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Examining Gendered Experiences in Sport Management: An Introduction
Scott Tainsky and Shannon Kerwin
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Sport Organizations
Simon J. Barrick
Volume 38 (2024): Issue 5 (Sep 2024)
Cross-Cultural Comparison of Satellite Fanship: A Consumer Culture Theory Perspective
Yiran Su, Xiaochen Zhou, Daniel Funk, and Jason Daniels
Satellite fans make up an important part of a sport team’s market, but little is known about how long-distance relationships are developed across different cultures. In this manuscript, we utilize the Consumer Culture Theory to examine how satellite fans develop fanship toward foreign professional sport teams. Drawing from 46 interviews with Chinese and American fans of European soccer teams, we developed four archetypal pathways through which fans form relationships with their beloved teams, reflected in the labels “Detached Admirer,” “Relational Networker,” “Industry Analyst,” and “Spiritual Follower.” The findings showed both cross-cultural and intracultural differences in the way satellite fans connect to their teams. In diverse ways, satellite fans construct their desired identities based on the meaning of their fandom, influenced by a variety of social-historical parameters. Accordingly, we bring theoretical innovation to sport fan behavior research and provide managerial actions for teams targeting the satellite fan base.
Fan Socializing and BIRGing: The Impact of Trait Competitiveness on Fan Behaviors
D. Todd Donavan, Mara F. Singer, and Brad D. Carlson
This research investigates the intricate dynamics between trait competitiveness and sport fan behavior, examining its relationships with situational and surface traits associated with sport consumption. By advancing our understanding of competitiveness as a key influencer in sport participation and entertainment seeking, the study contributes to our understanding of what drives sport fans. Utilizing Mowen’s 3M model and the Big Five personality traits, we explore the influence of traits on competitiveness, predicting its impact on participation and entertainment seeking and fan socializing and basking in reflected glory. The findings unveil the role of competitiveness in shaping behaviors, indicating that competitive individuals actively seek and enjoy competitive and entertaining situations. The research illuminates the paths by which personality traits affect sport consumption behaviors, providing theoretical insights into the complex dynamics of competitiveness in the realm of sport.
How Transfer Behavior Impacts Consumer Perceptions and Intentions Toward College Athletes Who Pursue Name, Image, and/or Likeness Activities
Andrea L. Matthews and Jodi Pelkowski
Recent changes to the National Collegiate Athletic Association policy on name, image, and/or likeness and transfer policies have transformed how college athletes may market themselves as human brands. Above all, branding success depends on consumer perceptions. Using a national survey of U.S. consumers and an experiment, we test how transfer behavior impacts consumer purchase intentions for a collegiate athlete’s brand. We find that transferring to a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I or Division II school decreases purchase intentions by lowering consumer identification with the athlete through perceived profit motive or perceived athlete quality, respectively. These findings contribute to branding theory and provide insight to players and schools, as they navigate the changing landscape of college athletics.
Exploring Sport Employees’ Conceptualizations of Meaningful Work
Nathan R. Baer, Claire C. Zvosec, and Brent D. Oja
Modern sport management scholars have paired the fields of positive organizational behavior and human resource development with sport management to enhance the productivity of sport organizations through their employees. One area of study receiving increased attention is meaningful work, an emerging employee well-being metric whose definition is debated. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which sport employees conceptualize meaningful work. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 32 sport employees. The following themes were identified: meaningful work is work that serves, meaning gained from sport organizations, and individual meaningful work experiences. Discussion offers valuable implications for practitioners of sport management, as well as the emerging scholarly field of human resource development in sport management, and the evolving discourse surrounding meaningful work.
(Un)Doing Gender Inequalities in Sport Organizations
Annelies Knoppers, Corina van Doodewaard, and Ramón Spaaij
Gender can be seen not only as a binary category but also as a performance or doing that is shaped by, and shapes organizational processes and structures that are deeply embedded in (sport) organizations in multiple and complex ways. The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies for addressing the undoing of gender in sport organizations with the use of an overarching or meta-approach. Strategies that aim to undo gender require a recognition of the complexity of regimes of inequality and the need to use incremental steps in the form of small wins while acknowledging change is not linear. The complexity and multiplicity of the gendering of sport organizations should, therefore, be considered a wicked problem. The naming of heterotopias can provide directions or goals for small wins and for addressing the wicked problem of the doing of gender in sport organizations.
Sport Stadiums and Environmental Justice (1st ed.)
Adam G. Pfleegor
Mother-Coaches’ Experiences of Policy and Programs: “Whoever Wrote This Policy Doesn’t Understand What It Means to Be a Mom”
Jesse Porter, Dawn E. Trussell, Ryan Clutterbuck, and Jennifer Mooradian
In this paper, we explore the lived experiences of mother-coaches who, while coaching, navigate policy and programs aimed at promoting gender equity. Specifically, this study took place within the context of an amateur national, 10-day multisport games event in Canada. Using critical feminist narrative inquiry, 14 mother-coaches (apprentice, assistant, or head coach), representing eight different provinces, and 10 different sports, participated in this study. Three themes were constructed that call attention to the Canadian sport system broadly, as well as the 10-day multisport games event specifically: (a) performative policies and gendered assumptions, (b) programs that are band-aids for a “shitty culture,” and (c) a pathway to nowhere for mother-coaches. The findings complicate the hegemonic work–family conflict narrative, suggesting that mother-coaches’ advancement, opportunities, and quality experiences are impacted by the current heteropatriarchal culture and structure of sport that these programs and policy are rooted in.
