What factors influence fans’ gameday recycling?
- ugoarbieu
- Jan 6
- 2 min read
Large-scale events in the sports industry have significant environmental consequences and create waste management challenges for the organizers and the surrounding communities. This PhD dissertation provides support for two contextual variables affecting public recycling behaviors of sports fans and distinguishes public recycling behavior from personal recycling behavior.
In the first study, the author found recycling norms strongly predict recycling intentions for fans in a positive mood. Conversely, it is recycling attitude that is a strong predictor of recycling intention for a fan in a negative mood. Second, despite a lack of focus on environmental credibility in association with recycling programs, the communication literature suggests that environmental credibility of sports organizations when they design environmental programs is potentially an important factor for fans to engage in these programs. The sport organizations are the source of communication in any Zero Waste effort. This investigation shows that the credibility of the sports organization as a source of recycling communication affects fan’s intentions to engage with these programs and recycle.
Over 150 NASCAR fans at a NASCAR raceway were surveyed about their recycling intentions, fan identification, and their perceptions of NASCAR Green’s environmental credibility. Fans who considered NASCAR Green credible reported higher recycling attitudes and intended to recycle more items at the raceway. Fan attitude toward recycling at the raceway fully mediated the relationship between environmental credibility of NASCAR and fan recycling intention. More importantly, this relationship was significantly stronger for fans with above average identification as NASCAR fans. These results suggest that environmental credibility of sports organizations is particularly important for their fans as opposed to casual spectators.
CITE: Shahri, M. (2021). Sports fans public recycling: How mood and environmental credibility affect recycling on game day. Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, Pennsylvania.
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