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Despite the integration of women into the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) over the past decade, prior studies have identified unique challenges faced by female athletes when endorsing products and building a personal brand. This study examined whether consumers exhibit gender discrimination in secondary markets for UFC memorabilia. The effect of a fighter's gender on the market price of a fighter's trading card was assessed while controlling for other fighter-specific characteristics. Multivariate regression models indicated that a fighter's gender had a statistically insignificant association with a card's price. While trading card collectors did not display gender discrimination, a fighter's name recognition had a strong positive effect on card prices. The main results suggest that consumer demand for memorabilia is driven by the star power and celebrity status of UFC fighters.

Retaining sport club members through delivering high-quality sport experiences is the basic premise of Flanders' youth sports policy. This article aims to assess young adolescents' (13-19 years old) perception of and satisfaction with operational quality at their sport clubs. To this end, 25 operational quality items, clustered into a four-factor structure (improving sport skills, motivational coaching, integrity and cohesion, club involvement), were interrogated. Traditional importance-performance analysis in combination with a gap 1 analysis was carried out on the quality items. The results highlight improving sport skills and motivational coaching as priorities for sport clubs. Nevertheless, differences due to gender, type of sport, and recreation or competition orientation were found. The results indicate the usefulness of importance-performance analysis in sports management research, offering a frame to: 1) evaluate the current youth sport offer; 2) determine strategies to manage and improve quality for different target groups; 3) allocate scarce resources efficiently.

Various pricing strategies are employed in different businesses to achieve sales objectives. However, these strategies can only lead to goal attainment if they are chosen and executed correctly. One pricing strategy that has not received attention from researchers in the sports industry is the predatory pricing strategy. Therefore, this research aims to analyse the impact of this strategy on the brand equity of sports brands. In this study, the Daei brand was purposively selected as a representative sports brand. Employing a quasi-experimental research design, a pre-test-post-test approach was adopted, comprising both control and experimental groups, each consisting of 30 customers. Data analysis was conducted via covariance analysis. Findings demonstrated a significant enhancement in the equity of sports brands through the implementation of predatory pricing. However, due to the lack of empirical literature in this area, continued adherence to this pricing strategy to reduce customer dissatisfaction should be done with caution.