Sports Science (Good Work, A++, NO plagiarism)

ARTICLES

Journal of Sport Management, 2012, 26, 463-478 © 2012 Human Kinetics, Inc.

Optimizing tlie Oniine Channei in Professionai Sport to Create Trusting and Loyai Consumers: The Roie of tiie Professional Sports Team Brand and Service Quality

Jamie Carlson University ot Newcastle

Aron O'Cass University of Tasmania

How professional team-based sport organizations can optimize their e-service platform and manage their brand in an increasingly multichannel marketing environment is a critical issue. This study examines how sports consumers' (i.e., fans') perceptions of e-service quality, brand strength, and image congruency between the sport brands' offline image and online image affects the development of consumers' trust in the team's web- site. In addition, the study explores the role of team website trust in developing team website loyalty, as well the role of loyalty in actual purchase frequency from the teams' website. Data were collected via an online survey of sports consumers of e-services delivered by professional sport teams. The results indicate that sport team brand strength, followed by teams website e-service quality and brand image congruency between the teams online and offline activity are significant determinants of trust in the teams' website, with online trust strongly influencing website loyalty intentions.

Creating superior consumer experiences across multiple channels is emerging as an important issue for today's commercial professional sport organizations to build their fan base, increase loyalty and purchase frequency by fans. A multichannel marketing strategy has the capacity to enable professional sport organiza- tions (sporting teams) the opportunity to foster fan (i.e., consumer) loyalty by increasing fan contact points in physical and virtual settings (i.e., marketspaces). It also offers fans an array of channels to select, consume and purchase branded sports content, and provides diverse types of supplementary e-services such as ticket sales, branded digital content and online broadcasting (Kwon & Lennon, 2009; Seo, Green, Ko, Schenewark, & Lee 2007; Seo & Green 2008; Turner 2007).

In a general sense, multichannel shoppers are unlikely to separate internet shopping from other forms of shopping; rather they are likely to regard it as a part of their quest to meet their shopping needs (Kaufman- Scarborough & Lindquist, 2002). Consequently, the growth of multiple channels has led to challenges for management practitioners in the design, deployment.

Carlson is with Newcastle Business School, University of New- castle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. O'Cass is with the School of Management, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

coordination and evaluation of channels through which to deliver a holistic consumer experience (Konus, Verhoef & Neslin, 2008). Such challenges while not specifically identified by Konus et al., (2008) as including sport and sport management should be applicable given the increas- ing professionalization of sport. Multichannel issues are strategically important for the professional sport industry since professional team-based sport organizations are in fact service organizations (Harris & Ogbonna, 2008), and multichannel retail service providers. These profes- sional sport organizations are tasked with delivering fan experiences at the game (i.e., organizing the match itself and other entertainment activities at the venue on game day) as well as operating offline retail operations (i.e., the team's branded retail store) and online operations (i.e., entertainment, information, e-retail, and emerging Internet applications for smartphones and PC tablets).

Importantly, studies investigating multichannel issues show that the synergy between online and offline operations generated by the seamless integration between channels has been argued to enrich consumers' experi- ences with the retailer, strengthens the brand image of the retailer, and cultivates consumer loyalty in both channels (Kwon & Lennon, 2009; Wang, Beatty & Mothersbaugh, 2009). On the other hand, a multichannel strategy also implies that the organization's unsatisfactory perfor- mance in one channel may impact the consumer's brand image, expectations and even evaluations of the retailer

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in the other channels. In essence, a brand that operates in multiple channels may weaken its brand image if its products and services are delivered in an inconsistent fashion across the channels (Kwon & Lennon, 2009).

Drawing on the reciprocal relationships that exist between offline and online brand images of a multichan- nel retailer, some researchers have examined the effect of an internet retailer's e-service performance on con- sumers' beliefs and attitudes about the internet retailer (e.g., Hsieh, Chiu & Chiang, 2005; Weathers, Sharma & Wood, 2007) which are of relevance to the profes- sional sport context. However, as multichannel retailing increases in the professional sport industry, so does the strategic importance of understanding the effects on the professional sport organization's brand image when they interact in offline and online channels to deliver the sports product (i.e., services and performances). However, while research in the consumer retailing domain offers important contributions to our understanding of e-service performances, at this point there is no identification or focus on two key issues in the professional sport setting. These being a focus on, 1) the relationships between sport fans perceived e-service quality and trust in the sports organization website, and 2) the role of the sport team's brand (e.g., perceived brand strength and brand image congruency of the sports organization's brand) in building the sports fans trust in sports organizations website that delivers e-services. Bringing these two issues together is important for sports practitioners to better understand how to build their brand and manage their websites in the context of multichannel environments in sport. In this context, the brand becomes increasingly important and our focus on the brand is premised on the view that a brand is not simply a name; it is not solely a positioning statement nor is it the synthesis of marketing messages about the brand. It is fundamentally a promise made by a company to its consumers, a promise that must be sup- ported by the company and sustained over the long-term (Grace & O'Cass, 2005) and in the context of professional sport teams, the team could be construed as the brand (Bauer, Sauer & Schmitt 2006; Ross, James & Vargas, 2006). This point is pertinent to e-service development in professional sport in that it identifies key issues associated with what the sport team brand does (i.e., the experiences it delivers to fans) and what promises it makes, and in e-service terms this equates to deliverables both online and offline.

Given the salience of risk and uncertainty in elec- tronic environments (Wang & Emurian, 2005), develop- ing a greater understanding of factors that foster trust is essential for understanding how to encourage sports fans to purchase through the online channel and to remain loyal to websites that offer sport related services, espe- cially those managed by their team. Thus, the role of the actual e-service in creating trust in the sporting team's websites and the role of the sport brands' offline activi- ties (consistency of the sports organization's brand fan

experiences via external marketing communication and physical retail store) appear integral in building trust.

Developing websites that have the ability to not only attract new sports fans, but also retain them is a major issue facing professional sport teams that seek to engage heavily in e-business, and is a challenge for professional sport managers. Sporting fans continuous use is critical to professional sport team's services. However, the role of website factors as well as nonwebsite factors that provides the basis for fans trust in websites, and contin- ued use and loyalty, remains largely unaddressed in the sport literature.

The management of consumers' perceptions of trust and mitigating uncertainty is now seen as a precondition for patronage behavior and relationship development in e-commerce (Bart, Shankar, Sultan & Urban, 2005; Pavlou, Liang & Xue, 2007). The roles of branding in sport is particularly important since brands, and the effect the brand has on sports fans, can possibly negate or at least reduce perceived risks and have a reassuring effect on fans. This point is further emphasized in the broader marketing area by Berry (2000), who claims trust is at the core of the value that a strong brand provides to its consumers because it enables them to understand the offering and to face the perceived risk associated with buying and consuming the product. Thus, branding has the potential to serve as an anchor for trust (Delgado- Ballester & Munuera-Alema, 2001) increasing commit- ment to the e-service provider.

Accordingly, we develop and test a framework to understand determinants of online trust focusing on offline service brand strength, brand image congruency and e-service quality, and further assess online trusts impact on website loyalty intentions and actual purchase frequency in the professional sport industry. We aim to contribute to the sports management literature in three broad ways. First, this study focuses on examining the effects of brands together with website characteristics on online trust formation and extends the call for work by Hur, Ko and Valacaich (2007) for more work on sport related websites. Second, this focuses on fan trust and e-service quality in a more detailed fashion moving beyond a simple assessment of overall judgments of e-service quality and extends the work of Filo and Funk (2008) to investigate brand trust in sport contexts. Third, this study explores drivers of online trust and of online trust's effect on website loyalty intentions, and includes sports fans actual purchase frequency.

To this end, the structure of this article is as follows. First, the theoretical framework of the study is discussed which reviews the literature related to the key constructs of interest, then derives the associated hypothesis and presents the model for empirical examination. Second, we discuss the study context and present the research design and results. Following an examination of the results, we conclude with implications for theory, practice and future research.

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Model Development and Hypothesis: Online Trust in

e-Services

It has been identified that with the website becoming the storefront in Information and Communication Technol- ogy (ICT) domains, consumers develop perceptions of online trust based on their interactions with the website in the same manner they do in traditional retail settings (Bart et al., 2005; Pavlou et al., 2007). The importance of trust can be seen in its identification as a key ingredient for building profitable, long-lasting relationships with consumers (Doney & Cannon, 1997; Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Notably, one of the most salient sources of trust in a retail setting is the salesperson where consumer trust is dependent on the interactions between salesperson and consumer (Anderson & Narus, 1990); a feature missing in ICT based services, and as such electronic exchanges are believed to present heightened risks for consumers (for a review see Grabner-Krauter & Kaluscha, 2003). As noted above, purchasing online increases the perception of risk because of the temporal and spatial separation, consumers must trust the e-service provider not to engage in potential undesirable opportunistic behaviors such as unfair pricing, violations of privacy, conveying inaccurate information, unauthorized tracking of transactions, and unauthorized use of credit card and purchase information (Chen & Dibb, 2010; Fuller, Serva & Benamati, 2007). Thus, the integrity of the e-service provider and likeli- hood of violation of rules, regulations and obligations are major determinants of consumer trust in online exchanges (Mukherjee & Nath, 2007).

In this study, our focus is on trust in the sports website (referred to here as online trust) by the sports consumer, and we adopt the view that the website can be seen as the interface between the sports consumer and the professional sport organization (i.e., the team/ club) and, in fact, function as the physical store would in conventional retailing or as the service provider would in conventional services. This point has been identified by Koufaris (2002) in the context of the salesperson metaphor, and subsequently by Bart et al., (2005), when focusing on the trust building aspect of the website as being equal to the physical store. This 'front office' aspect highlights the important role of the website interface as the mechanism for creating (inducing) trust in consumers by providing a key trust signal in its ability to deliver on its promises (Pavlou et al., 2007; Schlosser et a l , 2006). We further adopt the view by Bart et al., (2005) which places the focus of trust being on the website. Therefore, under Bart et al.'s (2005) conceptualization of trust, we view trust as referring to sports consumer perceptions of how the sports website would deliver on expecta- tions, how believable the site's information is, and how much confidence the website commands in the sports consumer. From this perspective, it can be argued that specific antecedents will drive online trust perceptions including the quality of the e-service provided by the professional sports organization to the sport consumer, as well as the organization's offline activities that online trust has important consequences for e-service consumers (and e-service providers to understand).

The conceptual model guiding this research is depicted in Figure 1. We begin by conceptualizing online tmst as being influenced by consumer brand variables

Control Variables: Age Gender Perceived Internet Expertise

Figure 1 — Conceptual model of the study

466 Carlson and O'Cass

such as brand strength and the congmency between the service brand image (SBI) and the website brand image (WBI), together with consumer perceptions of e-service quality (denoted by Hypothesis 1,2,3). We then explore the effects that online tmst has on website loyalty inten- tions (denoted by Hypothesis 4) and purchase frequency (denoted by Hypothesis 5).

Service Brand Strength and Online Trust

The area of service branding has over the past few years received increasing recognition in the marketing hterature (Brodie, Whittome & Brush, 2009; Grace & O'Cass, 2005; O'Cass & Grace, 2008) and in the area of sport marketing focusing on branding a growing body of work has acculmulated (Ross 2006, 2007; Gladden & Funk; 2001; Alexandris, Douka, Papadopoulos & Kaltsatou, 2008; Filo et al., 2008; Gladden, Milne, & Sutton 1998; Gladden, Irwin and Sutton; Ross et al., 2006). Such attention has not only focused on the concept of the service brand, but also on the potential economic value of developing and managing the brand at the fimi level (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 1999). Service branding draws ostensibly from the product branding field and in effect has the same underlying objectives as branding a product that being to differentiate the brand from competitors and form consumer preferences for the brands. We adopt the notion of perceived service brand strength as referring to a consumer's psychological assessment of the orga- nization (e.g., service provider, retailer, sporting team and the like) as a brand. That is, how strong the brand is held in the consumer mind as represented by the strength of the attitude toward the service organization and how involved the consumer is with the service organization. Within a service perspective, the brands meaning refers to the consumer's dominant perceptions of the brand... the consumers snapshot impression of the brand and its associations (Berry, 2000).

A strong service brand is one where the consumer has strong and positive attitudes and high involvement. A strong service brand is essentially a promise (Berry, 2000) and in this sense, when the consumer perceives the brand (service or otherwise) as being a strong brand, they will in effect place greater tmst in that brand and its associ- ated activities. Such activities include those delivered online. The role of service branding in this sense becomes critical, as strong brands increase consumer tmst because consumers are willing to rely on the website to deliver on the brands' promises and perform its basic functions as promised. As' indicated by Berry (2000), a strong brand is a surrogate when the company offers nothing tangible to touch, a point particularly relevant to websites. A point also identified by (Grace & O'Cass, 2005) in the context of service brands when they argued that the advantages of strong brands are not Umited solely too physical products, but are also critical for service brands, a point we extend to be relevant to service brands and e-service.

Today brands play an integral part in marketing strategy for most organizations and increasingly so for

service based firms such as professional sport organiza- tions (Bauer et al. 2005; Gladden & Funk 2002; Gladden & Milne 1999). Importantly, the caliber of the brand lies in its ability to communicate meaning to consumers (Herbig & Milewicz, 1993), hence substantially reducing levels of perceived risk (Shimp, 1993). We contend here that the positive image and reputation ofthe name (sport brand) ofthe team organization operating the website and the teams' physical presence may transfer to the website setting and contribute to developing online tmst (see also Aiken & Boush, 2006). In a similar fashion, Bart et al., (2005) found that brand strength (i.e., the strength of the association ofthe brand with the website) is a significant determinant of online tmst. This is because consumers may rely on the brand behind the website to tmst the information, the quality of service and performance. Therefore, it can be argued under conditions of uncer- tainty, the integrity ofthe online the sporting team's brand is critical in enabling sports fans to gain online tmst.

To explore the role of the sport team brand and its effects, we focus here on developing what we term sport team brand strength which may be viewed through the lens of involvement and attitudes toward the team brand. Within consumer behavior, involvement is an important concept and has been used extensively to help explain various aspects of consumer behavior. Essentially, involvement has been identified as being at the heart of the person-object relationship, the relational variable pre- dictive of consumers' behavior (Evrard & Aurier, 1996) and largely based on the interaction of consumers with objects or stimuli such as products, advertisements, pur- chase decisions and/or consumption of products (O'Cass, 2000). Individuals with higher levels of involvement in a certain product or brand elaborate on information processing and have more product-related thoughts and make more inferences (O'Cass, 2000), and infer more qualities and traits about the brand (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alema, 2001).

Further, it has been found that involved consumers are more concemed with a website if the information, and other attributes delivered via the website, are related to the object of involvement (i.e., the brand; Balabanis & Reynolds, 2001). Therefore, e-service attributes such as information content and visual design, which are related to the sports organization's brand, are more likely to attract the interest and engage with involved sports fans more than those not involved, since these sports fans are motivated to gain and process more information about the brand (i.e., team brand) on the website; possess higher exploratory behavior related to the website, exhibit more extensive information search habits and conduct online purchases (Balabanis & Reynolds, 2001; Richard & Chandra, 2005). On this basis, it can be argued that pro- fessional sport fans are more likely to tmst an e-service providers' website when the level of involvement with the associated service sports organization's brand is high. This is because highly involved sports fans who engage within a stimulus environment related to the object of interest (e.g., a website) will be more likely to engage

Online Channels in Professional Sport 467

and interact with the website (i.e., the e-service). We argue that such engagement with the e-service reduces perceived risks and uncertainties associated with com- municating and transacting with the teams e-services because of their trust.

The focus here is sports consumers brand assess- ments of professional sport organizations via what we label as service brand strength. We view service brand involvement and brand attitudes as two critical com- ponents of brand strength. In tbis sense, strong brands are more likely to become meaningful and meaningful objects have been known to bé associated with positive attitudes (Mick & Faure, 1998; Mittal & Lee, 1989) and higher involvement. Importantly, as sports consum- ers engage in contemplative assessments, some sports consumers will assess a brand as being significant to tbeir life and on that basis, brand strength is likely to in part, contribute to the formation of a favorable overall assessment of trust in collateral aspects of the sports organizations' activity. Thus,

H1. Professional sport team brand strength positively influences fans' online trust

Sport Brand Image-Website Image Congruency and Online Trust

For some time now the notion of image congruency has been a major focus of consumer research (largely focused on person-product congruency). Congruity theory advo- cates that consumer behavior is determined, in part, by the congruence resulting from a psychological comparison involving the image of (at least) two objects (O'Cass & Grace, 2008; Sirgy et al., 1997). In this context, high self- congruity occurs when the two images are perceived to match. The counter for this is argued to be true for low congruency (O'Cass & Lim, 2002). However, although image congruity theory has been tested across many product categories (such as shoes, clothing, cars, cameras soft drink, beer, credit card, and so on) and even retail stores (O'Cass & Grace, 2008). The theory has not been tested extensively in the service brand-website image congruency context. However, in recent times, work by Wang et al., (2009) has made a major contribution to raising attention to the website and organization (retailer) dyad. Their work using categorization theory, indicates that increases in the congruity between the retailer's known offline and their online presence decreases the emphasis new visitors place on website characteristics (a piecemeal process) and increases the influence of their prior attitudes toward the organization (an attitude transfer process). Further, previous research indicates that image congruency can affect consumers' product prefer- ences and their purchase intention (Ericksen, 1996) and consumers appear to prefer brands that have compatible brand images (Ericksen, 1996; O'Cass & Lim, 2002). Importantly, this view could also be applicable in the professional sport context of service brand image and website brand image and trust in the professional sport organization's website.

Thus, taking the research base developed in the context of products and retail stores and applying this to service brand image and website image in the professional sport setting, the congruence between service brand image and website image (service brand image-website image congruency [SBI-WIC]) would also be positively related to sports consumers' trust in the website as shown in Figure 1. That is, the more similar the images between service image and website-image, tbe more favorable the evaluations of that website resulting in more trust sports consumers' will develop in the site. Importantly, we can also build on the arguments of Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001) when they raised the argument that trust is only relevant in situations of uncertainty putting forth the example of differences among brands. This point is particularly relevant in the context of service brands and websites, where online shopping has been shown to raise consumer levels of uncertainty and that failing to over- come the initial trust barriers has significant implications for purchase behavior (Wang, Beatty & Foxx, 2004). We raise a similar contention arguing that trust is relevant in the sense of sports consumers seeing differences between service brand images and website brand images. In this context, consistency between the image portrayed by the service brand and the website-image has the potential to influence online trust. Greater congruency between the two domains should impact the development of online trust in a positive sense, and incongruence where the website does not match the service brand image could diminish online trust. Thus,

H2. Sport team brand image-website brand image congruency positively influences sports fans' online trust in the team's website

E-Service Quality and Online Trust

Despite the growing interest in e-service quality, only a limited number of studies have investigated the e-service quality-trust relationship. For example, Harris and Goode (2004) and Fassnacht and Koese (2007) explored the rela- tionship between e-service quality and online trust and found that e-service quality did not significantly influence online trust. However, Bart et al., (2005) found specific website characteristics were influential determinants of consumers' online trust.

The study of e-service quality to-date has shown that consumers appear to primarily evaluate the quality of the e-service offering based on the attributes of the website interface. This evaluation occurs because of the limited human interaction with service personnel (Long & McMellon, 2004). Fassnacht and Koese (2006) broadly describe e-service quality as the degree to which an electronic service is able to effectively and efficiently fulfill consumer needs, but further provide a definition of e-services describing them as services delivered via ICT where the consumer interacts solely with an appropriate user interface (i.e., is the website). Therefore, the focus of e-service quality evaluations by sports consumers' are made predominately via the website interface and

468 Carison and O'Cass

as such, the website design is a critical issue because of its trust building role. It is argued that a positive assess- ment of e-service quality by sports consumers positively influences the development of online trust (as shown in Figure 1). Thus,

H3. Perceived e-service quality positively influences sports fans trust in the team's website

Online Trust and Website Loyalty Intentions

Empirical studies examining trust and website loyalty intentions in e-commerce indicate that e-service orga- nization that build greater trust with their consumers should have a higher likelihood of increased consumer spending, intentions to purchase and repurchase from the website (e.g., Bart et al., 2005; Mukherjee & Nath, 2007; Fassnacht & Koese, 2007). For example, studies have also shown that trust drives broader website loyalty outcomes including recommendation behaviors, intention to book/register at the website and reduced likelihood of switching behavior to a competing website offering (Bart et al., 2005; Fassnacht & Koese, 2007; Ribbink, Riel, Liljander & Streuken, 2004). The findings from these various studies in the e-commerce setting is consistent with studies found in the offline environment where trust and loyalty have been found to be strongly related (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001; Sirdeshmukh, Singh & Sabol, 2002). Thus,

H4. Sports fans trust in the team's website positively influences website loyalty intentions

Website Loyalty Intention and Actual Behavior (Frequency)

Behavioral intentions are motivational factors that cap- ture how intensely people are willing to try to perform a specific behavior (Ajzen, 1991). The Theory of Planned Behavior suggests that behavioral intention is an influ- ential predictor of actual behavior. In this context, actual behaviors are significantly aligned (i.e., correlated) with what and individual says they intend to do. Research has shown that consumer intentions to revisit and buy do in fact correspond with actual past purchase behav- ior (Pavlou & Fygensori, 2006; Pavlou et al., 2007). We contend that in relation to sports consumer intention to revisit, not to switch and to buy from their identified professional sport website will induce greater purchase frequency from the website. We adopt the view that sports consumers who have hold stronger intentions to revisit and buy will make more purchases over those who pos- sess weaker intentions. Thus,

H5. Website loyalty intentions positively influences purchase frequency on the professional sports teams' website

Method The study was based on fan evaluations of websites delivered by professional sporting teams that also had a physical offline operation (i.e., retail shop front) in the Australian professional sport industry. ÍTO test the hypotheses, a self-administered online questiorinaire was used for data collection. The data collection was undertaken via market research firm which used an online panel. Once the researchers developed the study design and instrument the market research firm was engaged to administer the survey to its panel members. Individuals that fit the screening criteria were selected to participate in the study. This included the research firm randomly selecting panel member's aged 18 and over who were active consumers of their favorite Australian professional team sport website (i.e., a fan, a regular user and had made a purchase within the previous 12 months from the website) to receive e-mail invitations to participate in the study. The selected individuals of the consumer panel received an e-mail containing the online survey link. Participants were asked to recall a recent encounter with their preferred professional sport website and refer to that website regarding their answers. The choice of retrospective experience convenience-based sampling is consistent with previous studies investigating e-service issues (Bauer, FaUc & Hammerschmidt, 2006; Carlson & O'Cass, 2010; Carlson & O'Cass, 2011).

The variables of interest in the study were measured using established scales from the information systems, services marketing and consumer behavior literature and adapted to the professional sport context. Items used to measure sport team brand image-website image congruency were adapted from Lociacono et al., (2007). The measure of the brand strength of the professional sport team was conceptualized and operationalized as a higher order type II construct (cf. Jarvis, Mackensie & Podsakoff, 2003). In this configuration, brand strength of the professional sport team is formed by sport team brand attitude and sport organization brand involvement (in the team) which both possess reflective indicators. The items used to measure consumers brand attitude of the professional sport team were adapted from Grace and O'Cass (2005). The items used to measure sport brand involvement were adapted from O'Cass's (2000) involve- ment scale. These items were adapted from the original to tap involvement in, and attitude toward a professional sport organization.

Items used to measure e-service quality in the context of professional sports team web-services were drawn from Fassnacht and Koese (2006), and accordingly, e-service quality was conceptualized in a hierarchical framework which includes 3 dimensions as second order factors (i.e., environment quality; delivery quality and outcome quality) represented by 9 subdimensions as first order factors with reflective indicators. An evalua- tion of these dimensions would contribute to consumers' overall (i.e., global) perception of e-service quality. The

Online Channels in Professional Sport 469

measurement of online trust was adapted from Bart et al. (2005) and used two items focusing on consumers overall trust in the website and the trustworthiness of the pro- fessional sport organizations website. The measurement of website loyalty intentions was an adapted three item scale from Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry's (1996) behavioral intention battery. Actual purchase frequency was measured by asking respondents how many internet transactions they had made in the previous six months on the professional sport teams website they were respond- ing for. All items, with the exception of actual purchase frequency, were measured via seven-point scales (strongly disagree-l to strongly agree-!).

Control Variables

We included gender, age and perceived internet expertise as control variables. As argued by previous research, information processing styles (Meyers-Levy & Stemthal, 1991)andrisk aversion may differ by gender (Holbrook, Lehmann & O'Shaughnessy, 1986) which may poten- tially have an impact on the way trusting relationships are formed. Age and gender have been shown to mod- erate the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty (Mittal & Kamakura, 2001). We controlled for perceived internet expertise to account for the fact that trust tends to be built over time and usage experiences have been shown to have a major role in the internet environment in relation to shopping behavior (O'Cass & Fenech, 2003; Pavlou et al., 2007). This is because consumers have the opportunity to develop skill, knowledge and efficacy in the internet. Perceived internet expertise was measure via five items adapted from O'Cass and Carlson (2010). In the questionnaire, respondents indicated their gender as male (0) or female (1) and consistent with other web- based studies by Carlson and O'Cass (2011), age was treated as a categorical variable for analysis indicated by the following five categories: 18-24, 25-34, 3 5 ^ 4 , 45-54 and 55 years or older.

Pretest and Survey Instrument Refinement

An online pretest of the survey instrument was under- taken using a convenience sample of 44 participants. Care was taken that the pretest sample was similar to the sample included in the final data collection in terms of age, gender, and familiarity with the topic under investigation. The results from the pretest study were within acceptable ranges as recommended by Churchill and Iacobucci (2002). Reliabilities ranged between .71 and .84, exceeding the .70 threshold, and were therefore, considered an acceptable level of reliability (Nunally, 1978). Having made the revisions to the survey instru- ment as a result of the pretesting stage which included minor alterations relating to item wording, layout and item sequencing, the final survey included a total of 50 items including key constructs, demographics and experience variables.

Results Data were collected from 414 actual sports consumers from multiple professional sports organizations in Aus- tralia from a panel size of 1,000 yielding a response rate of 41.4%. An analysis of the demographic variables indi- cates 61.1% of respondents were male (38.9% female) with ages 18-24 the highest high range (40.1 %), followed by ages 25-34 (19.3%) and 35-44 (12.8%). In terms of the number of purchases made from their chosen profes- sional sport website, 22.2% had made 1 purchase in the past 12 months, with 21.7% having made 2-3 purchases in the past 12 months. Partial Least Squares (PLS), spe- cifically PLS-GRAPH was used to assess the adequacy of measurement models of the five constructs and the predictive relevance of the conceptual model, and thereby test the hypothesized relationships. The selection of PLS was based on four criteria. First, it allows the specification of large, complex relationships among the conceptual factors of interest and the measures underlying each construct, resulting in a simultaneous analysis of (1) how well the measures relate to each construct and (2) whether the hypothesized relationships at the theoretical level are empirically true (Limayem, Hirt & Cheung, 2007). Second, as a result of the model configuration including reflective and formative constructs (e.g., sport team brand strength was operationalized as a first-order—second- order type II model containing reflective first order dimensions, and a formative second order configuration) and nonnormality of the data (preliminary analysis iden- tified several variables (measurement items) that were outside the normal ±2 range for skew and kurtosis thus indicating a sufficient level of nonnormality of data), PLS was considered appropriate over covariance based struc- tural equation modeling approach (Petter, Sträub & Ra, 2007; Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle & Mena, 2011). Third, PLS is a variance-based path modeling technique that is more advantageous than covariance based approaches when measures are not well established (Komiak & Benbasat, 2006). In this context, PLS is appropriate in this study as a number of measures were refined and developed, such as the brand strength construct. Further, PLS was appro- priate as the main objective of the study was concemed with maximizing the prediction of respective constructs (Hair et al., 2011) as antecedents to the development of online trust, as well as online trust on specific outcomes. Finally, another major advantage of PLS is that the outer model formulation explicitly allows for the specification of categorical variables within models. This allowed for the coding of age to be used in the analysis as a control variable. This procedure is similar to that adopted by O'Cass and Pecotich (2005) and Carlson and O'Cass (2011) when analyzing models using PLS with formative, reflective and categorical variables.

In this study, we assessed the adequacy and signifi- cance of outer-measurement models (the relationships between the observed indicators and the construct they measure) and the predictive relevance of individual paths and the structural model. Consequently, the adequacy and

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significance of reflective outer-measurement models were assessed through an examination of a range of indices including individual indicator loadings, composite reli- ability, and average variance explained (AVE), bootstrap t-statistic', convergent validity, and discriminant validity. As shown in Table 1, the reflective outer-measurement models demonstrated acceptable bootstrap critical ratios meeting the recommended benchmarks of > 1.96.

Common Method Bias Considerations

As part of the survey design we also adopted procedures outlined within the literature to minimize common method bias via question sequencing, instructions etc

(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Podsakoff & Lee, 2003; Rind- fleisch, Maker, Ganesan & Moorman, 2008). Further, given that a single source of information can introduce spurious relationships among the variables, and as this study collected data via single source methods (self- report scales), we also followed the recommendations of Slater, Huit and Olson (2005) and conducted a Harman's one-factor test for common method variance. The central premise of the Harman's one-factor test is that all items, presumably measuring a variety of different constmcts, were subjected to a single factor analysis. Evidence for common method bias exists when one factor accounts for most of the covariance. Using this approach, 9 factors were extracted with eigenvalues greater than 1 and the

Table 1 PLS Outer Measurement Models

Model components and manifest variables Loading t value

Brand Strength

Brand Involvement

My favorite sports team means a lot to me

My favorite sports team is significant to me

I consider My favorite sports team to be a relevant part of my life

For me personally my favorite sports team is important

I am interested in my favorite sports team

I am involved in/with my favorite sports team

How involved are you with your favorite sports team

Brand Attitude

My attitude toward my favorite sports team is good

I like my favorite sports team

I have a favorable perception of my favorite sports team

My opinion of my favorite sports team is positive

Sport Brand Image-Website Brand Image Congruency

My favorite team's Website projects an image consistent with the team's brand image

The website fits with my image of my favorite sports team

The website's brand image matches that of the my favorite sports team's brand image

e-Service Quality

ENVIRONMENT QUALITY

Graphic Quality

Text is always displayed legibly

Symbols/icons are readily identifiable

Pictures/images are always displayed properly

Clarity of Layout

The layout enables the user to find important things at first sight

Everything is clearly arranged

The layout provides a clear structure

AVE: .65,

AVE: .73,

.89

.91

.92

.94

.83

.71

.75

AVE: .91,

.94

.95

.96

.94

AVE: .89,

.95

.94

.93

Reliability: .95

Reliability: .95

37.19

55.37

84.62

120.83

34.84

19.61

22.76

Reliability: .97

72.43

72.47

158.41

60.99

Reliability: .96

134.54

85.52

65.88

AVE: .69, Reliability: .93

AVE: .80, Reliability: .92

.88 41.03

.89 57.37

.89 37.23

AVE: .94, Reliability: .98

.97 157.20

.97 164.88

.97 174.58

Model components and manifest variables Loading t value DELIVERY QUALITY AVE: .54, Reliability: .93

Attractiveness of Selection AVE: .73, Reliability: .89

Offers a wide range of products and services of the team .88 74.20

Offers a complete selection of products and services .90 82.56

Information Quality AVE: .86, Reliability: .95

Information provided about the team is up to date .91 61.56

Information provided on the website is easy to understand .94 106.73

The website provides all the information necessary .94 ' 121.99

Ease-of-Use AVE: .77, Reliability: .91

The website directs the user step by step .85 28.02

When using the team's website, the consumer has full control at all times .88 37.87

It does not take much to learn the handling of the team's website .89 67.50

Technical Quality AVE: .66, Reliability: .84

The website is always up and running .92 69.06

Data transfer is stable .92 62.93

The website's pages load properly .49 5.77

OUTCOME QUALITY AVE: .54, Reliability: .91

Reliability AVE: .80, Reliability: .92

Service performance of the team's website is as desired .80 25.95

Service performance of the team's website is absolutely reliable .94 99.87

Eunctional Benefit AVE: .73, Reliability: .89

The team's website serves its purpose very well .88 46.13

The team's website is an easy way to obtain information and purchase goods and services .84 36.49

Emotional Benefit AVE: .94, Reliability: .98

The team's website invites fans to stay .96 160.33

The team's website is fun .96 177.86

Global e-Service Quality AVE: .86, Rehability: .95

Excellent to Poor ' .91 67.70

Superior to Inferior .92 80.38

High quality to Low quality • .96 153.98

Online Trust AVE: .94, Reliability: .97

My favorite team's website is trustworthy .97 44.24

Overall I trust my favorite team's site .97 54.92

Website Loyalty Intentions AVE: .60, Reliability: .82

I seldom consider switching to another related website .70 14.14

I will purchase from the team's website in the future .81 26.30

I will revisit the team's website in the future .80 21.84

Perceived Internet Expertise AVE: .81., Reliability: .95

I could easily use the World Wide Web to find information on a product/service .88 28.81

I can get to a specific website using a browser .90 48.27

I have the skills and experience to search the World Wide Web on my own .88 23.84

I would be able to use the intemet on my own to locate specific websites .89 26.59

I feel that I am an experienced user of the Intemet .90 29.40

471

472 Carlson and O'Cass

variance explained was 75%. The first factor accounted for 43% of the variance with the second factor accounting for 13% and the remaining 7 factors sharing 19% of the variance. As one factor was not present (or a common factor underlying the data) and as the majority of the variance was not accounted for by one general factor, a substantial amount of common method variance was not evident. We also followed a similar line of reasoning to Podsakoff et al., (2003) to reduce possible common method variance through specific procedures used to design the survey instrument through instructions, item sequencing and item wording etc.

Convergent Validity

We examined convergent validity using the internal consistency measure (composite reliability) developed by Fomell and Larcker (1981) and HuUand (1999) which is considered a better choice than coefficient alpha. Results of the analysis for convergent validity (see Table 2) confirmed that the outer-measurement models and their first-order factors met the Nunally (1978) criteria of higher than .70. As shown in Table 1 (and Table 2), the composite reliabilities of all constructs and their first- order factors range from .82 to .97. Thus, the constructs associated with outer-measurement models exhibited satisfactory convergent validity. In effect, convergent validity is achieved if the AVE in items by their respective constructs is greater than the variance unexplained (i.e., AVE >.5O). The results presented in Table 1 and Table 2 indicate that all constructs have an AVE greater than or equal to .50, therefore meeting the desired criteria of .50 (Fomell & Larcker, 1981).

Discriminant Validity

We assessed the discriminant validity of the constructs in two ways. First, Fomell and Larcker (1981) suggest the use of AVE, which indicates discriminant validity is evident if the square root of the AVE is greater than all corresponding correlations. As shown in Table 2, the square roots of the AVE values are consistently greater than the correlations. Second, we suggest that satisfactory

discriminant validity among constmcts is obtained when the correlation between two composite constructs are not higher than their respective reliability estimates. Table 2 shows that no individual correlations (.12 to .74) were higher than their respective reliabilities (.82 to .97), indi- cating satisfactory discriminant validity of all constructs.

Hypothesis Testing and Results

The model parameters as depicted in the Figure 1 were estimated using Partial Least Squares (PLS). Thus, the focus for testing the hypothesis is on the inner results as they relate directly to HI—H5. An examination of results was undertaken via indices including R ,̂ average variance accounted for (AVA), regression weights and bootstrap critical ratios (i values). In Table 3, the individual R̂ for endogenous variables and the AVA are of an accept- able magnitude for the inner model. The strength of the paths (ß coefficients) associated with the constructs is acceptable. Being defined as the ratio between estimate and standard errors, the critical values were greater than 1.96 which is statistically significant at 95% in relation to HI to H5. As such the bootstrap critical ratios are of magnitudes above the acceptable benchmarks for all the paths. Initially we examined gender, age and perceived intemet expertise as control variables and found that gender and perceived intemet expertise were significant and age was not. Subsequently, when running the tests for HI to H3 where our control variable were also entered gender was significant with ß . l 3 ( p < . 0 1 ) and perceived internet expertise was also significant ß.lO (/7 < .01), while age remained nonsignificant.

We found that brand strength was positively related to online trust ß - .35**, t value = 7.83, p < .01 in sup- port of hypothesis 1. We also found that sport brand image—website brand image congruency was positively related to online trust ß = .16**, t value = 2.593,p< .01; in support of hypothesis 2. We also found that global e-service quality was positively related to online trust ß = .25**, t value - 4.05, p < .01 in support of hypothesis 3. The R2 for hypotheses 1-3 was .40. We also found that online trust was positively related to website loyalty intentions ß = .55**, t value = 12.38, /? < .01; R^ .30 in

Table 2 Evidence of Discriminant Validity for Constructs

Constructs

1. Sport Team Brand Strength

2. Sport Team Brand Image-Website Image Congruency

3. Global e-Service Quality

4. Online Trust

5. Website Loyalty Intentions

6. Perceived Intemet Expertise

1

.65 (.95)

.15**

.74**

.44**

.50**

.31**

2

.89 (.96)

.74**

.44**

.46*

.19*

3

.86 (.95)

.46**

.51**

.12*

4

.94 (.97)

.40**

.27**

5

.60 (.82)

.20*

6

.90 (.95)

** p < .01; * p <0.05; Diagonal entries are square root of AVE and composite reliabilities in bracket; others are correlation coefficients.

Online Channels in Professional Sport 473

Table 3 Hypothesis: Structural Equation Parameter Estimates (t-value)

Control variables

Gender

Age

Perceived internet expertise Independent variables

HLBS

H2: SBI-WIC

H3:GESQ

Independent variables

H4: Online Trust

Independent variables

H5: Website Loyalty Intentions R-square

Online Trust

.24** (5.43)

.04 (ns)

.27** (4.32)

.13

Endogenous variables Hypothesis 1-5

Online Trust Website Loyalty Intentions

.13** (3.30)

.06 (ns)

.10** (2.66)

.35** (7.83)

.16** (2.59)

.25** (4.05)

.55** (12.38)

.40 .30

Purchase Frequency

.16** (3.38)

.03

AVA .62 (.24)

** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05; values in Q are t values

support of hypothesis 4. We also found that website loyalty intensions was positively related to purchase frequency ß - .16**, t value - 3.38, p < .01; R̂ .03 in support of hypothesis 5.

The predictive relevance of the structural model was assessed via the AVA, representing the predictive power of the structural model without regard to the measure- ment model (Fomell & Bookstein, 1987). As presented in Table 3, the AVA value is an acceptable magnitude for the inner-structural model at .62. Given the acceptable indices for predictive relevance of the structural model are higher than the recommended .10, the predictive power of individual paths and of the structural models are satisfactory, supporting the theoretical soundness of the conceptual model. Overall, the results used to evalu- ate the hypothesis indicate that all hypotheses (H1-H5) are supported.

Examining Model Fit

Following the assessment of the measurement models, and testing the predictive power of the inner-structural model, we explored the goodness-of-fit (GoF) of the model using the procedure outlined by Amato, Vinzi and Tenenhaus (2004) to assess the fit of the outer- measurement and inner-structural model to the data simultaneously. The GoF represents an operational solution to a global scalar function, leading to a lack of an index for global validation of the model and acts as a

global fit index for validating a PLS model (Tenenhaus, Vinzi, Chaltelin & Lauro, 2005). The GoF is a compro- mise between communality and redundancy in which the communality index measures the quality of the mea- surement model for each construct and the redundancy index measures the quality of the structural model for each endogenous construct taking into account to the measurement model (Tenenhaus et a l , 2005). As such, the GoF is computed as:

GoF = '^communality X R^

Drawing upon the categorization of R̂ effect sizes by Cohen (1988) and using the cut-off value of 0.5 for commonality (Fomell & Larcker, 1981), GoF criteria for small, medium, and large effect sizes are.l, .25 and .36 respectively (Schepers, Wetzels & Ruyter, 2005). The calculated GoF for model was .47, indicating good fit of the model to the data.

We also adopted the 0^ predictive relevance (i.e., predictive sample reuse technique) outlined by Stone (1974) and Geisser (1975) to produce a generalized cross- validation measure and jack-knife standard deviations of parameter estimates. The blindfolding takes a block of N' cases and K indicators and removes a portion of the N by K data points. With an omission distance D, points are omitted from the first data point and then every

474 Carison and O'Cass

other data point D across rows and columns, thus Q^ is represented as^:

Q^ represents a measure of how well the observed values are reconstructed by the model and the model parameters. Q^ > 0 indicates the model has predictive relevance. Using this procedure and with omissions distances between 5 and 15 the Q^ value for the model was .57, indicating excellent predictive relevance of the model.

Discussion and Implications Overall, the findings provide significant insights concem- ing the relationships among service brand strength of the professional sport organization, e-service quality, service brand-image website-image congruency and online trust; and website loyalty intentions and purchase frequency. The hypothesis were supported indicating that the cen- tral theme of our research that: (1) brand strength of the professional sport organization, service brand-image website brand-image congruency, and e-service quality, have significant influences on trust sports consumers have in a website; and (2) online trust influences website loyalty intentions, and website loyalty intentions impacts purchase frequency.

While, some research has focused on the notion that brands can reduce perceived risks and have a reassuring effect on consumers (Brodie, Whittome & Brush, 2009; Davis et al., 2000) there is a lack of research into under- standing how the service brand of the professional sport organization, along with e-service quality influences trust in the ICT service environment for multichannel provid- ers in the professional sport industry. Nevertheless, the results of the study strongly support the important role of brand-related variables in the ICT service environment showing that brand strength of the professional sport organization positively influences online trust, thus sup- porting hypothesis I. Building on the initial work of Bart et al., (2005) in exploring the effects of the strength of the brand on online trust formation, we provide further insight into the impact of brand-related variables (i.e., brand attitude and brand involvement) in ICT service frameworks in the professional sport industry. Thus, from an academic standpoint, this study contributes to the further theoretical development of service branding and its role in ICT service environments for multichannel service providers.

The findings also show that respondents who per- ceive the website to project an image consistent with the offline service brand image of the professional sport organization tended to have higher levels of trust than those sports consumers who did not perceive the website in the same way, supporting hypothesis 2. This finding highlights the importance for multichannel marketing practitioners of ensuring strong congruence between the service brand-image and the website brand-image in

building online trust of the professional sport organiza- tion's website offering. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of service brand-image and website brand-image on trust forma- tion in e-services within the professional sport industry. Thus, from an academic perspective, we provide a deeper integrative understanding of an important multichannel marketing issue of how image congruency influences trust formation during the specific time of interacting and consuming the e-service.

The findings also suggest that e-service quality facilitates the development of online trust, thus sup- porting hypothesis 3. This indicates that when sports consumers perceive the website as delivering a quality e-service, positive perceptions of trust toward the website are formed. This result provides an additional contrary view of previous research that has found that e-service quality did not influence online trust (Fassnacht & Koese, 2007), and extends the work focusing on e-service quality measured via attributes impacting on online trust forma- tion (Ribbink et al., 2004; Sahadev & Purani, 2008). Therefore, the results have some implications for sports management practitioners indicating that delivering higher levels of e-service via specific attributes improves online trust formation.

The findings also indicate that online trust has a significant effect on sports consumer's website loyalty intentions, thus supporting hypothesis 4. The results indicate those sports consumers who trust a website appear to show an increased likelihood to revisit the website, purchase from the website in the future, as well as reduced switching to a competitors e-service offering to purchase products and services. This finding supports previous internet-based studies in the e-retailing context which shows that online trust has a positive effect on consumers' online behavioral intentions (Fassnacht & Koese, 2007; Mukherjee & Nath, 2007).

Finally, the findings support the positive link between website loyalty intentions and actual frequency purchase behavior, supporting hypothesis 5. The results show that sports fans who held more positive website loyalty inten- tions toward the e-service of the professional sporting team were more likely to have purchased more frequently in the past goods and services from the website than those with weaker intentions. Our findings show that greater loyalty intentions are related to greater frequency of purchasing from the team websites. While the results for hypothesis 5 are supported, the small amount of variance explained (only 3%) in purchase frequency by website loyalty needs to be taken into account.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

This study contains some limitations which need to be considered. First, in our study, we adopt a uni-dimen- sional measure of trust. Therefore, future research could extend our research model to examine multifaceted

Online Channels in Professional Sport 475

conceptualizations of tmst. For example, previous stud- ies in information systems and marketing have suggested that tmst dimensions include dimensions such as ability, benevolence and integrity (Schlosser et al., 2006), as well as cognitive tmst and emotional trust (Komiak & Benbasat, 2006). As such, future studies could adopt a multidimensional approach to the research model. Second, tbe research model is validated based on the data collected from Australian-based professional sport organizations with offline and online operations, thus limiting generalizability of the findings. Future studies could overcome this limitation by exploring the system of relationships studied here across a variety of sports competitions, as well as across different retail contexts from different multichannel service providers including retail banking, retail department stores, tourism services and media/entertainment services. Future studies should also investigate the impact of cultural differences on the research model. Such studies could address issues relating to the intemationalization of e-service delivery and global branding in professional sport. Third, any survey-based method, including that used in this study, involves measurement error. For example, the elicitation of a scale measurement depends on the consumer's abihty to accurately report their perceptions of the encounter. Thus, generalizing the findings outside of the domain of this study must be treated witb caution.

Finally, another limitation is the cross-sectional research design employed. In any model in which causal- ity is suggested, longitudinal studies provide for stronger inferences (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Tbis is particularly the case when considering actual purchase behavior and in our findings we only showed a very small effect size. In this sense, future research could adopt an approach which better captures the influence of loyalty intentions on actual purchase bebavior by going back to respondents after specific periods of time. Therefore, future research could contact the same respondents over time to col- lect data about their actual online purchase behaviors including frequency and volume to better identify causal relationships among the constructs. Tbis approach has been adopted by Pavlou et al., (2007).

The longitudinal aspect is also an important issue in Internet-based studies since consumer experiences are likely to change as technologies such as broadband and information appliances such as new, emerging devices such as smartpbones and PC tablets are increasingly available to the mass market (Hausman & Skiepe, 2009). Consequently, e-service models may have 'limited cur- rency' since empirical research examining Intemet retail issues reflect only a specific period in the evolution of e-retailing (Evanschitzky, Iyer, Hesse & Ahlert, 2004). Therefore, e-commerce models must be continually examined and tested to ensure they remain relevant and reflect activities (i.e., new technologies/applications and consumption behavior) occurring in tbe marketplace. Thus, longitudinal research sbould be considered to define the exact causal nature of the interrelationships between constmcts and provide additional insights to professional sport practitioners.

Conclusion In conclusion, this research provides a number of major contributions to the online trust and multichannel litera- ture in professional sport. First, we extend the works of Bart et a l , (2005), Fassnacht and Koese (2006), Mukher- jee and Nath (2007) and Ribbink et al., (2004) to exam- ine tbe effects of brand-related variables together witb e-service interface factors such as e-service quality on online tmst formation of the professional sport organiza- tions website offering. In doing so, we found that service brand strength of the professional sport organization has the strongest effect on online tmst formation followed by perceptions of e-service quality and service brand image congruency. Thereby, the findings provide further sup- port for the important role that e-service quality plays on consumer behavior.

Importantly, the study highlights the effect that brands have on sports consumers in the formation of online tmst of e-services delivered by professional sport organizations which works toward the call for work by Hur, Ko and Valacaich (2007) for more work on sport related websites. Second, building on the work of Bart et al., (2005) and Filo and Funk (2008), we have contributed to the development of measures of service brand strength of the professional sport organization by adopting a multidimensional approach with formative indicators to test the influence this construct has on online trust. Third, we explored these antecedents of online tmst on sports consumer website loyalty intentions in a single framework in the context of the ICT service environment. As such, it may be advantageous for professional sports organizations to endeavor to allocate resources to those e-service attributes which drive tmst in e-services, par- ticularly given the strong impact online tmst was found to have on website loyalty intentions.

We contend here that the aspects ofthe service brand of the professional sport organization (via brand strength [formed tbrough brand involvement and brand attitude] and service brand image-website image congmency) are just as critical in developing tmst in the e-service as the quality of the e-service itself. Thus, we see an increas- ing role for branding in the development of e-services in professional sport, paralleling the service brand hterature that bas developed over the past few years. The role of service branding in this sense becomes a special one, as strong brands increase consumer tmst because consum- ers are willing to rely on the website of strong brands to deliver on the brands' promises and perform the services as promised. Thus, the service branding effort of multi- channel service providers in professional sport is a key issue that needs greater attention in e-services research so tbat total consumer experiences involving multiple retail channels can be delivered (Verhoef, Lemon, Parasura- man, Roggeveen, Tsiros & Schlesinger, 2009). In sum, this study provides important insights into the effect of the service brand of the professional sport organization, in terms of its perceived strength and congruency across channels, and e-service quality into creating online tmst and bow online trust influences loyalty intentions and

476 Carlson and O'Cass

loyalty intentions impacts purchase frequency. The study provides professional sport practitioners with a research framework to examine an important market of sports consumers who adopt multiple channels, particularly the Intemet channel, to consume sport and how to best meet the needs of this unique consumer base.

Notes

In this study, bootstrap t values were computed on the basis of 500 bootstrapping runs, with subsamples set at 70% of the number of cases in each data set.

where: E = the squares of prediction error; O = the squares of the observed values. Z = sum

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