SUSTAINING THE GOLDEN GOOSE AND GANDER: AN INVESTIGATION INTO AFL SEASON TICKET HOLDERS MOTIVATION AND ATTACHMENT AND THEIR SATISFACTION WITH THE SERVICE EXPERIENCE David Fouvy B. Economics (Monash), Grad Dip Marketing (CIT), Masters of Business Marketing (Monash) Grad Cert TT&L (RMIT) a thesis submitted to the Faculty of Business and Enterprise Swinburne University of Technology In partial fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 David Louis Fouvy 2016 ABSTRACT Club members or season ticket holders (STH) are strategically and financially important to professional sport clubs. The challenge facing most, if not all, sporting clubs in the Australian sports industry is the difficulty in identifying those members most at risk of non-renewal or ‘churning’. An alternative framing of the same problem is to identify what are the key impacts on a club member’s purchase intentions. This thesis seeks to examine the relationships between nine motives, nine points of attachment and three stadium factors and their impact on satisfaction, basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) and purchase intention for St Kilda Football Club (SKFC) season ticket holders (STHs). A single structured on-line survey was developed using two previously validated scales, the Sport Interest Inventory (SII) and the Points of Attachment Index (PAI). Data was collected from over 700 STH’s of one Melbourne based Australian Football League (AFL) club immediately after the pre-season competition and just prior to the start of the 2010 official AFL home and away season. Correlation analysis and ANOVA were utilised to test forty-seven hypotheses. Structural equation modelling was used to build a new sports fan response model. Fifty propositions were developed to examine relationships within and between the key constructs in the new model. The new sports fan response model showed that basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) and satisfaction acted as mediators between fan motives and purchase intention. The relationships between fan motives and BIRGing and fan motives and satisfaction were significant and the strongest in the model but best described as medium using Cohen’s (2013) rules for examining path coefficients. Stadium facilities had a significant, direct and positive medium relationship with purchase intention. The relationships between (1) fan motives and attachment and (2) attachment to BIRGing were considered not significant. The relationships between attachment and purchase intention and attachment and satisfaction were significant and small and for the latter mentioned relationship, negative. The relationships between satisfaction and BIRGing and satisfaction and purchase intention were significant, small and positive. The relationship between BIRGing and purchase intention was also considered significant, positive and small. Additionally, the new sports fan response model identified some important differences between males and females, younger and older fans and frequent past match attendees versus low past match attendees. ii For the SKFC membership and event managers, stadium facilities and especially the provision of a safe and secure stadium environment were an important positive contributor to a member’s purchase intentions. Additionally, the new model also suggested that the motives of ‘excitement’, ‘vicarious achievement’ and ‘knowledge acquisition’ were important and positively contributed to satisfaction and BIRGing. The role of attachment warrants further examination and especially its negative relationship with satisfaction. The model also illustrated that while satisfaction was a significant factor in purchase intention, its impact on purchase intention was small and marginally less than BIRGing. Further, the SKFC membership manager needs to be aware of differences in the construct relationships based on gender, age and member’s past match attendance. Limitations of this study included that the data was collected from just one AFL club which limits the ability to generalise the findings to all AFL clubs and other professional clubs in Australia and overseas. Second, the use of an on-line questionnaire restricted the sample to St Kilda Football Club (SKFC) members with access to a computer and computer literacy. Third, the two scales used for this study focussed on motivation and attachment. By contrast, the literature has noted that many other factors can impact on satisfaction, BIRGing and purchase intention. The first recommendation concerning future research was to replicate this study with other AFL clubs including AFL clubs based outside Victoria. A second suggestion was to explore the drivers of purchase intention for a range of sporting codes beyond AFL football and outside Australia. A third direction was for future research to investigate elite professional sport featuring female athletes noting the creation of three new female competitions in Australia over the next 12 months. Qualitative research could be used to provide fresh insights into sports fans and spectator motivations and attachment points. Additionally, there is also an opportunity to compare and contrast the drivers of purchase intention for committed fans such as season ticket holders to those of the less involved spectator. A further extension would to be to investigate the drivers of membership renewal for non-sport club members and compare them with sport club members. Five specific areas for future research were identified; the role of satisfaction in member renewal, the role of attachment with fan motives and satisfaction, the potential impact on a fans attachment for a high profile AFL coach and/or club president, the relationship between stadium factors and BIRGing and the impact of duration of club membership on fan response. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. This journey would not have been possible without the support of many people in my life and all have contributed to this project. First and foremost I would like to express my utmost thanks to my supervisory team, Professor Alex Maritz, Dr Aron Perenyi and Professor Linda Brennan. Linda and Alex have encouraged, cajoled and supported me from day one and I appreciate their strong commitment to see the project through to its end. This commitment even extended to a trip to Vietnam with an overnight ‘couch stay’ with Alex in the Hong Kong airport. Linda has been my rock throughout the journey and made her Phillip Island house available to me on multiple occasions as a quiet and distraction free environment for writing. I would like to thank Aron for his patience and guidance and for assisting me to refresh my limited SPSS skills and direction in building the new sports fan response model using AMOS. Additionally, I would like to thank Monica Bognar, Lauren Rowe, Tom Cross and Judy Gregory for their editorial assistance, which was invaluable in transforming my working documents into a professionally finished thesis. Further, I would like to acknowledge the St Kilda Football Club (SKFC) for providing access to their membership and to the financial members of this club who took the time and effort to complete my survey. The School of Media and Communication at RMIT University has been very supportive through the provision of time and printing resources. I would especially like to mention three of my colleagues, Dr Brad Wilson, Dr Julie Bilby and Dr Michelle Aung Thin. Brad, Julie and Michelle have all provided encouragement and relevant insights about their own PhD journey. I would also like to thank my friends, Marcus and Bill from Caulfield Grad Dip days and my riding buddies, Pappy, Dave (x2), Glen, RC, Tantric, Dick and Robin who made me laugh and helped me to see that life does need balance which included the occasional meal at O’Connells or weekly coffee at Brown Cow respectively. Additionally, I would like to express my grateful appreciation to my own family including my late Dad, sister Fiona and brother Patrick and their families who balanced discreet enquiries about my writing progress with food and encouragement over many Wednesday night family dinners. Finally and most importantly, I would like to thank all three members of my immediate family, my wife Fiona, Matt and Hannah. Firstly to Matt who provided superb cups of coffee iv and the occasional meal at the right times. Second to Hannah, who has been a loving and positive influence throughout the odyssey and shown wisdom way beyond her ten years. I would especially like to single out my wife Fiona, who has been most supportive and patient and gave up the use of our dining room for a substantial period of time so that I could write up my thesis. v In loving memory of my father Louis Fouvy (1928-2015) who taught me that you are never too old to learn. vi STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP AND ORIGINALITY This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; and to the best of my knowledge contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the examinable outcome; and where the work is based on joint research or publications, discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors. Signed ………………………………………………….. 15th December 2016 vii PUBLICATIONS RELATED TO THIS THESIS Fouvy D, Brennan L and Brady E. (2011) Towards a theory of sports fan loyalty. ANZMAC Perth Convention Centre: ANZMAC. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1! CHAPTER ONE