Women’s Sports Fan Behavior Analysis in Australia
Context and Problem
The launch of Super Netball competitions in Australia in 2017 marked a new era for women players of sports and fan behavior. Super Netball resulted in an exceptional broadcast opportunity that is currently generating substantial financial dividends to this sports industry, leading to the need for further professionalization of this sport (Toffoletti & Palmer, 2019). However, these achievements have presented the challenge of dealing with gender norms in pursuit of boosting the status of women in the country and the broader sports industry in the world. This issue arises from the conflict between what is deemed to be the positive changes in the Australian sports of women and the broader cultural discussions on gender equality.
Literature Review
Several studies have examined the extent to which women have been affected by gender equality debates and social justice in the world of sports. Such discussions have proved to have an impact on the marketers and consumer behavior trend in women’s sports across the globe. Mansfield et al. (2018) and Toffoletti and Palmer (2019) acknowledge the prevalence of the issue of feminism in the women professional sports, positing that women need to take part in the critical discussions, activism actively, and advocacy since the relations of gender have remained to be influential in all cultures and societies. The study findings have suggested the need to acknowledge the multiplicity of feminism and push for the development of diverse voices of feminists, coming up with methodological and conceptual instruments to counter the prevalent issues affecting women sports (Kane & Maxwell, 2011; Trail & Kim, 2011). Therefore, the world sport needs to consider transforming the way people think about gender in sports as a set of relations, a structural group, and an identity that centers on context and culture.
The feminism issue has tremendously influenced the attitude of the fans of women’s sports as well as their intentions of consumption. Mumcu et al. (2016) affirm the relationship between the attitude of the fans towards women’s sports and their attendance or watching their games. The authors measured the success of women’s sports properties based on their ability to raise the ratings of television as well as attendance (Mumcu et al., 2016). The study indicates that men sports have more fans as compared to those of women games. These findings may be implying the existence of the attitude-behavior relationship in the world of sports (Trail, 2018). Therefore, there is a need for a better understanding of the views and attitudes of the consumers of women sports when seeking to increase attendance and develop a more significant base of fans.
The researchers of spots marketing also recognized the value of the concept of attitude in the knowledge of the behaviors of the fans. Most studies on sports have examined the attitude of fans towards sports teams and the behavior of watching. Lim et al. (2010) and Lough and Mumcu (2016) posit that fans’ attitude is more directed to male teams compared to female groups. This article, among others, offers supportive proves of the relationship between behavior and the position of the fans within the field of sports marketing (Lim et al., 2016; O’Halloran, 2018; Mumcu et al., 2018). However, the studies on this subject have only concentrated on the attitude’s affective component and failed to consider the cognitive aspect. In effect, they have only partially explained the attitudes towards specific sports, leaving out some professional women’s sports.
Theory/Models/Frameworks (T/F/Ms)
The study of the behaviors of the consumers of women’s sports has been based on different models. They comprise the consumer decision process, attitude formation, motivation, social identity theories, among others. The consumer behavior refers to the dynamic interaction between affect and behavior, cognition, as well as the surrounding wherein people perform the aspects of exchange of their lives (Trail, 2018). These models are as discussed below:
Consumer Decision Process
Studies have asserted that consumers show consistent processes of decision-making to help in deciding when to buy items. This model has been applied in predicting the decisions of the fans of women sports, classifying them into apathetic, the economic, the ethical, and personalized shoppers (Bae & Miller, 2009). These classifications have shown that female and male consumers show diverse strategies of information processing by portraying the different behaviors of the marketed product. Research findings have indicated the female buyers tend to dedicate their efforts towards analyzing information and products. At the same time, their male counterparts do not comprehensively process the information when making purchasing decisions (Kim, Magnusen, Kim, & Lee, 2019). Female consumers seem to be focusing on family products, for instance, groceries and clothing, and are more dominant as compared to males. Therefore, attracting both fans requires branding the products they like buying using women’s sports information.
- Attitude Theory
This theory indicates that attitudes can encourage the behavior of the consumer. The concept of an attitude refers to a psychological inclination whose expression comes by assessing a specific firm with a particular level of disfavor or favor (Trail, 2018). It is worth recognizing that many people tend to have an attitude concerning all the organizations they encounter in their lives. Some firms, such as women’s netball teams, may be tangible or intangible because of racism issues (Kim, Magnusen, Kim, & Lee, 2019). The views of an organization as bad or good emanate from a person’s attitude formation. Therefore, the fans may develop the right attitude towards the Super Netball team if the team has the best players or if the team’s management is good at meeting the varied needs of the fans of this women’s sport.
- Theory of Motivation
The model of motivation for consumption was developed concerning what, who, why, where, how, and when of consumption. These components are as shown in Figure 1, where each of them interrelates with the other. This model appears to be cyclic, with the previous consumption affecting the current motives that, in turn, influences the consumption in the latter days. However, it is noted that this theory has some weaknesses and cannot be used as a good measure of fan behavior analysis. According to Trail (2018), the first shortcoming of focusing on motives is that the consumer’s intentions are contingent on the core values, traits, desires, and self-images, in terms of the aspect of “who.” Another issue arises in the cultural, social, and economic aspects of sports consumption. It is possible that the poor financial standing of some people will negatively affect their use of sports.
Figure 1: The model of motivation for consumption
Theory of Social Identity
This theory states that social identity is an understanding of an individual that she or he belongs to a particular team. This point suggests that consumers have a sense of belonging when they feel they are associated with a team that has an outstanding reputation. Moreover, social identity can also come in the form of group-based characters such as Muslim or Christian, White or Black, among others (Trail, 2018). However, the theory has some weaknesses that have made it not often applied in sports marketing. This model does not explain variance in the context of collectivity, implying that it fails to explain why fans act differently from one another.
Recommendations
Super Netball has to consider some strategies that can make the organization overcome the feminism issue in the sports industry. It might be essential for the firm to use the approach of 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) in its sports marketing mix. These recommendations are as follows:
Recommendation 1: Product: The product forms a central factor of a marketing mix of any entity in the business world. By definition, a product means anything that meets the wish or need of the consumer. In this case, the product entailed the actual game, which the organization needs to ensure that it has as an acceptable degree of quality to attract many fans. The attitudes of feminists seemed to have portrayed the lack of cultural aspects in the Super Netball competitions. This issue needs to be addressed by the organization, ensuring the women’s packaging of the women’s game is done to portray the Australian sports culture and acknowledgment of all genders, races, and ages, among other factors (Kim, Magnusen, Kim, & Lee, 2019). The new feminist framework is needed to think in a sociological way that females can participate in sports with the core practice in Australian sports culture. Besides, the sports markers may consider packaging the women’s games as family entertainment and provide plans of the family target to encourage more people to attend or view. The sports firm needs to offer a discounted group ticket plan for charitable and social service firms to boost sales.
Recommendation 2: Pricing Strategy: Pricing of sports is a representation of what the fans offer for obtaining a sports service or product. There is a need for the sports organization to ensure that the price they provide on sports products reflects the value of the service or product. It will be essential for the firm to consider offering low prices on the actual games, considering that some consumers are price-sensitive. The low price strategy may also encourage the fans that are economically poor to watch the games. This strategy requires that tickets will be designed based on different social classes of the fans. This strategy does not imply that the quality of the actual games has to be compromised but to accommodate every fan who is willing to watch and is economically challenged.
Recommendation 3: Place: Sporting distribution is another strategy that the sports marketers need to focus on since it leads to selecting the best place that attracts more fans. A place refers to the process where a product or service of sports gets to the consumer (Mihai, 2013). In this case, the site is the arena or stadium where the actual games are played. The sports organization needs to ensure that it places its games in the stadiums that have a favorable impact on and easily accessible to the fans. The quality of sports cape is also paramount in determining the behavior of fans when watching any sports. When the sports cape has higher perceived quality, the audience will have higher satisfaction. This finding indicates that supporters will be motivated to stay longer or return to the stadium to watch the games if they are satisfied with the quality of the stadium. Therefore, it will be necessary for the sports company to improve the stadium’s quality by ensuring easy accessibility, comfortable seating, a high degree of cleaning, and well-designed features for aesthetics, among others.
Recommendation 4: Promotion: Raising awareness has been a challenge in the current sports field since male teams dominate the industry. This awareness needs to be done through advertisements using different media channels, such as televisions, social media platforms, and billboards. These advertisements will have to offer new insights into the participation of Australian women in sports, revolving around the category of Muslim females of Sydney origin who play the games in Australia. The sports marketer also need to ensure that that the information they include on the adverts suggest the transformative likelihoods of sport that improves the chances for fans who are culturally marginalized in the society such as females, among other minority groups concerning the theory of social identity (Toffoletti & Palmer, 2019). All these activities will be directed towards attracting the attention, stimulation of the awareness as well as the interests of the sports fans.
References
Bae, S. & Miller, J. (2009). Consumer decision-making styles for sports apparel: gender comparisons between college consumers. Journal of Research, 4(1): 40-45.
Kane, M., & Maxwell, H. D. (2011). Expanding the boundaries of sports media research: Using critical theory to explore consumer responses to representations of women’s sports. Journal of Sport Management, 25(3), 202-216.
Kim, Y., Magnusen, M., Kim, M., & Lee, W. (2019). A meta-Analytic review of sports consumption: Factors affecting attendance to sporting events. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 28(3), 117-134.
Lim, C. H., Martin, T. G., & Kwak, D. H. (2010). Examining television consumers of mixed martial arts: The relationship among risk-taking, emotion, attitude, and actual sports media- consumption behavior. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3(1), 49-63.
Lough, N. & Mumcu, C. (2016). Marketing women’s sports: A European vs. North American perspective. In S. Chadwick, N. Chanavat, & M. Desbordes (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sports Marketing (pp. 337-350). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group.
Mansfield, L., Caudwell, J., Wheaton, B., & Watson, B. eds. (2018). The Palgrave handbook of feminism and sport, leisure, and physical education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mihai, A.L. (2013). Sports marketing mix. Practical Application Science, 1(1): 298-303.
Mumcu, C., Lough, N. L., & Barnes, J. C. (2016). Examination of Women’s Sports Fans’ Attitudes and Consumption Intentions. Journal of Applied Sport Management, 8(4), 25-47.
O’Halloran, K. (2018). “It’s never been a better time to be a woman in sport if you don’t mind the sexism,” ABC News, 6 December 2018, Retrieved from https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/ada-hederberg-women-sport-matildas-womens-rugbyleague -aflw/10584746?fbclid=IwAR3XkS0yIPaiAxSG5lOpDvxCEint0xwJPOKY4I9lWZbVk9vs25yErLZaxmQ&pfm=sm.
Toffoletti, K. & Palmer, C. (2019). Women and sport in Australia—New Times? Journal of Australian Studies, 43:1, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2019.1579081
Trail, G. T. (2018). Theories of Consumer Behavior – Chapter 2. Seattle, WA: Sport Consumer Research Consultants LLC.
Trail, G. T., & Kim, Y. K. (2011). Factors influencing spectator sports consumption: NCAA women’s college basketball. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, 13(1), 60-82.