ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research was twofold: (a) to test if team identity mediated the relation between sport fan motives and team loyalty in professional indoor football and (b) to determine if selected personal and social-situational factors moderated the relation between sport fan motives and team identity and between team identity and team loyalty. To assess the mediating role of team identity a likelihood ratio test was used to test if the chi-square differences between two nested models (i.e., full and restricted) were statistically significant. To evaluate the moderating role of selected demographic and team endearing variables (e.g., men versus women, high versus low scores in team success) onto the relation between motives of sport fans and team identity and between team identity and team loyalty, a test for structural invariance was used to test a baseline unconstrained model against constrained models across different conditions. The tests of mediation show that there is sufficient evidence to support the mediational role of team identity in the relation between sport fan motives and team loyalty. The strongest piece of evidence comes from the finding that there was no statistically significant improvement in the restricted Structural Equation Model (SEM) when compared to the unrestricted SEM model. The results for the tests of moderation show partial support for the moderating roles of selected demographic and socio-situational variables in the relation between sport fan motives and team identity and between team identity and team loyalty. Statistical evidence was only found for the moderating roles of age, income, and marital status in the relation between sport fan motives and team identity and of product delivery in the relation between team identity and team loyalty.
