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Identity Conflict Among Politically Engaged Sport Fans: Implications for Fan Loyalty

Ben Larkin

Journal of Sport Management2025https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2024-0171article
AJG 2ABDC A
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Despite the natural intersection of sport and politics, it remains an understudied topic in academic literature. Further, the majority of scholarship in this area is either rooted in sport sociology, or, aimed at advancing the political science literature. Few studies have looked at the intersection of sport and politics for the purpose of advancing sport marketing scholarship. This is the case in spite of the fact that consumers increasingly expect businesses to take political stands. The current study begins to fill this void by examining the impact of political identity conflict on sport fan loyalty. Across two studies, results indicate that political identity conflict negatively affects attitudinal loyalty, but not behavioral loyalty. Furthermore, differences between liberal and conservative sports fans as it pertains to managing political identity conflict and their perceptions of the intersection of sport and politics are explored. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2024-0171

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@article{ben2025,
  title        = {{Identity Conflict Among Politically Engaged Sport Fans: Implications for Fan Loyalty}},
  author       = {Ben Larkin},
  journal      = {Journal of Sport Management},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2024-0171},
}

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Identity Conflict Among Politically Engaged Sport Fans: Implications for Fan Loyalty

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.44 × 0.4 = 0.18
M · momentum0.65 × 0.15 = 0.10
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.