| Borrowed from the consumer socialization literature the concept of fandom initialization in Major League Baseball (MLB) is identified as influenced by 'how' initialization occurs as influenced by family, friends, playing the game, favorite teams and players and media and at what age, or 'when', the age at which initialization occurs. This research determines that a significant relationship exists between fandom initialization, occurring primarily in early childhood, and sports consumption behaviors (SCB) of adults; measured by expenditures of money and of time. The quantitative research includes confirmatory factor analysis of loyalty measures taken from Funk and James (2001) Psychological Continuum Model. Exploratory regression analyses is conducted of proposed model components of initialization influences ('how' and 'when'), levels of loyalty (awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance), grudgeholding outcomes (from the marketing literature on branding) as independent variables with SCB expenditures of money and time. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is conducted to determine model fit. Qualitative analysis is included to ascertain face validity is supportive of the proposed model findings. Model components for initialization influences, loyalty and SCB expenditures of money and time display relationship significance. Grudgeholding measures are shown not to have relationship significance to SCB. |
