Traveling Abroad Internal and External Motives toward Different Sports Fan Types

Abstract

Sport events are gradually showing higher potential to make significant contribution to contemporary society. Current events are being developed at local, regional and national level, having economic, commercial, political and socio-cultural implications. Different types of fans are the main target of the global sports industry. Therefore, marketers should be aware of sports fans’ needs, discern their motives and predict their buying attitude, estimate the driving forces urging fans to devote time, money and effort to be attend sport events. The scope of the present study is to develop a new sports fan classification scheme, as well as, to evolve a variety of models, like LOGIRE models, aiming at exploring the existence of specific motives, both internal and external that induces fans to attend sports events held abroad. The research was based on personal interviews using a sample 315 persons. Research results revealed six different sports fan types with concrete internal and external motives. More importantly, a new fan type emerged adopting all the behaviour characteristics of the temporary fan type, as well as, the local fan type.