Does fan discrimination exist? Mixed-method investigation of customer discrimination in Chinese professional baseball league

Jye Shyan Wang; Wen Jhan Jane; Yu Hung Cheng; Pei Hsin Fang

doi:10.1007/s40821-019-00147-4

Does fan discrimination exist? Mixed-method investigation of customer discrimination in Chinese professional baseball league

Jye Shyan Wang, Wen Jhan Jane, Yu Hung Cheng, Pei Hsin Fang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper focuses on customer discrimination in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). Using the 2005–2017 annual spectator attendance data, we first show that inverse customer discrimination exists for international players. We next explore the roots of customer discrimination from the perspective of economics alongside social psychology. We find customer discrimination in the CPBL a combined outcome of taste-based and statistical discrimination, and can be explained by reference group theory. This study thus aims to develop a sports fans’ customer discrimination scale, which is demonstrated to consist of three major elements: players’ characteristics, prestige and experience, and spectators’ confidence.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	477-496
Number of pages	20
Journal	Eurasian Business Review
Volume	11
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s40821-019-00147-4
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 2020 Jan 1

Keywords

Professional sports
Reference group theory
Statistical discrimination
Taste-based discrimination

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Business, Management and Accounting(all)
Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)

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10.1007/s40821-019-00147-4

Cite this

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title = "Does fan discrimination exist? Mixed-method investigation of customer discrimination in Chinese professional baseball league",

abstract = "This paper focuses on customer discrimination in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). Using the 2005–2017 annual spectator attendance data, we first show that inverse customer discrimination exists for international players. We next explore the roots of customer discrimination from the perspective of economics alongside social psychology. We find customer discrimination in the CPBL a combined outcome of taste-based and statistical discrimination, and can be explained by reference group theory. This study thus aims to develop a sports fans{\textquoteright} customer discrimination scale, which is demonstrated to consist of three major elements: players{\textquoteright} characteristics, prestige and experience, and spectators{\textquoteright} confidence.",

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Does fan discrimination exist? Mixed-method investigation of customer discrimination in Chinese professional baseball league

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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