COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE DETERMINANTS OF FAN SATISFACTION WITH SPORTING EVENT ATTENDANCE

The current study proposes and tests a structural model of fan satisfa ction with attending a sporting event. Specifically, three cognitive a ntecedents (expectancy disconfirmation, team identification, quality o f opponent) are related to two affective states (enjoyment, basking in reflected glory) which are, in turn, related directly to satisfaction judgments in a recursive model. Two-stage sampling was used to collec t data from 232 individuals attending one of four women's basketball g ames at a major Division I-A university. The hypothesized model perfor med better than two alternative models and was further refined through a series of hierarchical model comparisons. The final model is suppor tive of a disconfirmation-affect-satisfaction hierarchy. In particular , team identification was found to have the dominant influence on affe ct and enjoyment had the dominant influence on fan satisfaction.