Sport Management Review,2005,8,255-270

0 2005 SMAANZ

Are Multiple Points of Attachment Necessary

to Predict Cognitive, Affective, Conative,
or BehavioralLoyalty?
Harry H. Kwon,
Florida State University

Galen T. Trail
University of Florida

Dean F. Anderson
Iowa State University

KEY WORDS: attachment, team identification, loyalty

Team identification has been shown to predict cognitive, affective,

conative, and behavioural dimensions of sport spectatorship. Recently, the
Point of Attachment Index was introduced as a comprehensive measure
of a sport fan's different points of attachment within sport. The PAI, as
studied here, is composed of six different points of attachment (i.e., team,
players, coach, sport, university, and level of sport). The primary focus
of this study was to determine whether fewer subscales from the Points
of Attachment Index would satisfactorily predict cognitive, affective,
conative, and behavioural dimensions of sport spectatorship. Data were
collected from 358 university students (154 male, 204 female. The
attachment to the team subscale explained a significant and meaningful
amount of variance in BIRGing, satisfaction, conative loyalty, and
attendance behaviour. Three of the other subscales (university, level, and
coach), when added into each of the regression equations, explained a
small but statistically significant amount of the remaining variance.

Hany H. Kwon is with the Sport Management, Recreation Management &Physical Education
Department at Florida State University. Galen T. Trail is with the Department of Tourism,
Recreation, & Sport Management at the University of Florida, and Dean F. Anderson is with
the Department of Health and Human Performance at Iowa State University. Email for Kwon:
kwon@coe.fsu.edu
256 Kwon. Trail & Anderson

It has been over a decade since Wann and Branscombe (1993) developed a scale
purported to measure fans' level of identification with their team. Considerable
effort has followed their work. Team identification has been shown to predict
cognitive (Trail, Anderson, & Fink, 2005; Trail, Fink, &Anderson, 2003), affective
(Madrigal, 1995; Matsuoka, Chelladurai, & Harada, 2003), conative (Melnick &
Warn, 2004; Warn, 2002; Wann & Branscombe, 1993), and behavioural (Laverie
& Amett, 2000) dimensions of sport spectatorship. Furthermore, many studies have
examined the construct of team identification itself and have developed scales that
attempted to measure the construct (e.g., Mahony, Madrigal, & Howard, 2000; Trail
& James, 2001; Trail, Fink et al., 2003).
These researchers have typically treated team identification as uni-
dimensional. However, recent research has suggested that there may be additional
points of attachment, rather than just attachment to the team (Funk, Mahony,
Nakazawa, & Hirakawa, 2000,2001; Funk, Mahony, & Ridinger, 2002; Kwon &
Armstrong, 2004; Robinson & Trail, 2005; Robinson, Trail, Dick, & Gillentine,
2005; Robinson, Trail, & Kwon, 2004; Trail, Robinson, Gillentine, & Dick, 2003).
Although Funk and colleagues have termed these concepts "motives", their ideas
regarding these constructs represent an attachment to a specific entity. On the other
hand, Trail and colleagues have framed these points of attachment within the identity
theory of Stryker (1968, 1980, 1994), under the guise of different role identities.
Along with this effort, recent research suggests that identification with the team, as
a unidimensional scale, may not be adequate to explain why people maintain loyalty
or why they spectate. Thus, one would expect that more points of attachment would
lead to more loyalty. Thus, sport marketers should be able to explain and predict
more about sport consumers' cognitive, affective, conative, and behavioural loyalty
with more dimensions of attachment.

Point of Attachment Index (PAI)

Recently, the Point of Attachment Index (PAI; Robinson & Trail, 2005; Trail,
Robinson, et al., 2003) was introduced as a comprehensive measure of a sport
fan's different role identities within sport. The major thrust of the PA1 is that sport
consumers may have multiple identities regarding different aspects of a sport team
(e.g. the team, the players, the coach, the community, the sport, the university, and
the level of sport). Trail, Robinson, et al. (2003) found that the seven subscales of the
PA1 had good reliability and good convergent and discriminant validity. Robinson
and Trail (2005) found good internal consistency (a = .75 - 35; AVE values = .50
to .68) within the PA1 subscales with the exception of the attraction to the university
subscale (a = .69; AVE = .48), which was only adequate. Using a modified version
of the PA1 to make it applicable to golf spectators (e.g. eliminating the attachment
Points of Attachment 257

to team and attachment to coach subscales), Robinson et al. (2004) noted good
convergent validity and internal consistency on five subscales: players, community,
sport, tour type, and charities.

Parsimony vs. Comprehensiveness

Although the multidimensional approach has attracted recent attention from sport
marketing scholars looking at sport consumers' identification with their favorite
team, much research continues to use a unidimensional approach (Melnick & Wann,
2004; Trail et al., 2005; Trail, Fink, et al., 2003). The multidimensional approach has
advantages over the unidimensional approach in that it covers a wider gamut of the
sport consumers' psychological constructs of identification. However, there is a trade
off between comprehensiveness and parsimony, which can be evaluated to some
extent by examining discriminant and predictive validity of multiple dimensions.
In two recent studies (Kwon, Anderson, & Trail, 2003; Robinson & Trail,
2005) there have been indications that a more parsimonious model of identification,
specific to multiple points of attachment, might be a better measure. Kwon et al.
(2003) used six points of attachment to explain college students' consuming and
wearing behaviour of university team licensed apparel. In their study, identification
with community was deemed irrelevant because the city itself is small and known
to be a university town. After a confirmatory factor analysis, Kwon et al. reduced
the number of points of attachment dimensions to four (identification with player,
university, team, and sport) due to high residuals and poor discriminant validity.
Further evidence can be found in the work of Robinson and Trail (2005).
Those authors used the seven points of attachment to examine aspects of the
sporting event to which the spectators were psychologically attached. The results
indicated that the mean values of identificationwith team (M= 4.95 on a 1 to 7 point
Likert-type scale), sport (M = 4.90), and university (M = 4.88) were considerably
higher than the other points of attachment (i.e., identification with level of sport,
coach, players, community, M = 3.33 - 4.40; see Table 6 of Robinson & Trail,
2005). More importantly however, attachment to team, sport, and university were
of primary importance in the resulting canonical variates: thus indicating that these
three types of identification or attachment typically subsumed the remaining points
of attachment.
Although discriminant validity is an important part of any multidimensional
model of attachment, predictive validity is just as important. Furthermore, in the
above cases, the focus of the research was on fans, not necessarily spectators. In the
Trail, Robinson, et al. (2003) research, where the focus was on comparing fans to
spectators on motives and points of attachment, the authors noted that different points
of attachment were related to different attendance motives depending on whether
258 Kwon, Trail &Anderson

the individual was solely a spectator or considered himself a fan. This indicated
that, in some instances, multiple points of attachment are relevant; especially when
examining spectators who may have low levels of team identification.
Furthermore, although Kwon et al. (2003) found that only four points
of attachment were distinct, they determined that three of those four points of
attachment (team, university, and sport) were statistically significant determinants
of five purchasing/wearing behaviours of sport-licensed apparel. This indicated that
there may be at least three distinct predictors of sport consumer behaviour.
In sum, the results of the Kwon et al. (2003) and the Robinson and Trail
(2005) studies indicated that a contraction of the number of dimensions in the PA1
might be possible. If this is true and there is a lack of discriminant validity in the
seven-factor model of PAI, then a more parsimonious model of attachment (i.e.,
a fewer number of dimensions) might be appropriate. However, it is not enough
to only test the discriminant validity of the model, predictive validity needs to be
examined as well. To test this, the relationships between the points of attachment
and sport consumers' cognitions, affect, conation, and/or behaviours need to be
evaluated. A comprehensive model should be retained if there is discriminant
validity and multiple dimensions explain variance in the dependent variables. A
more parsimonious model should be retained if there is no discriminant validity
among the points of attachment dimensions. If discriminant validity does exist in the
seven-factor model, but only a limited amount of additional variance is explained in
sport consumers' cognitions, affect, conation, and/or behaviour by the inclusion of
multiple dimensions, then a more parsimonious model again should be considered.
The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and construct
validity of the Points of Attachment Index. However, we were primarily interested
in determining whether fewer subscales of the PA1 would satisfactorily predict
cognitive, affective, conative, and behavioural dimensions of sport spectatorship.
We initially used a single dimension of the PA1 (attachment to the team) as a
predictor. We then added two more dimensions (attachment to the university and
attachment to the sport) as predictors based on the findings of Kwon and Armstrong
(2004) and Robinson and Trail (2005). Finally, we added three more dimensions
(attachment to the coach, the players, and the level of sport), based on the findings
of Trail, Robinson, et al. (2003) and Robinson, Trail, and Kwon (2004). Through
these hierarchical regression equations, we were able to evaluate the amount of
variance that each set of points of attachment explained in the cognitive, affective,
conative, and behavioural dimensions of sport spectatorship.
Points of Attachment

Method
Participants
Participants were 154 male and 204 female students (N=358) enrolled in Health
and Human Performance classes at a large mid-westem university in the United
States. The students received class credit for completing the survey. The average
age of the respondents was 20.53 (SD = 2.54), and they had attended the school
for approximately two years on average. Most of the respondents (93.6%), self
identified as CaucasianlWhite and most (92.0%) also self identified as fans of the
target team (the university's football team) for 7.4 years on average.

Instrumentation
The questionnaire included six of the seven subscales (attachment to the team,
sport, university, player, level, and coach) of the Point of Attachment Index (Trail,
Robinson, et al., 2003). These six subscales have shown good reliability and
construct validity in past research (Robinson & Trail, 2005; Trail, Robinson, et al.,
2003). Each subscale of the PA1 had three items, which were anchored by a seven
point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
The questionnaire also included a cognitive loyalty measure (the BIRGing subscale;
Trail, Anderson, & Fink, 2005), an affective loyalty measure (satisfaction subscale;
Trail et al., 2005), a conative loyalty measure (Intentions for Sport Consumption
Behaviour Scale; Trail et al., 2005), and a behavioural loyalty measure (number
of games attended). All of the items in the dependent measures used a seven point
Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), except for number
of games attended.

Data Analyses
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the PA1 (i.e., the six points of attachment
scales) was performed via structural equation modeling. Measures of fit included
Steiger's (1989) root-mean-square-error of approximation (RMSEA, a measure of
discrepancy per degrees of freedom), and the test of close fit (Browne & Cudeck,
1992). The RMSEA is thought to alleviate problems associated with model fit that
are not addressed by chi-square based statistics (Browne & Cudeck, 1992; Mulaik,
James, Van Alstine, Bennet, Lind, & Stilwell, 1989), thus those indices are not
included in the RAMONA statistical package. However, we have included the chi-
square value divided by the degrees of freedom as a frame of reference.
RMSEA values less than .05 indicate that a model has a close fit. Values of
.08 or less indicate reasonable fit, and models having RMSEA values higher than. 10
should not be considered (Browne & Cudeck, 1992). Hu and Bentler (1999) have
recently suggested that values less than .06 instead of .05 indicate that a model has
a close fit.
260 Kwon, Trail & Anderson

Internal consistency measures (alpha coefficients) for each scale or subscale,

are reported to indicate how well the items correlate with each other within a specific
scale. Values greater than .70 are assumed to be adequate (Nunnally & Bernstein,
1994). Average Variance Extracted values (AVE) were calculated to determine
whether each of the items contributed to the scale's underlying theoretical construct.
AVE values above .50 indicate that the scales have good convergent validity (Fornell
& Larcker, 1981).
Four separate hierarchical regression analyses were performed to determine
the degree to which points of attachment predicted the four dependent measures:
BIRGing, post-season satisfaction with attending, game attendance, and future
game attendance intentions. Prediction would be an indication of construct validity.
The six PA1 subscales served as independent variables. The attachment to the team
subscale was forced to enter as the first block. Then the attachment to the university
and the attachment to the sport subscales were forced to enter as the second block.
Finally, the remaining subscales (player, level, and coach) were forced to enter as
the third block. Because of the probability of the four dependent variables being
correlated, the alpha levels were set at .O1 for all analyses. The four separate
hierarchical regression analyses allowed us to compare the variance explained in
each of the dependent measures by the single subscale, the three subscales combined,
and then all six subscales together, to determine whether significant and meaningful
additional amounts of variance were explained.

Results
The RMSEA for the confirmatory factor analysis on the six-factor PA1 showed
reasonable fit (RMSEA, E = .078; CI = .069, .087; pc,oS, < 0.001, x21df= 3591120 =
2.99). In addition, only 9.8% of the residuals were greater than .10 indicating that the
sample correlation matrix and the reproduced correlation matrix did not differ much.
Bagozzi and Yi (1988) suggested that a percentage greater than 10% indicated poor
model fit. Although the RMSEA value does not indicate good fit (only reasonable
fit), the six factors showed good convergent validity and reliability (Table 1). The
alpha coefficients ranged from .83 to .87 and the AVE (Average Variance Extracted)
values ranged from .635 to .725 for the six PA1 subscales. Furthermore, no construct
correlation between any two subscales was within two standard errors of unity
(Anderson & Gerbing, 1988), nor did any squared correlation exceed the AVE value
of any referent subscale (Fornell & Larker, 1981), thus indicating discriminant
validity (Table 2). The internal consistency and the convergent validity measures for
the three dependent scales were adequate as well (Table 3). The alpha coefficients
ranged from .71 to .87 and the AVE values ranged from .48 to .75.
Points of Attachment 261

Table 1: Factor Loadings ($,) Average Variance Extracted Values (AVE), Alpha Coefficients
(a), Means (M) and Standard Deviations (SD) for the Points of Attachment Index.
Item AVE a M SD
Attachment to the team ,701 ,870 4.56 1.37
I consider myself to be a "real" fan of the basketball team .826 4.93 1.54
I would experience a loss if I had to stop being a fan of .801 4.15 1.63
the team
Being a fan of the basketball team is very important to me .883 4.56 1.47
-- --- --

Attachment to the sport .644 .830 4.66 1.50

First and foremost I consider myself a (specific sport, e.g. .817 4.87 1.71
football) fan
(Specific sport) is my favorite sport .748 3.99 1.96
I am a (specific sport) fan at all levels (e.g. high school, .839 5.07 1.59
college. professional)
Attachment to the university .635 .829 5.23 1.03
I identify with numerous aspects of the university rather .788 5.25 1.19
than with just its team
I feel a part of the university, not just its teams .816 5.12 1.21
I support the university as a whole, not just its athletic .787 5.29 1.26
teams
Attachment to the players .725 .871 3.94 1.26
I identify with an individual player@)on the team than .758 3.94 1.47
with the team
I am a big fan of specific players more than I am a fan of .929 3.92 1.40
the team
I consider myself a fan of certain players rather than a fan .859 3.90 1.37
of the team
Attachment to the level of sport .641 .829 4.60 1.26
I am a fan of collegiate (specific sport) regardless of who .760 4.98 1.50
is playing
I don't identify with one specific college (specific sport) .740 4.15 1.42
team, but collegiate (specific sport) in general
I consider myself a fan of collegiate (specific sport), and ,893 4.63 1.48
not just one specific team
Attachment to the coach .720 .873 3.96 1.28
I am a big fan of Coach (name) .714 4.56 4.41
I follow the (sport) team because I like Coach (name) .888 3.67 1.45
I am a fan of the (sport) team because they are coached by .928 3.62 1.46
Coach (name)
262 Kwon, Trail & Anderson

Table 2: Correlations among PA1 subscales.

Subscale Sport University Player Coach Level

Team .640 .542 .348 .616 .434

University .250 .287 .273

Player
Coach
Level

Table 3: Factor Loadings 0,

Average Variance Extracted Values (AVE), Alpha Coefficients
(a),Means (M)and Standard Deviations (SD) for the Dependent Subscales.

Item fl AVE a M SD
BIRGing .686 .87 4.54 1.23
I would like to let others know about my association with .804 4.74 1.31
this team
I would like to publicize my connection with this team .83 1 4.34 1.41
I would like to tell others about my association with this team .849 4.62 1.33
Satisfaction .478 .71 4.90 1.05
I was satisfied with my decision to attend .705 5.21 1.27
I was satisfied with my spectating experience .732 4.90 1.31
I was satisfied with the game experience .633 4.68 1.24
Conative loyalty .754 .84 4.43 1.23
Iam more likely to attend future games .869 4.90 1.45
Iam more likely to purchase the team's merchandise .905 4.26 1.32
I am more likely to buy (team name) clothing .829 4.11 1.38
Number of home games attended 3.89 2.62

Results of the first multiple regression analysis (Table 4), indicated that the first block
(attachment to the team) explained a significant amount of the variance in BIRGing
(R2 = .430). The second block (attachment to the university and attachment to the
sport) explained a significant, although small, amount of additional variance (AR2
= .026). The third block (attachment to the player, attachment to the level of sport,
and attachment to the coach) also explained a significant, albeit small, amount of
additional variance in BIRGing, (AR2= -019).
Points of Attachment 263

Table 4: Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Points of Attachment on BIRGing.

Model B SEB P R R2 AR2 AF dfl dfL Sig.

AF
Step 1 .656 .430 .430 265.99 1 352 < .001
Team .591 .036 .656
Step 2 .676 .457 .026 8.53 2 350 <.001
Team .517 ,047 ,574
University .217 .053 .181
sport .009 .039 .011
Step 3 .690 .476 .019 4.16 3 347 .006
Team .456 .051 .506"'
University .236 .053 .196"'
sport .063 .045 .077
Player -.043 .043 -.044
Level -.I14 .049 -.117"
Coach .135 .049 .141"

In the second multiple regression analysis (Table 5), the first block (attachmentto the
team) explained a significant amount of the variance in satisfaction (R2= .263). The
second block (attachmentto the university and attachment to the sport) explained a
significant, but small, amount of additional variance (AR2= .036). The third block
(attachment to the player, attachment to the level of sport, and attachment to the
coach) did not explain a significant amount of additional variance in satisfaction.
In the third multiple regression analysis, the first block (attachmentto team)
explained a significant amount of the variance in conations (Table 6; R2= .340). The
second block (attachment to the university and attachment to the sport) explained
a significant, although small, amount of additional variance (AR2= -019).The third
block (attachment to the player, attachment to the level of sport, and attachment
to the coach) also explained a significant, although small, amount of additional
variance in conations, (AR2= .024).
In the fourth multiple regression analysis, the first block (attachment to the
team) explained a significant amount of the variance in attendance (Table 4; R2 =
.241). Neither the second block (attachmentto the university and attachment to the
sport) nor the third block (attachmentto the player, attachment to the level of sport,
and attachment to the coach) explained a significant amount of additional variance
in attendance.
264 Kwon, Trail &Anderson

Table 5: Hierarchical Multiple Regressionof Points of Attachment on Satisfaction.

Model B SEB /j R R2 AR2 AF dfl dfL Sig.

AF
Step 1 .512 .263 .263 124.31 1 349 < .001
Team .394 .035 .512
Step 2 .547 .299 .036 8.98 2 347 < .001
Team .312 .045 .406"'
University .217 .051 .213"'
sport .021 .038 .030
Step 3 .550 .303 .004 0.64 3 344 .591
Team .292 .051 .380
University .219 .052 .214

Player -.W .042 -.053

Level .OM .049 .007
Coach ,057 ,048 .070

*** p < .001

Table 6: Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Points of Attachment on Conative Loyalty

Model B SEB /j R R2 AR2 AF dfl dfL Sig.

AF
Step 1 .583 .340 .340 183.05 1 356 <.001
Team .523 .039 .583
Step 2 .599 .359 .019 5.26 2 354 .006
Team .451 .051 .503
University .183 .057 .156

Step 3 .618 .382 .024 4.46 3 351 .004

Team .362 .056 .403"'
University .I72 .057 .146"
sport .003 .049 .004
Player -.002 .046 -.002
Level .008 ,053 .008
Coach .I82 .053 .189"
Points of Attachment 265

Table 7: Blocked Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Points of Attachment on Attendance

Model B SEB B R R2 AR2 AF dfl df2 Sig.

AF
Step 1 .490 .241 .241 111.52 1 352 <.001

Team
Step 2
Team
University
sport
Step 3
Team
University
sport
Player
Level
Coach

Discussion
The primary focus of this study was to examine the validity and reliability ofthe Points
of Attachment Index subscales. Specifically, we wanted to determine whether fewer
subscales of the PA1 would satisfactorily predict cognitive, affective, conative, and
behavioural dimensions of sport spectatorship. The PA1 had reasonable fit statistics
and the six dimensions indicated good convergent and discriminant validity. Thus,
solely based on the psychometric properties of the PAI, there is no reason to reduce
the number of dimensions.
The attachment to the team dimension explained a significant and large
amount of variance in all four sport spectator aspects (cognition, affect, conation,
and behaviour) ranging from 24% in attendance to 43% in BIRGing. The addition
of the attachment to the university and the attachment to the sport dimensions of the
PA1 to the regression equation contributed significant,but small, amounts of variance
to BIRGing, satisfaction, and conative loyalty, but not to attendance behaviour;
however the effect was due solely to attachment to the university, as attachment to
the sport was never a significanat predictor. Considering that the largest amount of
additional variance explained was only 3.6%(in Satisfaction),one might question the
added value of the above two subscales. Furthermore, when the final three subscales
(attachment to theplayers, level of sport, and coach) were entered into the equation,
266 Kwon, Trail &Anderson

a significant additional amount of variance was explained only in BIRGing and

conative loyalty. In both cases the meaningfulness of this variance (less than 2.5%)
might easily be questioned, especially considering the addition of nine items to the
questionnaire. As Cohen (1988) noted, when the variance explained is around 2%, it
is "just barely escaping triviality" @. 413) and may not be meaningful, even though
it is significant. Nevertheless, the added significant prediction was due primarily to
the effect off attachment to coach, as attachment to player was never a significant
predictor, and attachment to level was only a significant predictor of BIRGing.
As only four of the six dimensions of the Points of Attachment model were
ever predictive, these findings lend only partial support to the model. Neither
attachment to sport nor attachment to player was predictive in any of the four
regressions. Although these two dimensions make sense theoretically, more work
is needed to establish their relevance, to improve the quality of their measurement,
or both.
The students were highly identified with the university; however, attachment
to the university was only correlated with attachment to the team at approximately
.5, indicating that the shared variance was only 25%. This suggests that some
respondents view themselves as students and not necessarily fans of the team. This
is further supported in that 8% of the respondents indicated that they were not fans
of the team at all. This aspect needs to be researched further in the future.
The ability of the single dimension of attachment to the team to explain a
large amount of variance in cognitive dimensions of sport spectatorship, BIRGing in
this case, is also not surprising as Trail and colleagues (Trail et al., 2005; Trail, Fink
et al., 2003) have shown that team identification explained variance in both BIRGing
and CORFing. Furthermore, both Madrigal (1995) and Matsuoka et al. (2003) have
shown that team identification is related to satisfaction. However, in both cases
correlations between the two were considerably smaller than the present results.
Team identification has been shown to explain variance in conative loyalty as well.
Wann and colleagues have shown positive relationships between their measure of
team identification and various aspects of conative loyalty (Melnick & Wann, 2004;
Wann, 2002; Wann & Branscombe, 1993) as have Matsuoka et al. (2003). James and
Trail (in press) also showed that team identification explained a significant amount
of variance in future attendance consumptions and future merchandise consumption
(conative loyalty). Finally, Laverie and Arnett (2000) showed that identity salience
was positively correlated with attendance, but attachment to the team was not. In
general, our results support the previous research that indicated that attachment to
the team does predict different aspects of sport fandom and/or spectatorship, at least
to some extent.
Unfortunately, little research has examined the relationships among the other
points of attachment and cognitive, affective, conative, or behavioural dimensions.A
few exceptions exist however. Kwon et al. (2003) found that identification with the
Points of Attachment 267

team, with the university, and with the particular sport were significant determinants
of purchasing and wearing behaviours of licensed sport-apparel. It also peripherally
supported the findings of Robinson and Trail (2005) that identification with team,
sport, and university are perhaps the primary aspects of points of attachment.
However, in both of these cases, team identification was the primary component
andlor predictor.
There has been no research as far as we know that has looked at all of
the points of attachment together and the relationship to different aspects of sport
spectatorship or sport fandom. Thus, our results cannot be compared to any previous
research in this regard. Regardless, a small but significant amount of additional
variance was explained in only two of the dependent variables.
Since at least four of the six-dimensions of the PA1 are reliable and valid,
the issue of the usefulness (predictive ability) of multiple dimensions becomes
important. Two arguments could be made here. The first being that the amount of
additional variance explained by the combination of identificationwith the university
and identification with the sport explained barely more than a "tivial" amount of
variance in these four dependent variables. Furthermore, when the additional three
dimensions were added they were not significant in half of the dependent variables.
Thus, including multiple dimensions of the PA1 in a survey may not be worth the
extra time necessary for the respondents to answer the additional 6 to 15 items in
certain situations. In addition, a more parsimonious model (i.e., fewer dimensions
-probably the four that have been shown here to be predictive) may be easier to
interpret and evaluate for researchers. Practitioners would benefit because of ease
of data collection and applicability.
The counter argument is this. There is theoretical value in, and statistical
support for, a multidimensional model. Just because the increase in variance
explained in the dependent variables is small, it does not mitigate the value of
the added prediction, especially considering the correlations between the different
points of attachment. Three of five dimensions combined (i.e., other than attachment
to a team) did explain a significant amount of additional variance (up to 4.5%)
in cognitive, affective, and conative aspects of sport spectatorship. Furthermore,
fewer dimensions may not be appropriate in all situations. Each sport organisation
has its own unique situation. Some organisations may have a great star player and
thus the player attachment subscale might be more applicable in those situations
and might explain more variance in cognitive, affective, conative and behavioural
loyalty. Some organisations have a great coach and thus the attachment to the
coach subscale would be applicable in those situations. In the present data set, the
university analysed did not have an extremely popular player or a great coach. This
could have had, and probably did have, a significant impact on the relevance of
those two subscales to the respondents.
268 Kwon, Trail & Anderson

In addition, because a large percentage of respondents indicated that they

were fans, points of attachment that may be more relevant to spectators. For
example, sport and level of sport according to Trail, Robinson, et al. (2003), may not
be highly associated with the dependent measures in this analysis, but may still be
important aspects of specific game spectatorship. For example, an individual might
be in Boston on a business trip and even though the individual is not a Red Sox fan,
he or she decides to attend a game because he or she likes the game of baseball.
This is true spectatorship with no allegiance to a particular participating team.
The dependent measures in this study represent aspects of loyalty, be it cognitive,
affective, conative or behavioural, and thus should be highly correlated with points
of attachment focused on the teamlorganisation. However, those who are solely
spectators and who are not highly identified with the team, as in the example above,
would not exhibit loyalty, and therefore dependent measures of loyalty would not
necessarily be valid measures of spectatorship for those individuals. Thus, each
sport organisation would need to evaluate its own situation before determining
which subscales might be most applicable and most meaningful.
The current study has its limitation in terms of generalisability. Even though
we are not claiming that the results can be generalised to other institutions, the
limited generalisability from a convenience sampling method should be noted as
well. The data were collected from students who were enrolled in the Department
of Health and Human Performance. Thus, it can be conjectured that the general
population may respond to the psychological attachment items differently. The data
from a convenience sample may not represent the population parameters adequately.
Consequently, future research needs to expand the framework to as many situations
as possible.

Recommendationsand Summary
In sum, the reliability and construct validity of the six-dimension PA1 was
encouraging. The attachment to the team subscale explained a significant and
meaningful amount of variance in BIRGing, satisfaction, conative loyalty, and
attendance behaviour. Three of the other subscales significantly explained only
a minimal amount of additional variance. However, academics and practitioners
should be careful in eliminating the other points of attachment until fbther research
is done. There may be instances in which the other attachment subscales, especially
attachment to university or to a specific sport, might be applicable. The same may
apply to attachment to player or coach in specific instances. Further research should
assist in these determinations.
Points of Attachment 269

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