The Mobile Phone and Professional Sports: Fans’ Use of Mobile Content for Loyalty, Identification, and Fandom
in International Journal of Sport CommunicationClick name to view affiliation
The purpose of this study was to examine how fans of professional sports use mobile content to develop fan support. Mobile-content dimensions were evaluated and their relationships with attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, team identification, and sport fandom were tested. A total of 665 young professional sport fans were surveyed in the southwest region of the United States. Three mobile-content dimensions—information, service, and interaction—were identified. The results indicate that the information dimension was positively associated with attitudinal loyalty, team identification, and sport fandom. The service dimension was positively linked to behavioral loyalty. The findings suggest that young professional sports fans’ selective use of mobile content accounts for different types of fan support.
The author is with the Dept. of Communication, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX.
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