The Utility of a Single-Item Self-Perception Fandom Measure for Sport Consumer Segmentation and Predicting Behavior

Effective consumer segmentation is crucial to accurately address target markets and develop marketing campaigns. Sport industry practitioners increasingly segment their consumers using behavior and attitudinal measures. To accommodate the need for ease and speed of responses, practitioners generally employ single-item attitudinal measures to examine the level of fandom of their consumer base. The current research bridges a gap between academia and industry by examining the utility of a single-item self-perception fandom measure. Findings of three studies indicate that the single-item self-perception fandom measure is correlated with academic measures of consumer attitude (i.e., involvement, identification, commitment, and loyalty) and that its ability to predict behavioral outcomes is comparable to established multi-item scales. Consequently, findings endorse its use for practitioners in segmenting their consumer base and for academics in supplementing their measures.