Service Quality in the Eyes of Sporadic Spectators : A Quantitative Study for HV71 with a Modified Sportscape Framework

Introduction: Sports consumption is a unique human experience in which consumers invest both money and emotions where the game becomes the main focus of the event and constitutes what is known to be a sporting event. Sports organizations are required to track how their service quality is perceived during these events in order to understand the values of their spectators and to evaluate levels of satisfaction. As prior seasons in the SHL has shown an average decreasing number of attendances at the arenas, a possible issue may exist, suggesting that further understanding about how the service is perceived becomes useful. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how sporadic spectators experience the service quality offered by HV71 at Kinnarps Arena. Moreover, five dimensions within service quality are implemented to distinguish the perceived service quality among sporadic spectators in various areas, and how it relates to the intention to attend more games. Based on that, two research questions and six hypotheses were formulated for this thesis. Method: To fulfill the purpose of the study, a quantitative method was conducted. The data was collected through a survey distributed by HV71 to spectators attending at Kinnarps Arena during the 2019/2020 SHL season. Due to the quantitative method, a deductive approach became useful as hypotheses with a modified framework were developed based on an existing theory. The theoretical anchoring includes prior research in the field of service quality and how it is associated with sporting events, which has been incorporated when analyzing the empirical findings. Conclusion: The empirical findings in this study presents how the sporadic spectator perceives the service offered at Kinnarps Arena, whereas some differences between the dimensions exist. Moreover, the findings showed that each dimension are positively related with the perceived service quality, while identifying that there is not a strong relationship between the perceived service quality and intention to attend more games. Some findings suggested that other factors contribute to the intention to attend more, and not solely the perceived service quality