Knowing Your Fan, Understanding Your Consumer
Knowing Your Fan, Understanding Your Consumer
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Meghann C., SOAN 465, University of Redlands
In most western cultures sports have become a part of everyday life, and even those who are not directly involved are exposed to them. While people take part in sports for a variety of reasons, for most enthusiasts, sports provide entertainment. What it means to be a fan today is however different than what it meant to be a fan fifty years ago. With the emergence of aggressive sport marketing, fans are being more sought after than before in order to further generate more revenue for the sports industry.
My project consists of two parts. First, I extensively studied scholarly journals on sports as entertainment. Some deal extensively with different motivation scales that have been developed in the past to explore the motives for why fans turn to sports. Other journal articles examine various promotional and marketing strategies that professional athletic leagues employ in order to keep and attract a strong fan base. I also conducted some field research to gain more concrete information about how sports as entertainment are provided to those that consume them. My fieldwork included attending various professional and semi-professional athletic events and speaking with sports enthusiasts from various sports.
The sports organizations of today are embracing their roles as entertainment providers with the realization that their product is unique. Throughout this project I will explore what makes sports so much different than other forms of drama and why society is drawn to this kind of entertainment. I will look at how sports are viewed as entertainment and examine the various motives for why fans are attracted to the sports spectacle. Furthermore, I will be examining how marketers take advantage of the consumer and celebrity culture that we live in and use that to enhance and sell their ultimate products: the athletes and the leagues.
Sports vs. Other Forms of Drama:
“The elements of drama-participants, ritual, plot, production, symbolism, social message- are all brilliantly choreographed in the sports spectacle.” (Zillman, Vorderer 2000: 164)
While different from other forms of drama, spectator sports still follow the same basic theories of drama. Spectators often develop both positive and negative dispositions toward a player, a team, or even more specifically, an entire sport. Sports marketers Rick Burton and Dennis Howard embrace this philosophy that audiences enjoy the victories of the players and teams that they favored and the defeat of despised opponents.
“One of the reasons for professional sports popularity is that it produces winners and losers, heroes and villains. Even when viewed as an individual exercise such as running or biking, sports produce emotions and performances that are frequently hard to generate in most other pursuits.” (Sayre, King 2003; 287)
The fact that sports has the ability to produce emotions and creates villains and heroes for the spectator, captures the essence of the notion of sports as drama. Even though sports share many common characteristics with other forms of entertainment, they also have some unique characteristics that make them distinctive.
The immediacy of sports in one important way in which sports differ from other forms of entertainment. Unlike movies or television, sporting events are televised live enabling the spectator, regardless where they live, to watch the game or match as it is happening without delays.
“One can’t minimize the power of immediacy in this time-shifting era when sports are the last remaining live coast-to-coast events-The Oscars, the Emmys, even Saturday Night Live are delayed to the West Coast. Only sports has the nation, and sometimes the world, watching the same thing at the same time, and if you have a message that’s a potent message.” (Sayre, King 2003: 289)
Spontaneity is also a unique characteristic. Compared to other forms of drama that have scripts, the action in sports is spontaneous and uncontrolled by the participants involved. There are other forms of entertainment that includes elements of surprise but they usually follow general expectations. When we watch comedies or horror films our emotions are easy to anticipate. We are watching knowing we are going to laugh or be frightened. Out emotions are much more difficult to anticipate when watching sports yet our reactions are often equal, if not more, intense. At the beginning of a sporting event a spectator will feel eager anticipation due to the uncertainty as to whether the game or contest they are about to watch will be fast-paced, drawn out, a thriller, or a tragedy. Throughout the event the spectator will be involved in having changes to their emotions. If it is a close game, the spectator might go from delight to despair and then back again. In a more one-sided game, the emotional change is different. When there is domination over a player or team by another, the spectator might experience one long, continuous feeling of elation or disappointment. Recently, reality programming has introduced many new forms of live, unpredictable entertainment yet has rarely succeeded in evoking the intense, spontaneous audience reactions that sports seem to generate easily (Sayre, King 2000; 289).
Because of the
spontaneity, sports producers are faced with yet another unique challenging
characteristic that is different from what other entertainment providers
face-the threat of losing. Granted nobody attends a game with the hope that
their team will lose, it is the threat of losing that cultivates the suspense
audiences crave. With traditional drama there are producers that control the
content that set both the tempo and sequence of events in order to create
suspense and outcomes that the audience will be pleased with (Sayre, King 2000;
289). However, sports franchises and sports media have very little control over
these factors. Regardless of the lack of control that they have, sports
producers are always looking for ways to maximize the drama and entertainment
value of a sporting event and sport
marketing emerges.
Motivation Scales-
The reasons for why fans turn to sports for entertainment have been of great interest to sport sociologists and there is an increase in the amount of research being done on the topic. Motivation scales have been established in order to better understand motives for fans. The two scales that I will be looking at are the Sports Fan Motivation Scale and the Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption.
The Sport Fan Motivation Scale (SFMS), developed by Daniel Wann, is an instrument that was designed to measure eight different motives of sports fans. These motives include:
1) Eustress: the fan receives a positive form of stress that stimulates and energizes the fan. Those fans that are motivated by eustress enjoy the excitement and anxiety that often accompany sport spectating.
2) Self-esteem: Being a fan of a sport or team helps many individuals create and maintain a positive self-concept. When a fan’s team is successful, he or she gains a feeling of achievement and accomplishment. The fan often feels as though they have contributed to the team’s victory because of their loyalty and commitment to the team. The downside to this factor is that the highly identified fan will suffer an emotional letdown if their team loses.
3) Escape from everyday life (escapism): Fans who are dissatisfied or bored with their life may be able to temporarily forget about their troubles through sport spectating. Sports often serve as an escape or diversion from the worries that come with everyday life.
4) Entertainment: Fans view sport spectating as a pastime similar to watching movies or television.
5) Economic factor: Individuals become and stay involved with sport spectating because of the opportunities to gamble and make money off of betting on teams or players.
6) Aesthetics: Fans often view athletic events because they are attracted to the beauty and grace that is found in athletic performance.
7) Group Affiliation: This reflects a fan’s desire to be with other people and a need for belongingness. By becoming a fan of a sport or team, an individual is able to share the experience with other fans, a college, or even a nation.
8) Family needs: Some fans view athletic events as perfect opportunities to spend time with his or her family and also could be seen as a family bonding experience (Wann, Schrader, Wilson 1999).
In 1995 Wann conducted one of many quantitative examinations and comparisons of the previous mentioned hypothesized motives. This study was found to accurately reflect these motives and that the scale itself was internally consistent, reliable, and contains criterion validity. The results of the actual study suggested that there are definite gender differences when it comes to various motivations of sport spectatorship. Male participants scored higher than female participants with certain motives such as eustress, escape, self-esteem, and aesthetic motives. Females did score higher than males when it came to family motivation. In addition there were not any gender differences when it came the motivation to be entertained (Wann, Schrader, Wilson 1999).
The Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption (MSSC), developed by Galen Trail and Jeffrey James, is a different scale that was developed from a review of the sport sociology literature and from an evaluation of the scale proposed by Wann. The problem that Trail and James saw with the SMFS was that it preformed more poorly than originally reported and lacked adequate testing of the scale’s content validity, construct validity, and discriminate validity (Mehus 2005). The MSSC consists of nine motives that include: achievement, acquisition of knowledge, aesthetics, drama/eustress, escape, family, physical attractiveness or participants, the quality of the physical skill of the participants, and social interaction. In a later study of the MSSC they excluded the physical attractiveness motive and found that version of the scale to be more valid and reliable, in which they discovered that individual motives best explain a great deal of variation in team identification. Furthermore, with this scale, they found that male spectators scored significantly higher on the motives of achievement, aesthetics, knowledge, empathy, and family than women (Mehus 2005).
It seems that when
comparing the two motivation scales the only difference is in the motives that
they used. Both of them found that each gender puts different amounts of
emphasis on different motives. Because the scales included different motives it
is hard to conclude what exactly motivates fans to attend sporting events. While
these scales do not necessarily find concrete results, researchers who seek to
find results use them to find their own results. Though these scales are helpful
in examining various motives, one needs to look at the physiological and
psychological motivations for why sports are entertaining for fans.
Suspense in Sports-
One of the consistent appeals of sports has been the amount of suspense that it provides the fan. Two important theories that help explain the psychological and physiological impact that the suspense has on the fan watching is the Excitation Transfer Theory and the Disposition Theory of Entertainment. Both help clarify why even though many forms of entertainment contain suspense, the suspense that sports create has a unique impact on the spectator.
The Excitation Transfer Theory provides a psychological explanation for why the standard drama formula works for all dramas including sports. This theory states that the more conflict and suspense there is in sports, the more excitation there should be to transfer, making the happy ending, or when the fans favored team/player wins, that much more enjoyable (Zillman, Vorderer 2000; 162). Dolf Zillman, the major proponent of the theory, concluded that according to this idea, physiological arousal during exposure to the sporting event is crucial for the appreciation of the drama at its conclusion. Throughout exposure to the athletic event, arousal derives when primarily favored teams or players are in trouble. As the game or match unfolds and comes towards its final outcome, the fans arousal increases and is felt as empathic distress. When the desired outcome is finally reached, any previous distressing emotions are then transferred into euphoric emotion. (Zillman, Vorderer 2000; 66). Zillman’s notion of “excitation transfer” is based on the general idea that viewers/fans are ultimately motivated to enhance their moods through selective exposure. The bottom line of this theory is the observation that the physiological arousal that is collected during exposure to the athletic event does not drop immediately but sinks slowly at the end of the event. Therefore, the arousal is linked with positive cognitions and results in elation (Vorderer et al. 2004, 402).
The Disposition Theory of Entertainment helps explain why sports are viewed as entertaining because of the suspense involved. This theory can be summarized in two propositions:
1) Enjoyment derived from witnessing the success and victory of a competing party increases with positive sentiments and decreases with
negative sentiments of that party.
2) Enjoyment derived from witnessing the failure and defeat of a competing party increases with negative sentiment and decreases with
positive sentiments toward that party (Zillman, Vorderer 2000; 162).
While this applies to a range of entertainment genres, “the dispositional mechanics of enjoyment are most obvious in sport spectatorship” (Zillman, Bryant 1994; 450). The relationships that sports fans have with players and teams are often taken to extreme levels. They have teams and/or players that they love and they have those they hate. The team or player affiliation that a fan has often been displayed by wearing team colors yet has become more intense. Instead of just wearing team colors fans wear jerseys, face and body paint, and identifiable costumes or apparel that clearly identifies what team they are rooting for. Not only are fans indulging in the consumption of more team and league merchandise, some even have established emotional attachments and carry that beyond the content of the game.
Making Sports Appealing to Fans [top]
Corporate Sponsorship-
Sports as entertainment are a complicated product from a marketing point of view. Although a winning franchise is the ultimate marketing tool, no marketer can control how good of a season a team can have. To complement for this unpredictability, professional sports franchises have put a greater effort and percentage of dollars into creating imagery and peripheral products and services surrounding the ultimate product, the franchise. The emergence of aggressive sport marketing has made attending a game almost a luxury for fans. Part of that luxury is in the stadium or arena itself and teams are now striving to improve their venues to create the perfect atmosphere for their fan (Bandyopadhyay, Bottone 1997).
New sport facilities are an example of a product extension that has become an
important source of revenue for franchise owners. Due to society’s desire for
comfort and convenience, a new age of sports facilities has appeared. The
emergence of these new sports facilities took off in the mid-1960’s after the
Houston Astros showcased the first multipurpose domed stadium to the rest of the
sports world (Bandyopadhyay, Bottone 1997).
Due to the introduction of such facilities weather is no longer an issue for teams and games can be played anywhere at any time of the year. These new stadiums are created to excite fans and furthermore, boost attendance. Because of the increase in attendance, franchises would then see an increase in ticket sales, concessions, and parking. Gerald Scully, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, estimates that a baseball franchise that is equipped with a new park will add $50 million-$75 million in increased value and first-year revenue (Bandyopadhyay, Bottone 1997). With new ballparks, and the improved revenue that comes with them, small market teams are now able to outbid richer teams for players which provide them with the best team possible.
Financing a new sports facility has become easier since new sources of revenue were discovered from corporate America. Today, corporations are putting their names on stadiums and convention centers, some housing more than one sport and teams. For example, the First Union Center is home to both the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers and the NBA’s 76’ers and the Los Angeles Clippers, Lakers, and Kings all call the Staples Center home. While corporations such as Staples and Federal Express who already have high name recognition continue to reap these benefits, lesser known corporations are able to purchase stadium rights in order to obtain much desired advertising. A great example of such entities doing so is 3Com Corp., a computer company that purchased the naming rights to what had previously been known as Candlestick Park, which is home to the NFL’s San Francisco 49’ers. The managing director at the public relations firm Makovsky and Co. states:
“Nobody really knew who 3Com was
when they bought the rights. But it enabled them to get vital name replacement
and awareness. Companies want consumers to associate their product with a city
(Sayre, King 2000: 292).”
Throughout these stadiums, luxury boxes and suites are considered the ultimate in cost-effective corporate merging. Many franchises have turned to the vital revenue stream that these luxury boxes create in order to get rid of the debt that most new stadiums are faced with. For example, Chicago’s United Center, where both the Black Hawks and Bulls play, offers fans 216 luxury boxes which are priced from $55,000-175,000 each annually. To prove the extent of how much revenue these luxury boxes bring in, both Chicago teams had nearly $24 million contributed from the suites (Bandyopadhyay, Bottone 1997).
New and improved
stadiums are only the beginning when it comes to making a fan’s experience to a
sporting event a luxury. More and more money is being put into making the event
as entertaining as possible. What happens in the stadiums and arenas are making
attending a game or match that much more appealing for the sport spectator.
Marketing Athletes to Fans–
“Those who conceive the marketing campaigns know that the average fan
believes he is in some way connected to his favorite team and that his
obsession somehow contributes to the effort. Many teams exploit this
shamelessly in their PR efforts” (Perrin 2000; 105).
One of the main
ways in which sport marketers utilize their knowledge of sports fans, is the
appeal to the possibility of a relationship between the fan and the team or
player. Marketers realize that some audience members become emotionally and
psychologically attached to certain teams or players. Occasionally fans become
so attached to these players that they carry that relationship beyond the
content of the game. These relationships are known as “Parasocial
relationships” and relate to the degree of emotional involvement with that
athlete. It is these fans who are willing to spend large amounts of money on
game tickets and sports merchandise. They also take part in traditions and
ritualistic behavior (Sayre, King 2000; 58). The intensity of fans’ emotional
and psychological at
tachment is almost assumed to fill the role of the
traditional sports nutcase and popular culture seems to reflect this message. Print, television, and film are
filled of images of crazed fans and generally show two distinct prime examples
of fans: the lovable obsessed fan whose life revolves around the team and/or
player, and the unlovable obsessed fan whose attachment leans more towards
psychotic (Perrin 2000; 102). While movies such as The Fan and Celtic
Pride portray the extremes of sports enthusiasts, sport marketers know that
reality is not too far from what is displayed in those films.
To encourage Parasocial relationships, marketers are working more with the character development of athletes and promoting certain superstar athletes over the team in order to capitalize on their standout talent. Marketers know that fans become attached to teams or players and direct their marketing campaigns on the hopes that they do. Ultimately marketers know that fans, in particularly kids, are more attracted to the personalities who wear the logos in which they work hard to create. This attraction is catered to by a variety of sport marketers who push fans to have a Parasocial relationship.
“In no other area of celebrity culture is one encouraged to assume, as it were, the identity of the star one admires. And it’s simple too. Just buy the jersey with the appropriate number and presto! You are Michael Jordan, Grant Hill, Brett Favre….While no sane person believes they ‘are’ the athlete whose number and name they display, there’s a surrender of self that’s hard to ignore” (Perrin 2000; 159).
Successful sports marketers have
been promoting individual athletes over the team, thereby giving fans the
opportunity to identify with the players and establish a Parasocial
relationship. The NBA, for example, have offered fan standout athletes such as
Michael Jordan. He was the perfect example of a marketers dream athlete. Jordan
represents an articulate, charismatic athlete who was perceived as living a
clean, drug-free, and well adjusted life. Marketers showcased this throughout
sport shows and magazine articles and started to show him as an individual. The
“I want to be like Mike” campaign began.
Promotions-
“We view ourselves as being an entertainment business. You want to keep the customer entertained from the time they set foot in your building until the time they leave” (Bandyopadhyay, Bottone 1997).
A unique challenge that sport franchises must work hard to keep their audience entertained when there is a lull in the action or if the home team is losing. The techniques that are being used today to enhance the dramatic value of sporting events are not necessarily new, just improved. When there are slow moments in the game such as pitching changes or media timeouts, cheerleaders, mascots, and music helps to maintain the momentum and keep fans entertained. Over the past years leagues have added unique twists to these somewhat traditional in game entertainment techniques (Sayre, King 2000; 291).
At any given game in
any given league a fan will witness a player not only simply being announced
over the public address system as they make their way onto the field or court.
Ins
tead they are introduced with theme songs and elaborate video presentations.
To appeal to the fan’s entertainment interest teams also have adopted flashier
logos, team colors, and uniforms. Furthermore, stadiums are being better
equipped with jumbo video screens and sound systems to further keep the fan
entertained (Sayre, King 2000; 292). Cheerleaders are no longer just for the NBA
and NHL like they traditionally have been. Certain MLB teams now have dancers
who dance atop the dugouts throughout the game. Even the NHL teams now have “ice
dancers” who skate on the ice during intermissions and mingle with the crowd
throughout the game.
These are examples of how the leagues are paying more
attention to providing more visual and audio stimulation for those in
attendance. Various promotions are also a large part of the entertainment
package that the leagues present to their fans. Teams are looking for new ways
to make games more attractive in order to attract fans. Every game in every
league contains some type of giveaway whether it is of monetary value or simply
a seat upgrade for that game (Boyd, Krehbiel 2006). In addition to in game
entertainment, leagues are making changes outside of the stadiums and arenas in
order to accommodate their fans.
Changes in Rules and Scheduling-
To further cater to their fans, leagues have changed scheduling to better fit within fans’ leisurely time. Some of these changes include more night games and championship games start on weekends. The NHL includes more rivalry games with having division rivals face each other eight times instead of six. Schedules are also changing to increase the number of games played by better teams in bigger television markets (McCarthy 2007). As far as rules go, in the 1970’s rules were modified to favor more dramatic offensive reaction, thus enhancing spectator appeal and fitting more efficiently into the requirements of television programming (Sayre, King 2000; 291). All four major leagues have realized that in order to keep fans entertained some changes in the rules would need to be made. Recently, each league has made various changes to their official rulebooks in order to promote spectatorship and increase the dramatic value for the fan.
The NHL, after
enduring a ten month lockout, had numerous changes and began marketing the
league as the “New NHL.” Commissioner Gary Bettman stated after the lockout
“The best thing I can say to our fans is we’re back, we’re going to be better
than ever and we’re going to make it up to you” (McCarthy 2007). Such changes
include shootouts, old-time hockey, and rink dimensions. With shootouts, the
penalty shot is one of the single most dramatic moments in sports and was added
to regular season games to get rid of ties. There were multiple rule changes in
order to bring back old-time hockey which causes and increase in scoring and
less attention to the penalty calls that were deemed to slow the game down. The
league also implemented smaller goalie equipment in order give the shooters more
net to aim at. Furthermore, the rink dimensions were changed. The neutral zone
shrank in order to give to leagues top offensive talent more room to create
exciting plays (McCarthy 2007).
The MLB once lowered the pitching mound in 1969 to make the curve and slider pitches more effective and exciting. The 2007 season marks the first alterations that the league has seen since 1996 when the strike zone was redefined. To help speed up what is deemed as a slow sport, the time that is allowed between pitches with nobody on base has been cut down from twenty to twelve seconds. Other pace of game regulations have been tested out in the Arizona Fall League (AFL) system and are already in place in the NCAA. Some regulations do not necessarily speed anything up but it does allow for more continuous action for the fans (Kline 2005).
Both the NBA and NFL have made changes to their rulebooks. The NBA changed certain rules in order to facilitate scoring. The rules for timing and defense rules were changed in 2001 to improve the flow and pace of the game and go back to a more basic approach. Their focus was on the fans enjoying the strategy instead of individual players. The more unpredictability that the league can bring to the game for the fan, the better (CNN Sports Illustrated 2001). To emphasize higher scoring and forward drive, the NFL moved the goalposts back to the end line, changed the kickoff yardage and offensive holding penalties. The league also instituted sudden death overtimes to intensify the pace and changed the length of review in order to shorten the game (Sayre, King 2000: 291). While the different leagues are doing a variety of things to ensure that their product is as entertaining as possible, they are all striving to for the same basic goals: making games go faster, creating higher scoring games, creating sudden death overtimes, and creating more excitement in general.
Ultimately it is the unique characteristics that sports provide consumers which I think attracts people to turn to sports for entertainment. The various physiological and psychological impacts that the suspense in sports has on the fan shows that there is often attachments that are made due to the intensity of their involvement. Fans get lost in their passion for players and teams. Sports are like any other form of drama and yet still encompass all elements of it. Furthermore, sports captures the essence of the notion of drama and the suspense is what keeps fans coming back and willing to consume more.
I think that marketers will continue to capitalize on the Parasocial relationships that they know are being established. Since we live in such a celebrity centered society, marketers will continue to market the all-star personalities and focus on character development. Society seems to have a fascination with celebrities doing the most everyday tasks and there even seems to be a growing trend with the fascination of athletes off of the field or court. Athletes are going from the covers of Sports Illustrated to GQ and People and that is all part of marketing the player over the team. Companies will continue to use players to endorse their products because, like earlier stated, fans are attracted to the personalities who wear the designs. Consumer culture is such a large part of the sports industry and to not promote standout athletes to the fans would be corporate suicide.
The various leagues will continue to build bigger and better stadiums with a corporate name attached to them. What goes on inside of these stadiums and arenas will also continue to become more extravagant. More money will likely be put into the further development of imagery and peripheral products and services surrounding the franchises. Facilities themselves will continue to cater to the luxuries that fans want but to what extent? With the advances in technology, the sports industry is likely to incorporate those advances into their facilities in order to increase the entertainment value for their consumers.
It seems that there still needs to be more research done on the relationship between sports fans and the reasons why they turn to sports for entertainment. While the existing motivation scales provide researchers with a good foundation in which to base consumption theories off of, they are indeed flawed. In order for sports marketers to truly understand their consumer, more motivation scales will need to be created or further changes to existing scales will need to occur.
The future of the sports industry ultimately lies in understanding the fans and further catering to them. Including them in sports marketing plans will draw them further into sports consumption which in turn will have them spending top dollar for comfort and convenience. Sports are not just about a display of tremendous athletic performance. It is about entertaining and respecting those who consume it and the success of the leagues will remain a reflection of the fans attachment to them.
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Last Updated 04/16/2007