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This study aims to empirically investigate how sport media consumption influences the relationships among the spatially explicit risks of COVID-19, resilience, and positive and negative affect, considering social class. To achieve this, we employed an integrated approach using spatial and aspatial analyses. The findings indicated that the negative effects of the spatially explicit risks of COVID-19 on resilience are mitigated by sport media consumption. In turn, an increased level of resilience enhances positive affect and reduces negative affect. Moreover, consumers in the upper class showed a more pronounced resilience process through sport media consumption than those in the lower class. This study contributes to the knowledge regarding the sport−resilience association by identifying the moderating effect of sport media consumption within social classes and addressing the spatially explicit risks of COVID-19. The present findings provide a basis for sport-based resilience strategies in times of adversity.

The periodic examination of research agendas in sport management is necessary for the field’s advancement. In this mixed-method Delphi study, 15 leading sport management scholars forecast how the field can have a more influential voice in understanding the relationship between spectator sport and population health. Panelists agreed on the importance to not oversell or oversimplify the role of spectator sport; to improve interdisciplinary collaboration, theorization, and research design; to recognize opportunities to advance mental and social well-being; to better relate to stakeholders; and to identify distinctive health effects of spectator sport. A lack of consensus existed about the relationship between spectator sport and environmental well-being and prospects for leveraging spectator sport for participant sport. Drawing from these findings, the authors suggest that future research consider moving beyond simply measuring the effects of spectator sport on population health and, instead, assess its health effects relative to multiple forms of leisure and entertainment.

The #TakeAKnee movement initiated by Colin Kaepernick and the measures taken by the National Football League (NFL) to handle the situation received mixed reactions from the public. The authors developed and tested a structural model using survey data collected from 698 residents of a Super Bowl host city. The results indicated a positive relationship between attitudes toward the movement and attitudes toward the league’s responses, which in turn influenced league credibility. However, after taking the indirect effect into account, attitudes toward the movement had a direct negative relationship with league credibility. In addition, people who viewed the NFL as a credible organization tended to perceive the Super Bowl as relevant to them and as impactful for the host city. Therefore, sport organizations should develop consistent, comprehensive communication strategies that enable them to maximize a positive synergy between their approach to crisis communication and their approach to other types of communication.

This study investigated the causal influence that game situations-dependent spectator emotions exert on psychological vigor. Four distinctive game situations that evoked four types of spectators’ emotional states – happiness, sadness, anger, and fear – were identified. Virtual reality technology was utilized to replicate sport spectators’ emotional experiences. The results of the laboratory experiments revealed that states of vigor generally corresponded to the winner-loser effect, wherein victories (or losses) are associated with positive (or negative) emotions. Notably, the close victories condition exerted emotional ambivalence, resulting in mixed outcomes on vigor. Moreover, anger evoked through close losses had a positive impact on vigor. This study advances current understandings of sport fans’ emotional ambivalence and negative affect valuation tendencies. The findings provide significant implications for strategies through which marketers, stakeholders, and health managers can facilitate consumer well-being via sport spectatorship.

Research question: Schools are recognized as a stakeholder in sport events; however, how their involvement can contribute to the leveraging processes remains unclear. This study explores the role of local schools in leveraging sport events for lifelong sport participation. Research methods: The National Sports Festival of Japan was examined using a multiple case study approach. Six host cities were purposively selected, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with policy-makers and sport governing body representatives of these cities (N = 11). Results and findings: Nine categories related to schools’ involvement in the event leveraging process were identified. These nine categories were further classified into four themes: (1) need for actions by or through schools, (2) presence of central actors, (3) intermediate outcomes for future promotional activities, and (4) supplemental conditions to amplify effects. Moreover, these themes and categories formed a framework illustrating a positive sustainable circular system that bolsters the event's impacts on sport participation in the host city. Implications: Our findings contribute to the literature on sport event leveraging and sport development by showing the key administrative role of schools in increasing sport participation through the leveraging of events. For event organizers, this study highlights the importance of developing a continuous partnership with schools to implement the long-term policy for sport event's impact.

To cultivate the potential of sport spectatorship to enhance social well-being, a greater\ud understanding of underlying psychological processes is essential. Using the social identity\ud approach as a theoretical framework, we investigate how identification with a sport team\ud interacts with subjective and objective measures of on-field team performance to affect social\ud well-being. Data from 790 U.S. middle-aged and older adults were analysed through a path\ud model combining mediation and moderation. The results indicate that the relationship between\ud team identification and social life satisfaction—a measure of social well-being—is fully\ud mediated by subjective perceptions of a favourite team’s on-field performance. In addition, this\ud mediating effect increases as objective on-field performance decreases. These findings reveal\ud that team identification drives spectators to subjectively judge their favourite team’s\ud performance, which serves as a coping strategy to enhance their social well-being when the team\ud is performing poorly. Our evidence implies that sport organisations with middling to poor\ud performance records may leverage social and community events to promote consumer social\ud well-being.

Research question: The salience of creating shared value (CSV) in innovating the process of social change has been acknowledged; however, we know little about CSV from views of employees who create shared value. This study examined how employees of a sport organization perceive their organization’s CSV, and assessed the connections between employee CSV perception, vision integration, work engagement, and job performance. Research methods: A new scale of employee CSV perception was validated using data from 207 employees within a sport organization in China. Structural equation modeling was performed, with a separate sample of 181 employees, to test the hypothesized relationships. The data were obtained through web-based questionnaires. Results and findings: Employee CSV perception – formed as a second-order factor including sport, social, and economic values – was positively associated with vision integration. Subsequently, vision integration had a positive relationship with in-role behavior (i.e. a measure of job performance), and this relationship was mediated by work engagement. Implications: This study advances a theoretical understanding of CSV from the employees’ perspective. Findings suggest that a sport organization can use CSV to increase employees’ adoption of its vision, work engagement, and in-role behavior through team-building activities that facilitate employees’ understanding of the vision.

PurposeThis study examined how a US college athletic department’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influenced fans’ online donation intentions.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 490 fans of a Division I intercollegiate athletic program and analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsResults indicated that the quality of CSR information positively affected e-satisfaction with CSR initiatives, which, in turn, predicted fans’ online donation intentions, university attachment, and fan–athletic department identification. Moreover, the relationship between e-satisfaction with CSR initiatives and online donation intentions was mediated by fan–athletic department identification.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has a limitation in terms of generalizability. The current focus on a single athletic department does not apply the results to athletic programs at other US universities and colleges. Future research should confirm the generalizability of the study’s findings by collecting data from fans of other athletic departments.Originality/valueIt is important to understand the impact of CSR activities on online donor intentions because marketing these activities could serve as an effective fundraising tool for athletic departments. The findings from this study inform athletic administrators of factors they might consider when promoting CSR initiatives through online media to encourage fans’ donations.

Research Question: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for a transformative perspective on the role of sport brands in promoting fans’ psychological well-being. Drawing upon attachment theory, the current research explores how individuals’ involvement with sport brands may contribute to theirpsychological well-being in the wake of COVID-19.Research Methods: Data were collected from sport fans (n = 770) in mainland China through an online survey. Machine learning-based model selection algorithms were used to optimize the balance between the predictive power and parsimoniousness of the empirical model. Bayesian structural equation modeling was performed to examine the effects of sport brand involvement (SBI), crisis management performance, and perceived togetherness (PT) on fans’ sense of hope and emptiness.Results and Findings: The results indicate that fans’ involvement with sport brands was positively associated with fans’ psychological well-being. SBI mitigated fans’ perceived emptiness. This relationship was partially mediated byPT but not by crisis management performance. Furthermore, sport brands’ crisismanagement performance and PT fully mediated the positive relationship betweenSBI and hope.Implications: This research contributes to theorizing the transformative role of sport brands in enhancing fans’ psychological well-being. We offer an alternative view of sport branding literature by moving beyond fans’ contributions to business outcomes to explore how sport brands may benefit fans’ well-being. Findings highlight the importance of the transformative power of ‘we’ in unifying sport brands and fans amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the Olympic Agenda 2020, legacy has been widely used as a justification for hosting the Olympic Games, through which sustainable development can be achieved for both events and host cities. To date, no universal definition of legacy has been established, which presents challenges for legacy-related international knowledge transfer among host cities. To address this gap, a multilingual systematic review of the literature regarding the concept of legacy was conducted in French, Japanese, Chinese, and English. Using English literature as a baseline, points of convergence and divergence among the languages were identified. While all four languages value the concept of legacy as an important facet of mega-events, significant differences were found within each language. This finding highlights the importance of strategies that align different cultures when promoting sustainable development of some global movements such as the Olympic legacy. Sport management is replete with international topics, such as international events and sport for development, and each topic is studied simultaneously in several languages and with potentially differing frameworks and perspectives. Thus, literature reviews that examine the English literature, exclusively, are innately limited in scope. The development of partnerships and resources that facilitate cross-lingual and cross-cultural consultation and collaboration is an important research agenda. More research is needed on knowledge translation across languages.

© 2019, © 2019 National Recreation and Park Association. Although research has documented the health benefits of physical activity and use of park and recreational facilities, the relationships of these factors to healthcare costs remain unexplored at the population level. Building upon a social-ecological model, we analyzed county-level data to examine the extent to which physical activity rate and access to parks and recreational facilities were related to the healthcare costs for older adults (i.e., those 65 years and above) in U.S. counties. The results revealed that older adults’ physical activity rate in a county was negatively associated with the county’s healthcare costs of these adults. Also, access to parks and recreational facilities was negatively associated with older adults’ healthcare costs through the physical activity rate. These findings indicate that access to parks and recreational facilities correlates with increased physical activity levels among older adults, which might reduce their healthcare costs in communities.

During crises, sport organizations are said to play an important social role by facilitating community recovery; however, the literature lacks an overarching theoretical framework to explain how. Drawing on the social identity approach, we argue sport organizations can enhance well-being during crises to the extent that they foster shared identification among current and potential members. The Organizational Identification and Well-being Framework reflects this assertion, illustrating leadership functions to create an organization’s in-group identity that satisfies the needs of members in response to a crisis. It further outlines the SPRInT (Social support, Purpose and meaning, Relatedness, In-group norms, and Trust) pathways, which mediate the effect of organizational identification on member well-being. Our framework extends prior work examining organizational-level antecedents of identification with a sport organization by considering how leadership functions may foster organizational identification for individuals both internal and external to the organization. Moreover, it demonstrates how sport organizations may lead shared responses to address community needs and contribute to population well-being.

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Research synthesis is an essential part of the research process that we argue has been underutilised by sport policy and management researchers. This commentary seeks to advance the discussion surrounding research synthesis by introducing scoping reviews as a potentially useful approach to synthesising research evidence. In doing so, we provide an overview of current methods and protocols of the scoping approach and critically reflect upon the value and utility of scoping reviews by highlighting the lessons learnt from two previous scoping studies within the field. Our analysis indicates that scoping reviews provide a useful alternative approach to synthesising research for select research topics providing that strict protocol is adhered to and are appropriately operationalised. More broadly, our intention is to generate further discussion and debate surrounding research synthesis within the sport policy and management domain and to encourage sport scholars to adopt more structured approaches to synthesise research evidence.

The performance of sport organizations has been traditionally examined from the perspective of attaining strategic and operational goals (e.g., profitability, sporting performance). However, contemporary examples point to a need to expand sport organizations’ goals through consideration of their contributions to well-being outcomes. The current special issue addresses this need by advancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of transformative sport service research (TSSR), which seeks to understand how personal and collective well-being can be improved through a range of services offered in the sport industry. This introduction article clarifies the scope of TSSR scholarship and then provides a synthesis of findings and implications from the eight articles included in the special issue. The overview concludes with a call for collective efforts to establish a focused body of knowledge that leads sport organizations to integrate the goal of optimizing consumer and employee well-being into the core of their operations.

© 2018 Human Kinetics, Inc. Through this study, attempts were made to (a) define the concept of implicit team identification (iTeam ID), (b) examine the effects the interactions between iTeam ID and emotions exert on flow, and (c) examine the behavioral consequences of flow in the context of spectator sports. The opponent process and implicit memory theories served as the study's main theoretical frameworks. An experiment was conducted in which we developed the team identification implicit association test (Team ID IAT) as a measure of iTeam ID and manipulated spectators' emotions based on their retrospective spectating experiences. We conclude from the findings that anger, fear, and sadness paradoxically enhanced flow experiences and subsequent consumption behaviors for spectators with stronger iTeam ID, whereas happiness was universally appealing regardless of the level of iTeam ID. A recommendation is to strategically create experiences that elicit both positive and negative emotions in spectators to encourage flow.

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Although legacy frameworks exist in academia and legacies are oft discussed in relation to publicly- and privately funded events, there remains a dearth of knowledge on practitioner conceptualisations of the concept. A case study of the Toronto 2014 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games was conducted using semi-structured interviews with event organisers and city officials to understand how practitioners conceptualise legacies, and what their goals are in relation to legacies. The findings show that organisers conceptualise legacies as solely positive, and include Games-time impacts and outcomes as part of the legacy. The positive frame supports the three central legacy goals: justifying public spending on events, boosting public support for event hosting, and advancing city development goals through event hosting. This research contributes to the discourse on event legacy and takes an important step in expanding understandings of practitioner conceptualisations of legacy.

© 2017 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand The sport participation rate has been shown to decrease with age in many countries. In Japan, however, the elderly sport participation rate has increased over the last decade and is the highest among all Japanese. This study investigated whether the cohort effect generated by the shared experience of hosting the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games during their youth can explain the increased sport participation of elderly Japanese. Data from the Japanese National Sport-Life Survey over 20 years were analyzed through regression analysis. The results show that, after controlling for demographics and other determinants of sport participation, individuals who experienced the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games participated in sport more frequently than other generations.

Introduction Research has documented the health benefits of physical activity among older adults, but the relationship between physical activity and healthcare costs remains unexplored at the population level. Using data from 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, this study investigates the extent to which physical activity prevalence is associated with healthcare costs among older adults. Methods Twelve-year state-level data (2003–2014) were obtained from 5 secondary sources (n=611). Healthcare costs were captured by Medicare Parts A and B spending. Fixed-effect models were estimated in 2019 to assess the relationship between the state-level physical activity prevalence and Medicare costs. The potential lagged associations were captured by lagged variables of physical activity prevalence (i.e., t−1, t−2, and t−3). Results Physical activity prevalence was not associated with Medicare costs occurring in the concurrent and subsequent year (p>0.05); however, the 2-year lagged variable (p=0.03) and the 3-year lagged variable (p=0.01) for physical activity prevalence were negatively associated with Medicare costs, indicating a time-lagged relationship. It was estimated that a 10 percentage point increase in physical activity prevalence in each state is associated with reduced Medicare Parts A and B costs of 0.4% after 2 years and 1.0% after 3 years. Conclusions Results revealed a time lag effect highlighted by a delayed inverse relationship between state-level physical activity prevalence and healthcare costs among older adults. This evidence offers governments and communities new insights to guide policymaking on long-term public investment in physical activity intervention programs.

Objective:\ud We investigate how (a) attendance at sport games and (b) identification with a sport team as fans (i.e., supporters of the team) influence older adults’ perceptions of emotional support, belonging and subjective well-being (SWB). \ud Methods:\ud An experimental pilot study was conducted with 50 older adults, followed by a main survey study administered to 534 older adults from various communities across the United States. \ud Results:\ud Pilot study results indicated that game attendance and team identification had a positive and significant influence on\ud older adults’ perceptions of emotional support from fellow team fans. These results were replicated in the main study, which also showed that older adults’ perceived emotional support from fellow fans was positively associated with their sense of belonging which predicted their SWB. \ud Discussion:\ud The findings provide insights into how older adults may be engaged in meaningful forms of social life to help them maintain and enhance mental health.

© 2019 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand Charity sport events provide participants with a meaningful event experience, and the opportunity to support a charitable cause is a critical component of this experience. This opportunity often involves fundraising, either as a requirement of event participation or as an option to supplement registration. However, fundraising as part of charity sport event participation is a difficult task. In the current research, the authors examine the challenges faced by charity sport event participants in soliciting donations, and the effort made to overcome these challenges. Constraint negotiation served as a theoretical framework to guide this examination. Semi-structured interviews (N = 27) were conducted with Triathlon Pink participants to discuss their fundraising process and their attitudes towards fundraising. Four constraints were revealed: lack of receptivity among potential donors, perceived lack of money from potential donors, discomfort in asking, and lack of time. These constraints were negotiated through three strategies: narrative, prizes and incentives, and emphasising that any bit helps. Based upon the themes uncovered, charity sport event managers can implement increased education of fundraisers and point of sale donations within the registration process.

A growing number of studies have been published to understand how spectator sport may influence the health of a population. However, it is unknown if these studies address research questions relevant to professionals engaging in the promotion of spectator sport. We conducted a web-based survey with 136 practitioners employed in U.S. college athletics to identify their research priorities and needs regarding spectator sport’s influence on population health. The combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses show that future research needs to be focused particularly on one of the following research themes: (a) social psychological benefits of sport spectatorship and (b) psychological impact of sport spectatorship. The findings further suggest the integration of environmental well-being and eudaimonic well-being into the domain of population health. Based on these findings, we propose future research directions as informed and guided by the practitioners’ perspectives.

© 2018 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand Climate change presents a significant and growing challenge to the sport industry, especially outdoor and winter sports. The authors present a conceptual framework that elucidates the varying states of climate vulnerability a sport organization may face, so practitioners may better understand the risks of climate change. The authors developed the Climate Vulnerability of Sport Organizations (CVSO) framework by building on—and linking—concepts of climate vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity in the context of sport organizations. By placing potential impact on one axis and organizational climate capacity on the other, the authors present four quadrants representing four types of climate vulnerability: the Problem State, the Redundant State, the Responsive State, and the Fortified State. Positioning organizations within the CVSO framework facilitates a better understanding of the effort and resources needed to address climate-related risks. Though not all sport organizations will be equally impacted by climate change, all must be prepared to identify the risks to their organizations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles of employees’ involvement with the sponsored sport and cause in determining their beliefs about cause-related sport sponsorship. Design/methodology/approach – Respondents completed a survey that included the measures of sport involvement, cause involvement, and sponsorship beliefs adapted from previous studies. The final sample included 131 attendees who identified themselves as employees of sponsors of a cause-related sport event in a web-based post-event survey. A multiple regression analysis was performed to test hypotheses. Findings – Despite the prevailing logic that companies can enhance the perception of goodwill by sponsoring sport that is important to their employees, employees’ sport involvement was found to have no effect on their sponsorship beliefs. In contrast, cause involvement alone explained a large amount of the variance in those beliefs. Originality/value – The findings contribute to the literature by indicating that how employees evaluate cause-related sport sponsorship may be different from their evaluation process of traditional sport sponsorship without the cause affiliation. This research highlights the need to conduct further internal marketing research specific to cause-related sport sponsorship.

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The practice of increasing donations through special events has significant financial implications for charitable organizations. However, little is known about how such events can be organized to increase individuals' donation intention beyond their event attendance. In this case study, a post-event survey was conducted with attendees of a professional golf tournament operating as a special event to identify event-related attributes that affected their intention to donate to the cause supported by the event. The results indicate that attendees' donation intention was positively associated with their event satisfaction, perceived contributions of the event to the cause, and sense of camaraderie at the event. Furthermore, the effects of event satisfaction and camaraderie were stronger for attendees whose primary motivation for attending the event was unrelated to cause support. These results support hypotheses drawn from social exchange theory and provide implications for charitable organizations engaging in special events.

© 2015 Human Kinetics, Inc. This article examines the current state of research regarding the effect of spectator sport on population health. We conducted a scoping study that involved a comprehensive search of published and gray literature between 1990 and 2014, and identified 135 studies empirically examining the effect of spectator sport on population health. A frequency analysis shows that there is a paucity of studies on this topic published in sport management journals. A thematic analysis further reveals that the reviewed studies can be classified into nine research themes depicting the relationships among certain categories of spectator sport and population health. Based on this scoping study, we develop a framework and identify several gaps in the literature that should be addressed to advance our understanding of the relationship between spectator sport and population health.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore disaster relief activities implemented by high-profile sport organisations and athletes. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 70 newspaper and magazine articles reporting the disaster relief efforts of sport organisations and athletes in various regions were identified and analysed through a content analysis. Findings – The authors find 11 forms of activities that sport organisations and athletes have implemented to provide social support in post-disaster situations. These forms are classified based on type of post-disaster social support: eight forms are categorised as tangible support, while the other three are categorised as emotional support. Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on the analysis of the news media that predominantly reported North American cases, and the current list of disaster relief activities may exclude some activities ignored by these specific data sources. Using the forms of disaster relief activities identified in this study as an initial framework, future studies should engage in the focused analysis of disaster response among sport organisations and athletes. Practical implications – The comprehensive list of the disaster relief activities identified by this study should aid the decision-making of sport organisations and athletes in facing disasters and enable them to better prepare for their disaster response. Originality/value – This study reveals the extensiveness and uniqueness of disaster relief activities currently implemented by sport organisations and athletes.

Building on the framework of the Social Ecological Model (Stokols 1996), this study explored corporate social marketing in professional sport by evaluating a 12-week family-centered health promotion initiative delivered by a U.S. professional sport organization. Three families (n = 10) participated in post-intervention focus groups to discuss their experiences with the initiative. The participants reported that this initiative produced an improvement in their health both individually and for the family. The findings further demonstrated two specific mechanisms by which the involvement of the professional sport organization and its players contributed to the health effect of the initiative: (a) serving as role models for child participants and (b) bringing personal accountability to program participation. The results of this preliminary study suggest that professional sport organizations can contribute to health promotion through a family-centered initiative.

© 2015 American Psychological Association. This research confirms the relationship between team identification and social wellbeing in times of adversity, and demonstrates how the perception of 2 types of social support-instrumental and emotional support-mediates this relationship. Analysis of data from spectators attending Japanese professional soccer games in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake identified a positive relationship between spectators' identification with a hometown team and postdisaster community cohesion, an indicator of social well-being. However, this relationship was partially mediated by the level of emotional support spectators perceived being provided by the team. In addition, perceptions of instrumental support from the team were unaffected by team identification, but positively predicted community cohesion. Our findings offer unique evidence for the ability of team identification to generate psychological benefits in the face of adversity, and advances the understanding of the mechanisms by which team identification leads to social well-being. This research further demonstrates that the mediating role of social support in the relationship between social identification and well-being may depend on the context of social identification under investigation as well as types of social support and well-being measured.

This article describes the current state of knowledge on pro-environmental behavior in the workplace by analyzing 17 empirical studies that (1) examined individuals' pro-environmental behavior at work and (2) performed some type of quantitative analysis to explore antecedents of this behavior. Detailed descriptions of these studies are provided in terms of (1) types of pro-environmental behavior examined, (2) measures of pro-environmental behavior, (3) internal factors investigated, (4) external factors investigated, (5) samples examined, and (6) theoretical frameworks used. This article further provides researchers interested in this research topic with directions for future research. Using the information presented in this article, future business ethics studies can offer more comprehensive insight into one's decision to engage in various types of pro-environmental behavior in the workplace and provide important implications for environmental protection.

Building on self-determination theory, this study examined the relationships between self-determined motivation toward sport participation and developmental outcomes in sport-based positive youth development. One hundred twenty participants in a sport-based positive youth development program designed to engage youth through running completed a postprogram survey measuring their self-determined motivation toward running and achievement of developmental outcomes. The results of regression analyses indicated that participants with higher self-determined motivation toward running reported higher general self-efficacy, more positive attitudes toward a healthy lifestyle, and lower engagement in threatening behavior. On the other hand, self-determined motivation was unrelated to self-reported academic performance.

© 2017 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand In this mixed methods research, the authors examine a unique type of small-scale event – a charity-affiliated sport event – and define and measure its social and charitable impacts as perceived by residents. Findings from interviews (N = 37) and surveys (N = 459) with residents indicated that the event's social impacts can be defined by its capacity to develop social capital, enhance collective identity and pride, and promote sport, health, and well-being. Three types of charitable impacts also emerged, including empathy for cause, informational support, and tangible support. Of them, empathy for cause, which addresses a central social issue in the host community, had the strongest association with residents’ perceptions of social impacts. These results provide evidence of a variety of positive impacts that a charity-affiliated sport event has on a community, which can be used to bolster appeals for corporate sponsorship and government support to assist in event delivery.

Elite and professional sport events have been recognized as potential mechanisms to enhance well-being. This multicountry study investigates how engagement in such events, behaviorally through live spectating and psychologically through team identification, is associated with life satisfaction. Data from Australia (N = 268) revealed a positive association between live spectating and life satisfaction through a two-wave design measuring live spectating and life satisfaction in separate surveys. Data from the United States (N = 564) confirmed the live spectating–life satisfaction relationship found in Study 1. Additionally, Study 2 revealed individuals with higher levels of team identification perceived greater emotional support from other fans, and this perception, in turn, predicted life satisfaction. Our findings provide sport managers with implications for positioning appeals in support of sport programs and designing events that facilitate engagement to promote life satisfaction in the community.

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. This study examines whether consumers' perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities can predict behavioral loyalty, and how two attitudinal constructs drawing from the means-end chain model—involvement and commitment—mediate this relationship. A field study of 634 customers of an Australian professional football team was conducted by combining attitudinal surveys with actual behavioral data collected one year later. The results revealed a positive mediating effect of involvement on the relationship between perceived CSR and behavioral loyalty. However, when the effect of involvement on behavioral loyalty was mediated by commitment, the indirect effect of perceived CSR turned negative. The findings of this study indicate that the contribution of CSR initiatives to behavioral loyalty is not as robust as past research suggests, and is also contingent upon specific psychological states activated by consumers' perceptions of such initiatives.

The current study investigated the role of running involvement in helping improve the lives of a homeless population through an examination of a community-based program that utilizes running as a means to promote self-sufficiency. Data collected from 148 individuals before and after their participation in the program for one month revealed participants increased their psychological involvement in running. A regression analysis further indicated that the participants’ perceived self-sufficiency from participating in the program was significantly explained by the extent of their increase in running involvement. These findings highlight the role of enhanced involvement in sport, in particular in the form of running, in creating important psychological benefits for homeless individuals, and provide theoretical implications for the literature on sport-for-development.