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Volunteers provide essential services to community sport organizations; thus, it is important to understand the underlying factors in successful volunteer–organization relationships. Organizational identification, an integral component of relationship building for members in an organization, is a useful yet underutilized concept to understand how and why volunteers create lasting, deep relationships with sport organizations. This research utilizes a sequential mixed-method design to examine the evolution of organizational identification among volunteers in a community sport organization. The survey results indicate that new volunteers formed their organizational identification over the course of a single program season, such that, by the end of the season, they were similar to returners. Subsequent qualitative analysis of focus group data indicated that the content and evolution of organizational identities varied for newcomers and returners. These results provide important contributions related to the ongoing nature of identity work of volunteers and offer practical implications for volunteer management within community sport organizations.

The authors investigated the influence of consumer characteristics (prior race experience, gender, age, education, family structure, and area of residence) on event satisfaction and the satisfaction–repeat participation link in the context of a long-distance running event. Based on a survey of runners (N = 3,295) combined with registration data from two races, results suggest characteristics that commonly influence satisfaction in nonsport contexts fail to demonstrate similar effects in participant sport events. Results provide evidence that first-time marathon participation and variety-seeking behavior specific to running represent meaningful predictors of decreased future event participation behavior. Evidence is provided of a linear satisfaction–behavior relationship. In addition, the impact of using behavioral intention as a proxy for behavior in academic research is examined, indicating that caution must be observed regarding inherent differences between the constructs. Results from the current study provide sport organizations with a better understanding of why consumers make repeat purchases of sport-related experience products.

Value co-creation for service innovation is a rapidly developing concept in the current competitive market. Prior studies emphasize the conceptual aspects of the value co-creation, with limited research focusing on the interactive effects between firms and their customers created in the process of value co-creation. We propose a framework for synthesizing the interactive concepts associated with service innovation based on the service-dominant logic. We recruited participants (N = 448) from 11 sports clubs in Iran. Results indicated that openness and consumer engagement facilitate value co-creation, which in turn leads to perceived service innovation. Furthermore, perceived brand interactivity moderated the mediating role of value co-creation in the relationship between consumer engagement and perceived service innovation. Results from this research suggest openness and consumer engagement are key antecedents of value co-creation and highlight the significance of perceived brand interactivity and value co-creation in promoting service innovation at sports clubs.

Despite the increasing importance of customer knowledge management (CKM) as a strategic resource for sport service organizations, little sport management research has examined the link between CKM and consumers’ intention to use sport services. Using the psychological continuum model as the theoretical framework, this study examines whether CKM predicts consumers’ intention to use sport services. Participants (N = 686) were recruited from nonprofit sports clubs in Urmia, Iran. Structural equation modeling results revealed positive relationships between CKM, psychological involvement, perceived value, commitment, and intention to use. Furthermore, both CKM and psychological involvement had positive indirect effects on intention to use through perceived value and commitment. Findings from this study highlight the importance of psychological involvement and perceived value in promoting intention to use sport services at nonprofit sports clubs and CKM’s role as a key antecedent.

Most collegiate athletes in the United States monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through social media influencer marketing. This provides an opportunity to examine the factors that impact their social media NIL value. Therefore, we investigate the effects of personal branding factors (quality of Instagram biography, posting frequency, and account verification status) and institutional factors (competition level, university brand, and sport gender) on the social media NIL value of men’s and women’s college basketball athletes (N = 907) in California while controlling for local market characteristics. A linear regression analysis shows significant relationships between social media NIL value and competition level, university brand, sport gender, posting frequency, and account verification. Our results offer new theoretical and practical understandings of the relationships between brands in the sport brand ecosystem and the NIL value of sport influencer’s social media posts.

Emerging technologies not only pose challenges for how sport organizations are managed but also create opportunities for sport organizations to become more competitive by enhancing consumers’ service experience. The integration of wearable fitness technology (WFT) by health and fitness clubs provides an opportunity to examine the influence of WFT on the service experience. Although existing research on technology innovations typically examines either the individual or the organizational perspective in isolation, we use the sport experience design framework to comprehensively examine the influence of WFT on the management and perceptions of service experiences. Participants (N = 37) who took part in the qualitative study included fitness club owners (n = 13), fitness club instructors (n = 7), and fitness club members (n = 17). Findings indicate that integrating WFT enhances the service experience via increased social interaction, gamification, and accountability. However, findings also suggest that technology innovations must be integrated carefully to avoid misalignment between providers’ and users’ perceptions. Despite the potential for misalignment, emerging technologies can enhance and expand the service experience beyond the physical environment, presenting sport organizations with technology-mediated opportunities to engage consumers.