Understanding Consumer Support: Extending the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) to Examine Individual Differences among Women's Professional Sport Consumers

Abstract

The present study used the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) to further our understanding of how motivation can be characterised as individual difference factors among sport consumers. The SII was augmented through qualitative feedback involving four focus groups, a pilot test (n = 80) and later validated on a sample of season ticket holders and single-game attendees (n = 623) of a Women's National Basketball Association franchise in the United States. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and discriminant validity tests provided support for increasing the SII from 14 to 18 unique constructs. Evidence for the application of the SII to a variety of sporting events was observed in that 14 of the 18 factors have already been confirmed and used to examine spectators of men's competitive teams. The application of the SII to women's sport in general was supported in that 18 unique factors have now been confirmed in women's professional soccer and basketball. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to demonstrate one application of the SII and revealed that 10 motivational factors explained 48% of the variance in level of consumer support for the professional sport team. Implications for the use of the SII by sport managers and directions for future research are discussed.