Scheduled for Research Consortium Leisure & Recreation and Sport Management & Administration Poster Session, Thursday, April 14, 2005, 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Area I


Sport Spectator Behavior of Collegiate Women's Basketball (Leisure & Recreation)

Jennifer Y. Mak1, Julie Donahue1 and Anita N. Lee2, (1)Marshall University, Huntington, WV, (2)Springfield College, Springfield, MA

Sport spectator behavior is always a concern of sport organizers. The understanding of sport spectator behavior allows sport managers to promote the program effectively. Therefore, the investigation of sport spectator behavior for collegiate women's basketball is necessary. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among Social Economic Status (SES) and the Desire to Attend collegiate women's basketball (DES) with three aspects of attending collegiate women's basketball games (SSB): (1) the habit of attending the game (Habit), (2) the attitude toward attending games (Attitude), and (3) the satisfaction of watching sport (Satisfaction). Participants were the spectators of a NCAA I women's basketball game with an age range of 18 to 70 (N = 312, male=132, female=173, missing=7). The Modified Sports Consumers Questionnaire (Milne & McDonald, 1999) was administered during a basketball game. The EFA and CFA were utilized to analyze the factorial validity of the various aspects of the instrument. After the EFA and CFA, three factors (Habit, Attitude, and Satisfaction) with 29 items were retained in the Sport Spectator Behavior scale. Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the relationships among SES, DES and three SSB factors. The results showed that three SSB factors having positive and negative relationships existed between SES and DES. The direct effect from SES to Habit (gamma = .13), from SES to Attitude (gamma = .77), and from SES to Satisfaction (gamma = .76) were not significantly (p > .05) different from zero. The direct effect from DES to Habit (gamma = -.89), from DES to Attitudes (gamma = -.99), and from DES to Satisfaction (gamma = -.62) were all significantly (p < .05) different from zero. Various fit statistics were tested to provide information on model fit the data. The minimum fit function chi-square value was 1411.87 and was significant (p < .00) with 553 degrees of freedom. The RMSEA was .073 for the hypothesized model indicated a close model fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993). The Standardized RMR (Hu & Bentler, 1999) was .07 indicated a good model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). The NNFI (Bentler & Bonett, 1980; Tucker & Lewis, 1973) value was .78 that indicated only weak model fit. The findings reveal that even the spectators had good habit on watching sport, positive attitude towards attending games, and satisfy with watching sport, the desire to attend collegiate women's basketball still can be low.
Keyword(s): measurement/evaluation, participatory, sport management

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