FEMALE SPORT FANDOM Insights from the Growing Female Market
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FEMALE SPORT FANDOM Insights from the growing female market Dr. Bri Newland and Dr. Ted HaydukA CONTENTS i | Executive Summary 1 | What We Know 2 | Female Fandom Matters 3 | We Need To Know Them 4 | The Players 6 | The Findings 9 | The Insights 10 | Broader Insights 12 | The Wrap Up 13 | References 14 | Appendices 20 | Acknowledgments EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Understanding female sport fandom is not only important to teams who want to increase attendance and merchandise sales, but also to brands and sponsors interested in connecting with this demographic. In the most lucrative North American professional leagues (NHL, NASCAR, MLS, NBA, MLB, and the NFL) females account for between 37% and 45% of the total market.5 Furthermore, women purchase 46% of official NFL merchandise, spend 80% of all sports apparel dollars, and control 60% of all money spent on men’s clothing.7 Clearly, being a ‘sport fan’ is no longer exclusive to men. However, sport organizations still struggle to effectively manage the female fan experience and cater to their specific behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. The purpose of this white paper is to help practitioners in the sport industry enhance their understanding of this consumer segment. To do so, we gathered and analyzed a dataset of 1796 female sport fans from all geographies, age groups, socio-economic backgrounds, and households. They are fans of a wide range of professional sports – including stalwarts like the NFL, NBA, and MLB, and niche sport organizations like MLS, eSports, and stock car racing. This group likely represents the most diverse and representative sample of female fans gathered. Highlights from the data analysis and the relevant implications for sport practitioners include: • The following subgroups of females reported more frequent consumption behaviors, more fervent attitudes about sport consumption, and stronger motivations for consuming sport. - Young women and girls - Women living in urban communities - Minorities (Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, or Other) - Working females (employed full time, part time, or self-employed) - Single females • The number of children in the household had little to no bearing on female fans’ consumption behaviors, attitudes towards sport consumption, or motivations for consuming live sport. This means that fan traits like passion for their favorite team and intent to buy tickets did not dissipate with children and family obligations • The consumption behaviors most reliably predicted commonly referenced digital and mobile technology. These behaviors included consuming online content, learning about, engaging with, and finding content about their favorite teams, listening to podcasts, and streaming live games. • Women commonly reported that their sport consumption behaviors were ‘dependent upon’ technology and that technology was essential to their sport fandom. They also reported engaging with brands via a wide range of social media platforms. i Despite the ubiquity of sport fandom in the United States, there are far too many assumptions about and limited research conducted on 1 WHAT female fandom. Understanding female fandom is not only important to teams who want to increase attendance and merchandise sales, but also to brands and sponsors interested in connecting with this WE demographic. Assumption: Assumption: Women only go to sport Women are only events to be with their husbands or superficial fans; boyfriends they don’t know the technical part According to Repucon2, 46% of women of the game are ‘interested’ or ‘very interested’ in sport, with 41% interested in watching live sport events and 39% interested in watching sport on TV. Being a sport fan is no longer exclusive KNOW to men. With the passing of Title IX, a Unfortunately, while participation law that prevented sex discrimination in sport grew, females as major in schools, girls, and women were athletes, employees, fans, and afforded vastly expanded opportunities sport consumers have often not to participate in sport.3 been taken seriously.1 Assumption: Women only watch sports to socialize. 1 Female fandom is growing, but their needs for women, ignores the myriad interests, are not being met as sport consumers, needs, and wants of the female sport which results in sport organizations and fan.8,9 brands missing critical revenue streams.4 Females make up a significant percentage While some teams are moving away from of the sport consumer market – ranging everything pink, many of the women’s from 37% to 45% for the NHL, NASCAR, jerseys are highly sexualized or cut for MLS, NBA, MLB, and the NFL.5 However, thinner, more petite women. Women sport organizations fail to counteract the who don’t prefer this sizing have limited narrative that women are only at games options. Much of the decisions tied to to spend time with friends, to appease consumer products are tied to gender schema theory, where there is a FEMALE FANDOM MATTERS husbands or boyfriends, or to take their tendency to classify everything as male children – mainly boys.6 or female.10 So, assumptions are made about products for women based on Sport organizations should also care about gender stereotypes rather than asking women because of their purchasing power what they want.4 While there have been in the household. Women purchase 46% efforts made to broaden the merchandise of official NFL merchandise and spend offerings for women, there is still much 80% of all sports apparel dollars.7 Further, that needs to be done in relation to the women control 60% of all money spent female fan experience.4 When the imagery on men’s clothing.7 Therefore, marketers in venues and ads are of highly sexualized who take the time to learn about female cheerleaders or ‘hot fans’, clearly the consumers will likely be able to engage intended audience is for males, not females. fans beyond gimmicks like pink jerseys, Teams need to consider what female fans tiaras, and boas. The ‘shrink it and pink want in their fan experience.2, 11 it’ mentality, where men’s products are reduced in size and changed in color WE NEED TO KNOW THEM As women gain more control over their activities, including sport, gender is less likely to influence consumption of sport.12 Therefore, marketers must move past assumptions and stereotypes about the female fan. Sexism and stereotypical role expectations of women are omnipresent in sport. Academic studies as well as posts on mainstream social media suggest that women are viewed as inauthentic fans who are less knowledgeable and only follow sport for their partners or social interaction (see figure).2, 11 Therefore, its essential to understand the interests and behaviors that identify female fandom; and to realize that it will not look like the traditional male fan behavior.4 The purpose of this study was to chart the trends that characterize female sport fans’ consumption behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. 3 THE PLAYERS This section contains an overview of the female fan characteristics and the insights. In an effort to streamline the information and ensure that relevant details are communicated effectively, the more technical aspects of the analyses and findings are included as footnotes. Of the 1,796 total female participants in the study, 76.2% were white, 8.7% were black, 6.7% were Hispanic, 4.4% were Asian, 2.2% were Native American, 1.1% were ‘other’, and 0.8% preferred not to answer. Over 45% were married, 37.7% were unmarried (single, divorced, widowed), and 17% were underage or did not respond. The figures below illustrate the other demographic details of the female sample. 76.2% white 41.9% 18.5% income kids in over house $50k hold 45.2% married 4 The first goal of our analysis of female fans was to build a general modeli that sought to predict a series of behaviors, attitudes, and motivations most commonly associated with sport fandom. In this stage, we used eight demographic variables to predict 40 individual behaviors and 15 attitudes toward sport consumption, and We wanted answers to 12 motives for consuming live two key questions: sports. 1. Which characteristics The second goal of this analysis could predict female was to develop a deeper understandingii of the trends fans’ consumption highlighted in the first portion behaviors? of the analysis by exploring how groups and subgroups of 2. Which categories of females differed in fan behaviors, female fans’ behaviors attitudes, and motivations. can be predicted? I Fifteen attitudes, 12 motivations, and 13 behaviors produced cross sectional data that were examined using OLS linear regression with fixed effects for community type, ethnicity, employment status, marital status, annual income, and geography – region. Number of children in the household and age were treated as continuous variables. Another 28 behaviors were analyzed as dichotomous outcomes, phrased in such a way as to allow us to model the likelihood that a female fan would engage in the consumption behavior at least once per week. These 28 behaviors were modeled using a logistic model specification. iiThis stage of the analysis involved using a series of ANOVAS and post-hoc tests to isolate group differences. 5 FINDINGS 6 There were a handful of insights that broadly inform this study’s main research questions. Table 1 depicts the 40 outcomes related to sport consumption behaviors. Each column represents a predictor variable included in the model. Purple blocks connote that the predictor was useful,iii while the white boxes indicate no bearing on the outcome. To clarify the interpretation of the tables, the eight demographic predictors are arranged from left to right in order of most to least predictive. Additionally, the outcomes for each category are arranged from top to bottom in order of most accurately to least accurately predicted. Table 1. Predictive Sport Consumption Behaviors Strong Predictor Weak Predictor Accurately Predicted Accurately Less Accurately Predicted Accurately Less iii Statistically signficant at the .05 level or better 7 Table 2 depicts the 15 outcomes related to sport consumption attitudes.