Studying sport spectators' satisfaction, identification and involvement is essential to understand sport spectator behavior (Capella, 2002; Funk, Ridinger, & Moorman, 2004). Although many researchers have addressed sport fan and spectator behavior in men's baseball, football, and basketball (Armstrong, 1999; Kim & Lough, 2004; McCabe, 2008; Zhang et al, 2003), few have studied the behavior in women's. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a profile of sport spectator behavior in women's professional basketball games.
Method
A total of 281 sport spectators from eight WNBA games involving teams from the Eastern Conference participated in the study. The instrument used to collect data was developed using the basic tenets of the Sport Spectator Satisfaction Model (Leewen, Quick, & Daniel, 2002) including sport spectators' satisfaction, fan identification, and involvement. A six point Likert-scale was used to measure the variables used in the study. A path analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among the variables and identify which factor has the most influence on spectators' satisfaction.
Analysis/Results
The descriptive statistics indicated that overall levels of sport spectator involvement (M = 4.48, SD = 1.34) and satisfaction (M =5.04, SD = 1.10) at the WNBA games were moderately high. Results from path analysis indicated that sport spectators' satisfaction was related to their fan identification (b = .32, p < .01) which was also associated to their involvement level (b = .79, p < .01). In addition, service was identified as a factor that was most influential on the level of sport spectator satisfaction (b = .84, p < .01).
Conclusions
The findings of the study revealed that improving the quality of tangible and intangible service might generate a significant level of fan identification which results in spectators having a strong psychological and behavioral commitment to their favorite teams. Creating valuable psychological connections and emotional attachments with spectators is a key factor which stimulates spectators to become involved in a sporting event especially, in women's sports.