The Seattle Sounders FC took Major League Soccer by storm in its inaugural season of 2009. The club led the league in attendance, won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup trophy, and clinched a playoff berth. The team's success was attributed in part to its rabid fan base, which routinely sold out its 30,000-seat venue and nearly doubled the league attendance average. How was it that an expansion franchise was able to garner such immediate, fervent support, while original franchises with well-established fan bases struggled? This case study sought to supplement the limited current literature regarding the motivating factors of American soccer fans. Through a survey of first- and second- year season ticket purchasers and the use of SEM analysis, the relationships among sport attachment, attachment to community, the need for vicarious achievement, team identification, and fan superiority were examined. Results indicated that although similar across most relationships, sport attachment predicted team identification in those individuals who bought season tickets for the first time in the second year of the team's existence, whereas there was no significant relationship between those two variables in those fans who bought during the first year.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonD., & StoneG. P. (1981). Responses of male and female metropolitans to the commercialization of professional sport 1960 to 1975. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 16, 5–21.
2.
BuunkB. P. (2001). Perceived superiority of one's own relationship and perceived prevalence of happy and unhappy relationships. BritishJournal of Social Psychology, 40, 565–574.
3.
CoakleyJ. (2009). Sports in society: Issues and controversies. Colorado Springs, CO: McGraw-Hill.
4.
DepkenC. A. (2001). Fan loyalty in professional sports: An extension to the National Football League. Journal of Sports Economics, 2, 275–284.
5.
FinkJ. S., ParkerH. M., BrettM., & HigginsJ. (2009). Off-field behavior of athletes and team identification: Using Social Identity Theory and Balance Theory to explain fan reactions. Journal of Sport Management, 23, 142–155.
6.
FinkJ. S., TrailG. T., & AndersonD. F. (2002). An examination of team identification: Which motives are most salient to its existence?International Sports Journal, 6, 195–207.
7.
FunkD. C., & JamesJ. D. (2001). The psychological continuum model: A conceptual framework for understanding an individual's psychological connection to sport. Sport Management Review, 4, 119–150.
8.
FunkD. C., & JamesJ. D. (2004). The fan attitude network (FAN) model: Exploring attitude formation and change among sport consumers. Sport Management Review, 7, 1–26.
9.
FunkD. C., MahonyD. F., NakazawaM., & HirakawaS. (2001). Development of the Sport Interest Inventory (SII): Implications for measuring unique consumer motives at team sporting events. International Journal of Sports Marketing Sponsorship, 3, 291–316.
10.
FunkD. C., MahonyD. F., & RidingerL. L. (2002). Characterizing consumer motivation as individual difference factors: Augmenting the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) to explain level of spectator support. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 11, 33–43.
11.
FunkD. C., & PastoreD. L. (2000). Equating attitudes to allegiance: The usefulness of selected attitudinal information in segmenting loyalty to professional sports teams. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 9, 175–184.
12.
FunkD. C., RidingerL. L., & MoormanA. M. (2003). Understanding consumer support: Extending the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) to examine individual differences among women's professional sport consumers. Sport Management Review, 6, 1–32.
13.
FunkD. C., RidingerL. L., & MoormanA. M. (2004). Exploring origins of involvement: Understanding relationship between consumer motives and involvement with professional sport teams. Leisure Sciences, 26, 35–61.
14.
GiulianottiR. (2005). The sociability of sport: Scotland football supporters as interpreted through the sociology of Georg Simmel. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 40, 289–306.
15.
GladdenJ. M., & FunkD. C. (2002). Developing an understanding of brand association in team sport: Empirical evidence from consumers of professional sport. Journal of Sport Management, 16, 54–81.
16.
HornseyM. J. (2003). Linking superiority bias in the interpersonal and intergroup domains. Journal of Social Psychology, 143, 479–491.
17.
JamesJ. D., KolbeR. H., & TrailG. T. (2002). Psychological connection to a new sport team: Building or maintaining the consumer base?Sport Marketing Quarterly, 11, 215–225.
18.
JamesJ. D., & RidingerL. L. (2002). Female and male sport fans: A comparison of sport consumption motives. Journal of Sport Behavior, 25, 260–278.
19.
JonesI. (2000). A model of serious leisure identification: The case of football fandom. Leisure Studies, 19, 283–298.
20.
KwonH. H., TrailG. T., & LeeD. (2008). The effects of vicarious achievement and team identification on BIRGing and CORFing. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 17, 209–217.
21.
MahonyD. F., MadrigalR., & HowardD. (2000). Using the Psychological Commitment to Team (PCT) scale to segment sport consumers based on loyalty. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 9, 15–25.
22.
MahonyD. F., NakazawaM., FunkD. C., JamesJ. D., & GladdenJ. M. (2002). Motivational factors influencing the behaviour of J. League spectators. Sport Management Review, 5, 1–24.
23.
MickleT. (2009). Seattle limits average gate decline for MLS. Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, 12, 7.
24.
MillerR. K., & WashingtonK. (2010). Sports marketing. Atlanta, GA: Richard K. Miller & Associates.
25.
PeitersenB. (2009). Supporter culture in Denmark: The legacy of the ‘world's greatest supporters.’Soccer & Society, 10, 374–385.
26.
RobinsonM. J., TrailG. T., DickR. J., & GillentineA. J. (2005). Fans vs. spectators: An analysis of those who attend intercollegiate football games. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 14, 43–53.
27.
RobinsonM. J., TrailG. T., & KwonH. (2004). Motives and points of attachment of professional golf spectators. Sport Management Review, 7, 167–192.
28.
RobinsonM. J., & TrailG. T. (2005). Relationships among spectator gender, motives, points of attachment, and sport preference. Journal of Sport Management, 19, 55–80.
29.
SahajT. (2009). Pseudo-fans: The analysis of the phenomenon of Polish football hooliganism. Human Movement, 10, 64–66.
StetsJ. E., & BurkeP. J. (2000). Identity theory and social identity theory. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 9, 224–237.
32.
StrykerS., & BurkeP. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63, 284–297.
33.
SuttonB. (2010). World Cup, Sounders’ success creates perfect storm for MLS. Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, 13, 14.
34.
TrailG. T. (2010). Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption manual. Seattle, WA: Sport Consumer Research Consultants LLC.
35.
TrailG. T., FinkJ. S., & AndersonD. F. (2003). Sport spectator consumption behavior. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 12, 8–17.
36.
TrailG. T., & JamesJ. D. (2001). The motivation scale for sport consumption: Assessment of the scale's psychometric properties. Journal of Sport Behavior, 24, 108–127.
37.
TrailG. T., & JamesJ. D. (2011). Theories of consumer behavior. InSport consumer behavior (pp. 33–63). Seattle, WA: Sport Consumer Research Consultants LLC.
38.
TrailG. T., RobinsonM. J., DickR. J., & GillentineA. J., (2003). Motives and points of attachment: Fans versus spectators in intercollegiate athletics. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 12, 217–227.
39.
TurnerJ. C., BrownR. J., & TajfelH. (1979). Social comparison and group interest in ingroup favouritism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 187–204.
40.
WannD. L. (1995). Preliminary validation of the Sport Fan Motivation Scale. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19, 377–396.
41.
WannD. L., & BranscombeN. R. (1993). Sport fans: Measuring degree of identification with their team. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 24, 1–17.
42.
WannD. L., & GrieveF. G. (2005). Biased evaluations of in-group and out-group spectator behavior at sporting events: The importance of team identification and threats to social identity. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145, 531–545.
43.
WannD. L., SchraderM. P., & WilsonA. M. (1999). Sport fan motivation: Questionnaire validation, comparisons by sport, and relationship to athletic motivation. Journal of Sport Behavior, 22, 114–139.
44.
WolfsonS., WakelinD., & LewisM. (2005). Football supporters’ perceptions of their role in home field advantage. Journal of Sport Sciences, 23, 365–374.
45.
WooB., TrailG. T., KwonH. H., & AndersonD. (2009). Testing models of motives and points of attachment among spectators in college football. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 18, 38–53.
