How addiction behavior as a factor of switching barrier affects fans´ loyalty in sponsoring professional sports games — A case study on the fans behavior toward Taiwan professional base ball games

The professional sports games as a unique form of service, provides people with differentiated benefits such as recreation, excitement, tense, and enjoyment with ovation. Although incidents in the dark side of sports games like cheating, gambling, even economics recession may impede fans\´ drive for continual patronage, "addiction" into participation in the sports games prevent them from quitting the events, if certain motivation factors like satisfaction, switching cost, and the adoration toward specific sports stars are isolated. This study makes an effort to explore a novel research topic in consumer behavior under the context of sports service, by investigating the role of addiction in switching barrier for sponsoring professional baseball game events. The outcome of this empirical research justifies addiction as one factor of switching barrier and also reveals a very interesting finding, namely, the effect of fans satisfaction on loyalty is relatively weak, while with the mediation of switching barrier, the link between satisfaction and loyalty are much more reinforced. Management of professional baseball team may formulate strategies based on this theoretical exploration. The finding will fill the gap of extant literature in sports service marketing, and make contribution to provide an insight into the behavior of sports fans to allow sports service providers to formulate appropriate strategies to enhance consumers\´ "stickiness" in professional sports game participation, so as to add the odds of business success.