Date of Publication

12-2013

Document Type

Undergraduate Project

Professor's Name

Katharine Burakowski

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the paper's first paragraph: The lifeline of the sporting industry is the fans that attend the games, purchase merchandise, consume media, and passionately follow their favorite team or sport. Sport organizations do whatever they can to attract fans to their games and entice them to buy more tickets, merchandise, concessions and consume more of their team through social media, visits to the team website, and following the team. A critical area for these sport franchises to examine is why fans attend sporting events and what makes them a loyal fan of a certain team. Does the arena or stadium influence whether a fan attends a game? Does the team’s performance impact the fan’s decision? Do fans attend the game for pure entertainment because they have no attachment to the team? There are many reasons why a fan attends a game but another aspect to look at that has not been investigated thoroughly is what makes fans return to games. Sporting events have a high cost for the consumer because the fan needs to spend money on gas, parking, tickets, food, merchandise and the sporting event costs time in the fan’s day. When a fan attends a game, why would they make the monetary and time commitment that is necessary for a sporting event? There are many possible answers to this question but one valid answer is differentiated because of the lack of knowledge on the subject. For this reason, my research question is: how does fan avidity impact the return of another fan?

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