Background/Purpose The purpose of this study was to provide an objective, systematic, comprehensive information and knowledge regarding a professional baseball spectator's flow and the fundamental materials for marketers of a sports team to effectively establish differentiated marketing strategies of the team to both maintain and expand fan base to their team. More specifically, this study attempted to examine the effect of antecedents of flow-experience on flow-experience and the relationship between flow-experience and its consequences.
Method The questionnaire for this study was disseminated to 500 spectators attending the professional baseball games. Thirty-three questionnaires were excluded because they were not fully completed. There were 467 usable questionnaires. Data were analyzed with descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and multiple regression analysis using SPSS 12.0.
Analysis/Results The results of this study indicated that there were positive relationships between antecedents of flow-experience and flow-experience. Arousal explained the strongest predictor in flow-experience, followed by interactivity, involvement, public relations factor, and game factor. The results also revealed that flow-experience had a positive and direct influence on exploratory behavior and intention to attend future games. Focused attention was the strongest in exploratory behavior and intention to attend future games, followed by affect.
Conclusions The findings of this study will contribute not only to an extension of the knowledge base of spectators' flow to a sports team in the area of sport marketing, but also to practical applications for sport-team marketers and managers. Practical implications and several directions for future study of findings were discussed.
See more of: Research Consortium