Understanding Loyalty and Motivation of Professional Sports Fans
Introduction
The common culture of the United States is characterized by the want for entertainment (Russell, 2009). The entertainment industry as a whole is typically broken down into segments of music, television and movies. While this constitutes a large portion of the annual revenue generated by leisure activities, it overlooks the billion dollar empire that is professional sports. It is estimated that the sports industry in its entirety is worth over $420 billion with roughly $20 billion of that coming from a combination of Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) (Plunkett Research, Ltd., 2011). In addition to the revenue garnered by the teams, fans bring millions of dollars a year into cities hosting a game. The city of Indianapolis, for example, draws 250,000 fans for the three week celebration leading up to the Indianapolis 500 and sees an economic impact of approximately $40 million each time it hosts the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s...