.D 1.663 1.375 1.356 1.227 1.444 1.526
Cronbach’sα 0.727 0.908 0.917 0.898 0.899 0.846
CR 0.801 0.907 0.919 0.957 0.901 0.864
AVE 0.586 0.710 0.792 0.698 0.752 0.683
Note(s):aDiagonal elements present the square root of the AVE;bOff-diagonal elements (included in the lower triangle of the matrix) present the standardized correlations among constructs; *Correlations are significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed); CR5construct reliability coefficients; AVE5average variance extracted
Table 1.
Means, standard deviations, correlations, reliability estimates and discriminant validity estimates
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the first stage of the hierarchical regression, the control variables gender, years old, income, education level were included (Model 1), the second regression added three independent variables socialization, excitement, diversion (Model 2), as shown inTable 3, the different motivation factors on spectator satisfaction are different according to the magnitude of effect:
Second-order latent variables
First-order
latent variables Observed variables
Second order λ(t-value)
First order λ(t-value) Motivation Socialization 1.The opportunity to contact with
relatives
0.76( ) 0.73( ) 2. The opportunity to get together with
friends
0.96(24.96) 3. The opportunity to interact with others 0.55(13.19) Excitement 1. I enjoy the excitement associated with
the runners
0.90 (20.81) 0.91( ) 2. I find out the exciting athletic skill 0.91(32.30) 3. I perceive the excitement associated
with the game
0.78(23.52) 4. I feel the competitive atmosphere on
site
0.76(22.70) Diversion 1. I get away from the tension in my life 0.79 (17.83) 0.87( )
2. I relax from the daily routine 0.93(30.27) 3. I relieve the stress of working life 0.87(27.26) Satisfaction 1. I think the event is worth watching 0.84( )
2. I really enjoy watching the event 0.92(24.98) 3. In general, I’m very satisfied with the
event
0.84(23.22) Behavioral
intention
1. I will revisit the event next year 0.85( ) 2. I hope I can participate in the event in
future
0.93(21.75) 3. I would like to recommend the event to
others
0.68(17.52) Note(s):X2/df52.92, RMSEA50.091, NNFI50.91, NFI50.92, CFI50.93, IFI50.93, RFI50.91
Satisfaction
Behavioral intention Motivation 0.09*（2.01）
0.70***（10.24）
0.81***（15.84）
Note(s): X2/df=2.41, RMSEA=0.085, NNFI=0.91, NFI=0.92, CFI=0.92, IFI=0.92, RFI=0.90;
*: p<0.05; **: p<0.01; ***: p<0.001
R2=0.76
Direct effect Indirect effect Total effect
Motivation 0.09*(2.01) 0.56***(9.05) 0.65***(10.17)
Satisfaction 0.81***(15.84) – 0.81***(15.84)
Note(s): it istvalue in brackets; *p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001 Table 2.
CFA results of all measures
Figure 2.
Relationship among motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention
Table 3.
Direct, indirect and total effects of motivation and satisfaction on behavioral intention of marathon spectators
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the impact of excitement (β50.461;t59.198) and diversion (β50.255;t55.188) on the satisfaction is significant, the impact of excitement (β 50.343; t55.270) and diversion (β50.308;t54.898) on behavioral intention is significant, while the impact of socialization on satisfaction (β50.029;t50.659) and behavioral intention (β5 0.017;t5 0.300) is not statistically significant. The reason maybe comes from three aspects: first, a certain difference exists in the spectator motivation and consumption culture between Chinese and Western sports spectators. The analysis framework of the Western leisure social psychology can be used to analyze the Chinese sports spectator motivation and sports consumption behavior, although distinct cultural characteristics in the specific cultural environment remain (Song, 2014). The literature on sports spectator motivation indicates that socialization is one of the main motives of these spectators (Funket al., 2009;Madrigal, 2006). However, we failed to find empirical evidence to support that socialization is a motive factor in the existing literature on the Chinese sports spectator motivation (Chenet al., 2014); second, previous research results indicated that motivations have an impact on consumer satisfaction and behavioral intentions, but not all motivational factors have significant influences (Yoon and Uysal, 2005; Smith and Costello, 2009). Marathon spectators are different from elite or professional sports spectators. On-the-spot marathon spectators are not limited to a fixed position in a stadium. The environment may reduce the impact of socialization motive and the sports consumption caused by socialization is often considered temporary consumption activity. This condition will result in the insignificant effect of socialization motive on spectator satisfaction and behavioral intention; third, maybe the samples selected is other reason for the inconsistent findings with previous research, the motivation of sport consumers is complexed (Funk and Bruun, 2007), the motivation of sport attendance would differ by heterogeneous population between participants and spectators, the motivation scale used in this paper was adapted from the motivation scale for sport consumption (Trail and James, 2001;Funket al., 2009), while the sport consumption behavior captures a wide variety of motives, marathon spectators are just part of the sport consumers.
Research findings
The sport marketing literature extends sport consumption to include spectator aspect. This paper tried to analyze the relationships among spectator motivation, satisfaction and
Dependent variable: Satisfaction
Dependent variable: Behavioral intention
Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2
Control variables
Gender 0.032( 0.650) 0.001(0.034) 0.021(0.371) 0.039(0.851)
Years old 0.014(0.248) 0.003(0.071) 0.034(0.503) 0.022(0.405)
Income 0.009(0.188) 0.009(0.238) 0.043(0.764) 0.023(0.514)
University 0.028(0.444) 0.057(1.204) 0.067(0.939) 0.103(1.791)
Postgraduate 0.021( 0.375) 0.052(1.244) 0.029( 0.477) 0.032(0.648)
Independent variables
Socialization 0.029(0.659) 0.017( 0.300)
Excitement 0.461(9.198)*** 0.343(5.270)***
Diversion 0.255(5.188)*** 0.308(4.898)***
R2 0.003 0.447 0.058 0.396
AdjustedR2 0.009 0.437 0.040 0.377
F-value 0.214 42.486*** 3.091** 21.544***
VIF 1.673 1.908 ≤1.620 ≤2.078
Note(s): (1) It istvalue in brackets; (2) *p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Table 4.
Results of hierarchical regression analysis:
standardized regressions
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behavioral intention, since little effort has been made to identify the spectator motivation and its influence on behavioral intention in the context of mass sport events; the purpose of the research was to provide complementary support to help understand the mass sport consumer behaviors; we believe this study makes a significant contribution to both the theory and practice of mass sport spectators, especially marathon spectators.
Attending sports events is becoming an increasingly popular leisure activity in China. In recent years, the rapid development of many types of sports events in China, particularly marathon races, retaining and attracting sport spectators have become the key assignment of sport marketers. Consequently, identifying and understanding spectator motivations and their impact on spectator consumption behavior intension have become an important basis for establishing effective marketing strategies for competing enterprises. The current study revealed the relationships among spectator motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention based on the questionnaire survey involving the spectators of three marathon races in China.
Our findings are as follows:
First, spectator motivations have a significantly positive effect on behavioral intention and the influences of different motivations on behavioral intention are different. Motivation is a predictor of consumer behavior. This study’s results show that spectator motivations have a significant positive effect on spectator behavioral intention. Such result is consistent with existing research results, thereby further proving that spectator motivation is an important predictor of the behavioral intention of sport consumers (Funket al., 2009;Byonet al., 2010;
Wanget al., 2013). The results of this paper confirmed the previous findings ofWickeret al.
(2012)that among both participants and spectators surveyed during and after the marathon event, most of them would like to revisit the city or the marathon. The regression analysis result enabled us to determine that the effects of different spectator motives on behavioral intention vary. The effect of excitement motivation on behavioral intention is the most significant followed by diversion motivation. Meanwhile, the role of socialization motive on behavioral intention is not statistically significant. This result indicated that not all motives would play the key role to drive sport consumer behaviors;Slak Valeket al.(2015)found that two important motivations for attending the marathon were entertainment (almost 40%), followed by recreation (almost 22%). The spectators of marathon are heterogeneous by their motivations, marathon organizers need to identify and understand their motivations for better marketing activities in order to retain or attract more spectators.
Second, spectator motivations play a significant role in the degree of satisfaction.
Motivations reflect the need for experience benefits behind sport spectator. People can experience a sense of achievement, positive emotion and relief of pressure by watching sports events (Doyleet al., 2016a,b). Moreover, watching sports events as a recreational activity can provide people with psychological resources (Hallmann et al., 2013) and personal development opportunities (Doerrenberg and Siegloch, 2014). At present, spectator motivation is regarded as an antecedent of spectator satisfaction, particularly for live spectators; hence, watching sports events can bring considerably high life satisfaction to spectators (Inoueet al., 2017). In general, the stronger the motivations of spectators, the stronger their preference for watching sports events. Once the spectators’needs are met, they often develop high levels of satisfaction.
Third, satisfaction has a significantly positive effect on spectator behavioral intention.
Satisfied spectators often have favorable opinions of a sports event and numerous studies have suggested that satisfaction will significantly affect the future intention positively (Kaplanidou and Vogt, 2007;Kaplanidou and Gibson, 2010;Wanget al., 2013;Prayag and Grivel, 2014). The benefits brought by satisfied sports consumers include enhancing a team’s identity and increasing the revisit intention toward the event (Lee and Kang, 2015). According to our survey, satisfied marathon spectators would like to revisit the host city and marathon race, and quite large marathon spectators would like to participate in marathon race in person
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in the future. The host cities and event organizers could offer the marathon spectators more target services and goods to satisfy them. AlthoughWickeret al.(2012)found that most of marathon participants and spectators would revisit the host cities or events, there are differences existing between spectators and participants in fact. In spectator sporting event context, spectators and participants are two different types of sport consumers, participants tend to link their emotions more closely to physical and organizational aspects; however, spectators tend to favor the social and historical aspects of a destination (Kooet al., 2014); it results in the different satisfactory factors and behavioral intention between spectators and participants,Zhanget al.(2008)found the differences on the profiles and perception through a comparison between participants and spectators at the 2006 Old Mutual Ocean.
Fourth, satisfaction plays a significant mediating role between spectator motivation and behavioral intention. Although spectator motivations have a significant and direct promoting effect on behavioral intention, the effect of motivation on behavioral intention largely depends on the level of spectator satisfaction for a sports event. In this study, the results of the effect analysis of spectator motivation and satisfaction on behavioral intention indicate that spectator motivations have a direct effect on the consumption behavioral intention; however, the indirect effect is considerably larger through the mediating variable satisfaction. In order to develop the full potential of spectator motivations, sport event organization and host city need to improve the spectator satisfaction. Consumer satisfaction is an affective orientation toward all kinds of tangible and intangible products that consumers feel and experience (Oliver, 2010); it is important for spectator satisfaction to create a memorable experience at the sport event; the marathon organizers should improve these factors such as amenities, comfort and visibility, marketing, personnel and provisions (Kruger and Saayman, 2012).
Theoretical implications
This study’s results provide a few implications for sports event organizations, sports marketers and destination cities or regions in terms of improving the quality of event services, attracting and retaining sports consumers and promoting the development of city marketing.
The first management implication is the functional role of service for marathon marketers.
In particular, identifying the marathon spectator motivation is the key to designing and providing enhanced event services to residents and sports tourists. At present, city marathon races are increasing rapidly and the homogeneity of these races is becoming considerably substantial. Thus, to understand and provide enhanced service to marathon spectators, sports organizations should identify a spectator motivation model based on national conditions and regional culture (Zhang, 2016). The results of the current study indicate that marathon spectator motivation mainly includes excitement, diversion and socialization.
Under an increasingly competitive intensity, sports enterprises or organizations should formulate effective marketing strategies that are based on the motives of spectators;
spectator motivation is an effective segmentation tool compared with population and socioeconomic variables (Liuet al., 2008). Moreover, using motivation as a segmentation tool can facilitate the understanding of the sports spectator behavioral intention and sports consumption pattern. The results also show that excitement and diversion are the influential motives of marathon spectators. Thus, sports organizations should attempt to provide spectators with opportunities to enjoy wonderful and attractive contest performances, make the spectators perceive the excitement of the sports atmosphere and develop entertainment theme activities around the marathon races to enable spectators release the pressure from their daily professional life.
Second, the ability to draw spectators to live performances is vital to the success of sports organizations (Funk et al., 2009). Hence, improving spectator satisfaction is the basic
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guarantee for the sustainable development of sports events. Sports organizations in China are facing immense challenges because of the rapid development of the country’s marathon race industry. In particular, numerous sports consumers are attracted and retained because satisfied spectators will participate in the sports event again and spread a positive word of mouth to others, thereby immensely improving the sports event brand and the destination image and creating a future tourism revenue (Dimanche, 2003). To improve spectator satisfaction and maintain event popularity, sports organizations should consider and combine the local economic and cultural characteristics with a sports event, focus on spectator viewing experience and strive to improve the satisfaction of spectators (Lee and Kang, 2015). A recognized fact is acknowledged in the field of marketing, in which the development of a new customer is five times higher than the cost of maintaining an existing customer (Rosenberg and Czepiel, 1984). Therefore, maintaining a stable rate of revisit events is the focus of sport organizations, particularly from the economic perspective. That is, consumers’revisit intention is significant to city tourism events. The potential economic effects of sports events are caused by the consumers’consumption in the host city (Preuss, 2005). Empirical evidences indicated that participants and spectators often spend significant time in hosting cities (Daniels and Norman, 2003). In general, marathon races are held annually and consumer spending is regarded as a stable income. For the host city, understanding consumers and implementing appropriate marketing activities to attract consumers to revisit events are important for the host city and sports organizations (Wicker et al., 2012).
Lastly, sports events have an impact on promoting regional economy (Chalipet al., 2003;
Shonk and Chelladurai, 2008) and city brand (Herstein and Berger, 2013). The findings of the current study indicate that motivations and satisfaction are important drivers of spectator behavioral intention. To attract and retain sports spectators, cities should focus on spectator motivation and satisfaction. Several studies have explored how to satisfy spectators with a sports event (Inoueet al., 2017;Kooet al., 2014;Morenoet al., 2015).
Limitations and prospects
Western scholars have played a leading role in the field of leisure and sport research. In recent years, Chinese scholars have been exerting effort to change this situation. The rapid development of domestic sports events in China has increased the popularity of these events as the people’s main leisure activities, thereby providing a facilitated research environment.
We use motivation theory framework as basis to provide empirical evidence of Chinese marathon spectator motivation and its impact on postconsumer behavior. However, this study also has several limitations: first, the research results were derived from three marathon races. Thus, the universality of our research results should be tested by investigating numerous marathon races in the future. Researchers could consider other motives to expand the commercial and social impact of a sports event, and we could analyze the relationships among motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention by dividing marathon spectators into different categories such as local residents and tourists. Second, because sport attending motives are dynamic and multi-level (Funet al., 2009), that is, they vary in different countries, sports, emotional attachments (Koo and Hardin, 2008) and different stages of consumer life (Beaton and Funk, 2008), so future study can collect longitudinal data to find out the dynamic developing laws of spectator motivation for a specific marathon event; third, participants are crucial part of marathon event, we need to empirically identify the differences in the motivation and relationships among motivation, satisfaction and behavioral intention between spectators and participants in future study; it could provide more convincing and comprehensive conclusions and suggestions to the sport organizations and host cities.
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