Sport Participation as a Mechanism forSocial Change: Consumer Perspectives and

Marketing Implications

Saturday, June 12th, 2010Michael Naylor

Dr. Jeffrey James

Background

Field of Sport Management• Traditionally focused on collegiate & professional

sport, recent emphasis on fantasy gaming/video gaming

• Lack of attention on sport participation – “sport for all” (Scheerder, Vanreusel & Taks, 2005)

• Legitimations of sport identified, a shift proposed (Chalip 2006; Zeigler, 2007)

• Interdisciplinary research called for (Inglis, 2007)

Sport Participation• “Fundamental to human development” (Sport Canada,

2002)• Significant benefits possible – physically active

participation is key (Beaton, Funk & Alexandris, 2009)• There is a need to better understand the psychological

processes involved with sport participants, so more focused marketing is possible (Crompton, 2008)

• “desperate need for effective strategies promoting physical activity to the public” (Latimer et. al, 2008)

Significance• Important health benefits attainable through

sport participation (Bloom, Grant & Watt, 2005; World Health Organization, 2004)

• Promotional efforts to date have not been effective (perhaps due to an overemphasis on demographic correlates)

• Inactivity is increasing – modern conveniences

Societal Orientation• Relates to the long-term impacts of goods

or service provision for both individuals and society (Kang, 2004)

• May be consistent with public mandate for public leisure services (Kaczynski, 2008)

• Increasingly, citizens are showing concern for their health and environment – may shape sport participation decisions (Coalter, 2007)

Sport Participation Motivation• When developing physically active programs –

motivational structures are key (Netz & Raviv, 2004)

• There is “hardly anything more basic” than studying motivations in sport settings (Iso-Ahola, 1989)

• Linked to adherence – important to accrue benefits of sport participation (Koivula, 1999)

• Motivation in sport settings may be linked to meaningfulness or importance of benefits (Gill & Overdorf, 1994)

Physical

Environmental

Psychological

Sociological

Economical

Body Image

Importance of Societal

Dimensions of Sport Quality

Sport Participation Motives

Competition

Challenge

Social Contact

Physical Exercise

Entertainment

Participation Intentions

ATTITUDES MOTIVATIONS INTENTIONS

Model of Sport Participation

H1H2

H3

Hypotheses

H1: Those who place high importance on the societal dimensions of sport will be motivated to participate in sport.

H2: Those who place high importance on the societal dimension of sport will report higher levels of participation intentions.

H3: Those who are highly motivated to participate in sport will report higher levels of participation intentions.

Purpose• Test relationships among constructs• Assess psychometric properties of the

revised SOC*QUAL instrument• Examine gender, age and participant/non-

participant) differences on the revised SOC*QUAL instrument

Participants• Participants (n=720) were intercepted by a

team of graduate students• Community members in a variety of venues

such as malls, workplaces and various locations around campus.

• Variety of ages, an equitable mix of men and women and a combination of both active sport participants and non-participants

• Mean age of 30.7, 56 % male

Instrument• Demographic variables• Three constructs of interest

1) the importance of the five societal sub-dimensions (Kang, 2004)

2) sport participation motives (Caro & Garcia, 2007)

3) sport participation intentions.

Scale Development• Societal sub-dimension importance scale was developed

for this research project• Kang’s (2004) original (and validated) 37 item

SOC*QUAL measure was re-worded • Scale alterations simply involved adding the word

importance to each item as well as changing the context from an organization to sport participation in general.

• For example, Kang’s (2004) item reworded to ‘it is important that participating in sport improves physical health’

• 7 point, likert-type, fully-anchored scale of agreement.

Scale Development

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)• Five initial Eigenvalues were more than

one, meaning the factors they represented were kept Nunnally (1978).

• 5 factors emerged as theorized on five sub-dimensions (Physiological, Psychological, Sociological, Economic, Environmental)

Scale Development

Cronbach’s alpha reliability analysis

Criteria is greater than 0.70 (Kline, 2005) – physical (α=.86) – sociological (α=.94) – psychological (α=.95) – economic (α=.94) – environmental (α=.89) – scale as a whole (α=.96)

*indication of internal consistency

Composite Variables

• Hierarchical order of importance is statistically significant – physical dimension is most important

Sub-Dimension Mean Standard

Deviation

1/ Physical 5.93 .81

2/ Sociological 5.75 .88

3/ Psychological 5.42 1.01

4/ Environmental 4.85 1.34

5/ Economic 4.57 1.25

Composite VariablesGENDER

Women viewed the physical, psychological and sociological sub-dimensions as more important than the men

PARTICIPANTS & NON-PARTICIPANTS

No statistically significant differences were found for any of the five sub-dimensions (F=.17-3.8, p>.05).

AGE

1) 24 and younger (n=251),

2) 25-40 (n=322)

3) 42 and over (n=119)

The youngest age category perceived each of the dimensions as more important than the oldest age groups

Sub-Dimension df F p AGE <25 25-40 >41 1/ Physical 2, 688 6.2 <.05 6.1a 5.9ab 5.8b 2/ Sociological 2, 688 11.0 <.05 6.0a 5.6ab 5.6b 3/ Psychological 2, 683 9.5 <.05 5.6a 5.3ab 5.3b 4/ Environmental 2, 692 3.2 <.05 5.0a 4.8ab 4.6b 5/ Economic 2, 678 5.2 <.05 4.8a 4.5ab 4.3b Note. Homogeneous subsets are indicated by subscripts.

Relationships Among Constructs

• Significant correlations present between societal dimension importance and motive variables, but small effects

• Logistic Regression analyses showed poor predictive capacity of both societal dimension importance and the motives on participation intentions

DiscussionEvidence that sport participants and non-participants do not differ in the

importance they attribute to societal benefits attainable through sport participation is promising to the extent that non-participants do view these benefits as important.

Why don’t they participate? Constraints or exercise?

The sample rated the physical, sociological and psychological importance of sport participation more highly than the economic and environmental sub-dimensions.

Are these dimensions appropriate in sport participation settings?

The fact that the new instrument was found to be reliable and internally consistent (α=.96) is promising. In addition, the sub-dimensions showed discriminant validity, and the factor structure determined through an EFA was consistent with what was theorized. These are all signs that participants were able to interpret the items effectively and that the construct is multi-dimensional.

Further testing needed in fuller models and alternate settings.

Limitations• Conceptual issue with measuring economic

sub-dimension• Random sampling – an explicitly defined

assumption of EFA procedures• Not a “full” model of sport participation• Simple measures of motivation and

outcomes

Managerial Implications• Sport managers should be aware of and

highlight benefits of sport participation• For example, a sport marketer attempting to

build membership at a new tennis club, could highlight the physiological (get fit!), sociological (make friends!) and psychological (take your mind of work!) benefits possible for new members through creative promotional efforts.

Next Phase

Data Collection – Fall 2010• Three dimensions only – discard

environmental & economic• Ecological Model (Spence & Lee, 2003)• Add complexity to motivation measurement• Add constraints to model• Add a measure of self-efficacy• Add complexity to outcome measures

Selected ReferencesBeaton, A. A., Funk, D. C., Alexandris, K. (2009). Operationalizing a theory of participation in physically active leisure.

Journal of Leisure Research, 44, 177-203.

Bloom, M., Grant, M. & Watt, D. (2005). Strengthening Canada: The socio-economic benefits of Sport Participation in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Conference Board of Canada.

Chalip, L. (2006). Toward a distinctive sport management discipline. Journal of Sport Management, 20, 1-21.

Crompton, J. L. (2008). Evolution and implications of a paradigm shift in the marketing of leisure services in the USA. Leisure Studies, 27, 181-206.

Kaczynski, A, T. (2008). A more tenable marketing for leisure services and studies. Leisure Sciences, 30, 253-272.

Kang, G. D. (2004). Soc*Qual: The development of a scale to measure a societal marketing dimension. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Illinois, Urbana.

Koivula, N. (1999). Sport participation: Differences in motivation and actual participation due to gender typing. Journal of Sport Behavior, 22, 360-380.

Latimer, A. E., Rench, T. A., Rivers, S. E., Katulak, N. A., Materese, S. A., Cadmus, L., Hicks, A., Hodorowski, J. K., Salovey, P. (2008). Promoting participation in physical activity using framed messages: An application of prospect theory. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 659-681.

Netz, Y. & Raviv, S. (2004). Age differences in motivational orientation toward physical activity: An application of social-cognitive theory. The Journal of Psychology, 138, 35-48.

Scheerder, J., Vanreusel, B. & Taks, M. (2005). Leisure-time sport among physical education students. A time trend analysis of sport participation styles. European Sport Management Quarterly, 5, 415-441.

Spence, J. C. & Lee, R. E. (2003). Toward a comprehensive model of physical activity. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 4, 7-24.

Sport Canada. (2002). The Canadian Sport Policy. Ottawa, ON: Sport Canada.

World Health Organization (2004). Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity; and Health. Retrieved April 15th, 2010 from the World Health Organization website: http://who.int/diet/phsicalactivity/strategy/eb11344/en/index.html

Zeigler, E.F. (2007). Sport management must show social concern as it develops tenable theory. Journal of Sport Management, 21, 297-318.

Questions or Comments?