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Subjective vitality is an important, yet understudied, indicator of eudaimonic well-being. People experience subjective vitality when they engage in need-satisfying activities. We investigate two sport consumption activities (stadium attendance and sport television viewing), team identification, and subjective vitality to understand how sport consumption mediates the impact of team identification on subjective vitality. Throughout a season, data were collected from local residents (n = 618) living within the franchise area of a Japanese professional baseball team. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping mediation analysis showed that team identification exerted both a direct and an indirect effect via attendance frequency on subjective vitality. The proposed model and the findings offer new theoretical insights into the roles of subjective vitality, team identification, and stadium attendance in spectator sport. Consequently, sport teams can leverage these insights to intensify consumer experiences when people attend games, positively contributing to their well-being.

Limited research has examined psychological involvement change using a longitudinal design. This study explored stability and change in the three facets of psychological involvement—pleasure, centrality, and sign—that occurred over a 2-year period and examined key behavioral correlates of the observed change. Data were collected three times through online surveys from participants (N = 482) of an annual 10-mile running event in the United States. Latent growth modeling analyses revealed that, on average, the levels of pleasure, centrality, and sign in running slightly decreased over time. Growth mixture modeling analyses offer evidence that different patterns of change exist within each facet of psychological involvement. The findings further indicate that changes in the number of events participated in each year are the most important behavioral correlates of psychological involvement change. The results provide sport managers with implications for promoting long-term engagement with the activity through event participation and postevent phases.

The current study examines whether a distance running event has the capacity to promote participants’ life satisfaction. The construct of psychological involvement was used to investigate the impact of attitude change through event preparation and subsequent activity. Data were collected four times through online surveys from running event participants (N = 211) over a five-month period. Latent growth modeling analyses revealed that participants’ life satisfaction peaked immediately after the event before receding, indicating that event participation exerted a positive impact on participants’ evaluations toward their lives. A positive significant association was also found between change in pleasure in running and change in life satisfaction. Findings from this study provide empirical support that a distance running event can serve as an environmental determinant that enhances participants’ life satisfaction by providing positive experiences through event participation and forming psychological involvement in physical activity.

Elite and professional sport events have been recognized as potential mechanisms to enhance well-being. This multicountry study investigates how engagement in such events, behaviorally through live spectating and psychologically through team identification, is associated with life satisfaction. Data from Australia (N = 268) revealed a positive association between live spectating and life satisfaction through a two-wave design measuring live spectating and life satisfaction in separate surveys. Data from the United States (N = 564) confirmed the live spectating–life satisfaction relationship found in Study 1. Additionally, Study 2 revealed individuals with higher levels of team identification perceived greater emotional support from other fans, and this perception, in turn, predicted life satisfaction. Our findings provide sport managers with implications for positioning appeals in support of sport programs and designing events that facilitate engagement to promote life satisfaction in the community.

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.