Guest editorial: The sport x service experience: an opportunity for sport service management research

Citation

Kunkel, T. and Funk, D. (2024), "Guest editorial: The sport x service experience: an opportunity for sport service management research", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 46-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-01-2024-496

This special section presents four sport management-focused articles to highlight potential research opportunities among sport and service management scholars. Service management broadly encompasses examining processes, strategies and tactics used to design and deliver services to optimize customer satisfaction across multiple industry sectors. Sport management deals with the organization and administration of events, facilities, teams and athletes as well as recreational pursuits. The sport industry has businesses and individuals that provide pure services (e.g. sport agents, consultants and leagues), produce tangible products (sport venues, treadmills and sport media) and combine products and services (sport retail stores, sport events and fitness centers) that exist along a tangibility spectrum from core, to tangible, to augmented products (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003). Given the significant presence of service embedded in the design and delivery of sport entertainment management, the experience economy is a useful perspective to consider.

The experience economy recognizes the importance of generating positive experiences and emotions by adopting a user-centric approach, understanding co-creation and active participation, the value of continuous adaptation and enhancement and using design thinking principles (Pine and Gilmore, 2011). The field of service management provides a deep understanding of how to manage and execute effective customer experiences through applying service-dominant logic (SDL) principles (Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Within sport management, the concept of sport experience design describes how various physical and virtual design-relevant factors influence user-organization-context interactions that occur between the customer and the experienced environment produced by a business to enhance satisfaction (Funk, 2017). For spectator and participatory events and activities, there are elements related to uncertainty of outcome and variability that are inherent in sport and present both opportunities and challenges for managing services (e.g. whether a favorite team or athlete wins or loses, how many strokes it takes a golfer to complete 18 holes on the same course each month, watching a football match on a warm, sunny day versus a cold, rainy day). Leveraging the strengths of each field is beneficial to advance shared knowledge.

The synergy between the two disciplines provides a foundation to help investigate the sport x service experience (SxSE) to facilitate cross-disciplinary ideas and effective practices leading to enhanced services and immersive experiences. Figure 1 presents an SxSE perspective to guide understanding and future inquiry.

Sport x service experience (SxSE)

The SxSE perspective is represented by three interrelated elements: business, customer and ecosystem. The business is the sport organization that designs and delivers an experience to secure resources to operate and be successful within the sport marketplace. Sport businesses can be various entities, including professional and amateur sport, sporting goods, sportswear, fantasy sport, esports and sports betting and gaming, athletes, as well as sports events and recreation and fitness facilities. The customer is the actual and potential consumer with needs, wants and expectations that shape preferences and behavior. The customer is influenced by various internal and external determinants such as motivations and constraints, personality, attitudes, demographic characteristics, life stage, built environment, accessibility and behavioral engagement (Funk and James, 2001). The ecosystem is a complex and interconnected environment that includes a variety of entities, both within and outside of the sport industry such as sports organizations connected to a focal entity through their brand architecture, media companies, sponsors, city sport commissions and government (Kunkel and Biscaia, 2020). The ecosystem can also include external commercial and noncommercial activity from manufacturing, transportation, communication, healthcare, government, non-profit, education, philanthropic, volunteering and technological activity including social media, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, cybersecurity and virtual reality.

Holistically, the SxSE perspective illustrates how various entities are trying to achieve a purpose. For example, a business wants to develop and sell a sport experience (e.g. professional football franchise or an event management company). The customer wants to buy and use a sport experience (e.g. being a spectator at a football match or participating in a distance road race). The ecosystem represents positive and negative consequences of commercial and noncommercial activity by entities that can influence or augment either the production or consumption of a sports experience (e.g. operating ticket purchase platforms, optimizing customer relationship systems and implementing social media platform algorithms).

Attending a professional football match provides a good example illustrating how entities operating in the SxSE framework create various physical and virtual interactions that influence experiences. For example, an individual can follow a favorite team on social media, purchase a ticket online, arrive at the venue using mass transportation, post a photo on Instagram outside the stadium, use applications to present an entry ticket, purchase food and beverages, utilize venue WIFI, receive push notifications for discounted merchandise, search online for player profiles and statistics, use a mobile device to text friends to meet at a location and engage in digital promotions.

Notable sport service characteristics

The SxSE provides a system design perspective for how various entities create design-relevant factors that influence physical and technologically mediated interactions that enhance accessibility, usefulness and satisfaction of sport experiences. Such experiences can consist of various interactions (i.e. touchpoints) that customers navigate and encounter before, during and after a sports experience, which can be deconstructed and investigated through a customer experience blueprint. As with many experiences, when conducting research, it is critical to consider the unique characteristics of the context. There are three notable characteristics of sports experiences worth highlighting: (a) consumer psychology, (b) brand architecture and (c) societal impact.

Consumer psychology relates to the decision to buy and use a sports experience based on three elements: purpose, intention and meaning. Purpose reflects understanding the reasons why consumers buy and use an experience. Intention relates to determining how consumers will act in specific ways when buying and using the experience. Meaning represents what is being expressed and signaled to others when buying and using an experience. These three elements are often captured through the concepts of involvement and identification. Sports fans are some of the most passionate and dedicated fans in the world. They travel long distances to attend games, wear team colors and follow their favorite sport entities closely, developing a sense of in-group and out-group membership where they perceive themselves as being part of an in-group and tend to view members of the out-group more negatively, leading to some of the fiercest rivalries in history. The emotions of sports fans also lead to large media attention, both in traditional media outlets and on social media platforms.

Brand architecture is the structure that governs the relationships between sport brands and entities in the ecosystem. The architecture of brands in the sport ecosystem is complex, as multiple brands are connected to each – structurally and visually – and these brands can have different goals and objectives (Baker et al., 2022). For example, a league represents the master brand of teams and their athletes, and while a team may be focused on winning a championship, an athlete may be focused on breaking a personal record, and a sponsor may be focused on increasing brand awareness.

Societal impact is the important value various communities, governments and nations as well as non-profits and commercial enterprises place on sport experiences. Sport is often seen as a social good that provides benefits for society, such as promoting a healthy lifestyle, teaching valuable life lessons (e.g. teamwork, discipline and perseverance), bringing people together from different backgrounds and cultures and promoting social justice and equality.

This special section presents four articles addressing various characteristics of sport consumer psychology, sport brand architecture and the perviousness of sport in society. By contributing sport-specific knowledge, the insight and ideas provided can guide direction for future research useful in other service industry sectors.

Special section articles

The article Classifying C2C Interactions: A Framework for Understanding Value Outcomes and Contingencies (Uhrich et al., 2023) explores the classification of interactions between consumers of a brand. Sport customers demonstrate high levels of involvement with their favorite sport organization, which leads them to organize as in-group members connected to the sport organization who often hold negative perceptions toward rival brands. This characteristic allows for the examination of group dynamics and interactions between customers. The authors grouped C2C interactions into synchronous and asynchronous multi- and unidirectional interactions and propose a C2C interaction framework that identifies hedonic, social, symbolic and utilitarian value outcomes and highlights the physiological, psychological and social processes that contribute to the co-creation or co-destruction of value. The authors offer insights for future research in technology-supported and virtual interactions, cross-cultural fan-to-fan interactions and their potential to address societal concerns at the fan and brand level.

The article Unraveling the Formation and Outcomes of Brand Communities: An Overall Framework examines how organizations can directly influence the development of brand communities to increase engagement and foster brand loyalty. This article leverages insights developed from fan identification research within the field of sport organizations. A framework is presented that distinguishes between antecedents and outcomes to highlight how a brand community provides a unique space for shared experiences, co-creation and emotional support. Potential antecedents are grouped into brand, individual and social interactions that can influence social, psychological and brand outcomes. Ideas for future research are provided to guide efforts on uncovering how sport businesses can nurture brand communities and cultivate strong consumer–brand relationships and long-term success.

The article Understanding Drivers of Satisfaction, Churn and Renewal in Subscription Markets examines the value proposition of building stronger customer relationships and designing benefits for subscribers. Given the longstanding tradition of sport organizations to sell memberships or season-tickets, this article provides thought leadership for service managers and scholars interested in understanding subscription markets. The authors examine 28 papers to explore the continued use of subscription markets, drivers of satisfaction, churn and renewal and strategies to increase utilization with a focus on sport marketing. The insight offered provides direction for future research using behavioral data, creating tiered offers, promoting recall and scarcity and combating churn to enhance customer interactions, satisfaction and the perceived utility of subscriptions. As the subscription industry continues to evolve, understanding these key drivers of customer preferences and behavior is essential to address this changing market.

The article Advancing Research at the Intersection of Sport Sponsorship and Service: Exploring Complexities and Uncharted Territories explores the convergence of sport sponsorship and service as a multidimensional relationship to offer avenues for advancing research. The field of sponsorship examines collaboration and spillover of value between companies, and sport represents the category that receives the highest annual revenue – ahead of music, art or movies (IEG, 2018). The intersection of sport sponsorship and service is examined from perspectives related to SDL sport, sponsorship, systems thinking and co-creation/co-destruction of value to identify effects on experiences, engagement and loyalty. The complexity of potential intersections is discussed to offer areas for future research including innovative methodologies and drawing from relevant cases to shed light on the nuances of this intersection that drive positive outcomes for sponsors, sport organizations, athletes and customers to advance theory and practice in sports marketing.

The future of sport x service research

As demonstrated by the four articles, the intersection of sport and service management represents many opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange. This special section sought to spark ideas for future sport x service research, given the experience that the economy remains particularly susceptible to economic, social, demographic and environmental conditions. Notably, changes in consumer and employee preferences and behaviors that occurred from the global pandemic and technological applications such as the rapid growth of artificial intelligence will require new insight and innovation in sport services to respond and embrace a new normal. The list below outlines emerging topics that could be investigated based on the three interrelated elements of business, customer and ecosystem applying the SxSE perspective.

Business

1. Entrepreneurship: Explore entrepreneurial opportunities in sport services – particularly for current and former athletes – and the challenges and barriers that entrepreneurs face.

2. Employees: Explore the challenges of employee burnout and work-life balance in the sport industry and the strategies that organizations can use to attract and retain work force talent.

3. Diversity: Explore the importance of diversity and inclusion in the sport industry and the strategies that organizations can use to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

4. Sport analytics: Explore the use of sport analytics to improve decision-making in the sport industry and the opportunities for sport organizations to use data to gain a competitive advantage.

Customer

1. Emerging sports: Explore the growth of emerging sports, such as niche sports and esports, from a service-focused perspective focused on participants and spectators.

2. Gamification: Explore how to design and apply gamification techniques to engage participants and spectators, to enhance accessibility, usefulness and customer satisfaction.

Ecosystem

1. Gaming: Explore how to design engaging sport betting experiences and the potential for different service stakeholders to foster responsible gambling initiatives.

2. Technology: Explore the opportunities for sport organizations to use technology to improve their operations.

3. Social media: Explore how social media can be used to promote sports events and organizations and to connect with fans and spectators.

4. Artificial intelligence: Explore the potential of artificial intelligence to transform sports services and the challenges and ethical considerations that need to be addressed.

5. Geo-political and cultural: Explore the impact of geo-political and cultural factors on the sport industry and the challenges and opportunities facing sport organizations in a globalized world.

Conclusion

By leveraging the knowledge and expertise of sport and service management scholars, we believe researchers can unlock new insights and directions that will contribute to the growth of knowledge in both fields, both individually and combined. We thank the authors for their contribution and anonymous reviewers who provided valuable feedback on earlier versions of these articles and hope you – the reader – feel inspired to conduct research on the intersection of sport x service management.

Figures

Figure 1

Sport x service experience perspective