| The purpose of this study was to examine fan satisfaction, franchise attributes, franchise benefits, team loyalty and fan lifetime value, as well as to build the relationship model in perception of the Taiwanese professional baseball fan. The rational for the research was based upon the professional sport franchises' need to understand of fan loyalty model to select effective marketing tactics.;For the study's survey, the adapted fan satisfaction scale (Kennett et al., 2001), servicescape (Wakefield and Blodgett, 1996), team association scale (Gladden and Funk, 2001), the Psychological Commitment to Team (PCT) scale (Mahony, Madrigal & Howard, 2000) were modified and used with a five-point Likert scales ranging from (1) "Strongly Disagree" to (5) "Strongly Agree". These scales were developed and administered to indicate the characteristics of the respondents about fan satisfaction, franchise attributes, franchise benefits, team loyalty, and fan lifetime value. The new instruments were named fan satisfaction survey (FSS), franchise attributes survey (FAS), franchise benefits survey (FBS), team loyalty survey (TLS), and fan lifetime value survey (FLVS).;The five measurement sub-models were used to define the latent variables, fan satisfaction, franchise attributes, franchise benefits, team loyalty and fan lifetime value. The latent variable of fan satisfaction had five observed variables. The latent variable of franchise attributes and franchise benefits each had four observed variables. The latent variable of team loyalty had only one observed variables. The latent variable of fan lifetime value had three observed variable. The results indicated the latent variable of each instrument were valid and reliable.;Structural equation modeling (LISREL) was also employed to examine full model. The overall result indicated that full model was valid. The final model found support for three of four hypotheses. Fan satisfaction is the only hypothesis that does not show any effect on fan lifetime value and team loyalty. The results also indicated that the impact of franchise benefits on fan lifetime value through team loyalty seems to have a larger effect than through a direct way. The results also showed that franchise benefits were the most important feature to gain fan lifetime value over fan satisfaction and franchise attributes.;The results of this study lead to several suggestions for future research. First, the researcher may extend the study and explore more factors for fan satisfaction, such as: satisfaction about the performance of player, the strategy of coach, operation of management, overall satisfaction, etc. Second, the researcher may extend the study and explore more factors for fan satisfaction, such as: satisfaction about the performance of player, the strategy of coach, operation of management, overall satisfaction, etc. Third, the researcher may extend the study and explore more factors for franchise attributes, such as escape, nostalgia, community pride, role model, etc. Fourth, further research should be conducted to explore whether a difference in different countries with the same background (such as: Japan, Korea, etc.) leads to a difference in fan loyalty, which may account for the difference in findings. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
