Role of Fanship in College Satisfaction through Using SNS for Sports

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of being a fan for college sports on college students' motivations of using sport-related social network site and their overall college satisfaction under four conditions from two binary variables: Domestic students vs. International students, high frequency vs. low frequency. Using data from 289 college students, the findings indicate the positive relationship between fanship and motivations, fanship and college satisfaction, and motivation (e.g., entertainment and self-status) and college satisfaction. Interrelationships among the constructs vary between domestic and international students. Furthermore, the effect of fanship for high frequency group on motivations is relatively higher than low frequency group. These findings suggest that a sport-related SNS might provide greater benefits for college students' experiences on campus.

Headnote

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of being a fan for college sports on college students' motivations of using sport-related social network site and their overall college satisfaction under four conditions from two binary variables: Domestic students vs. International students, high frequency vs. low frequency. Using data from 289 college students, the findings indicate the positive relationship between fanship and motivations, fanship and college satisfaction, and motivation (e.g., entertainment and self-status) and college satisfaction. Interrelationships among the constructs vary between domestic and international students. Furthermore, the effect of fanship for high frequency group on motivations is relatively higher than low frequency group. These findings suggest that a sport-related SNS might provide greater benefits for college students' experiences on campus.

Keywords: sport fan, motivation, SNS usage, college satisfaction, and domestic and international students.

Introduction

Social interaction plays an important role in human well-being. Fortunately, sports can serve as an easy and quick medium through which individuals can form affiliation with friends because sport exhibits the human spirit and social bonding (Funk, Mahony, & Ridinger, 2002; Wann, 1995). For example, college students can easily build a social relationship by following and talking about intercollegiate sports such as football and basketball, resulting in increased student interactions, friendships, sentiments, and social affiliation with various groups (Duderstadt, 2001; Sperber, 2000). Sports fans also spend their spare time online and participate in activities such as playing, discussing, watching, and shopping. These sports fans comprise about 19% of all Internet users in the United States (Sachoff, 2008, n.p.). In addition, the growth of social network sites (SNS) could further assist individuals in developing social interactions through sports.

In 2015, Facebook, the most popular SNS, has 1.49 billion active users (Smith, 2015, n.p.). Connecting with other users is one of the most influential motivations for online users to formulate an online community (Clavio, 2008). Many college students maintain social relationships with their peer groups through Facebook. Previous research revealed that most college students, approximately between 85% and 99%, enjoy using Facebook (Junco, 2012, p. 162). We live in a high technology generation and can connect with others through various means, including SNS, virtually anywhere and with an increasing number of devices. For example, Choi (2006) revealed that 85% of the study participants "listed the maintenance and reinforcement of pre-existing social networks as their main motive for Cyworld use" (p. 181).

Facebook Groups provide a useful medium that members can participate in and on which they can discuss issues based on their interests and activities (Gordon & Stephens, 2007). Thus, sports and various SNSs, especially Facebook groups, provide more opportunities than ever for college sports fans to facilitate their social relationships. Nevertheless, this popularity of sportsrelated social media usage has not received equal research attention. Of note, no research has ever empirically focused on the potential structural relationships among sports fanship, motivations to use sports-related SNS, and college students' life satisfaction.

In sum, this study focuses on the effects of being a fan for college sports on college students' motivations to participate in sport-based SNS and thus their overall satisfaction with college experiences. More precisely, considering the popularity of intercollegiate sports and college students' active participation in Facebook sports groups, the researchers posit that students who are college sports fans would be highly motivated to join Facebook groups and subsequently become more satisfied with their college life. This study further explores this proposed structural relationship among fanship, motivations, and college life satisfaction in four different conditions determined by a student's country of origin (i.e., domestic vs. international) and usage frequency (i.e., high vs. low).

Conceptual Framework and Background

Sports Fan and Facebook Groups Usage

The popularity of college football is generally known as the third-most favorite sport in US, behind only the National Football League and Major League Baseball. College football is the second-most popular sport in the United States (U.S.) sports landscape (Dodd, 2015) as well as among those who have a college degree (Clavio & Walsh, 2014). Of note, college-aged young millennial are often SNS users. According to the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR), among the 36,950 college students surveyed in 127 U.S. and Canadian universities, 90% of college students utilize SNS, and 97% of them are active users of Facebook on a daily basis (Smith & Caruso, 2010, p. 162). This is a reason why some athletic departments now perceive social media as a useful platform to market college athletics and have progressively incorporated Facebook and Twitter in their marketing programs to facilitate ticket giveaways, fan interaction, and general feedback (Tomko, 2011). For example, well-promoted social media allowing easy access to college basketball results in more attendance in regular season and tournament games (Clavio & Walsh, 2014). Further, Facebook provides a way for sports fans to communicate with each other. According to GMR Marketing, about 41% of people are more likely to check breaking sports news through Facebook and Twitter than both of national news websites and traditional mass media such as television (13%) and radio (4%). Interestingly, 83% sports fans even try to log on social media during live broadcasting on television as well as 63% check sports updates in stadiums (Laird, 2012, n.p.).

SNS provides a distinctive function to community members. SNS offers a place for members in the same community to interact each other on a virtual community page such as Facebook Groups (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007), helps companies communicate with their customers and increase brand value (Qualman, 2012), and attracts consumer attention (Kane, Fichman, Gallaugher, & Glasser, 2009). Many sport teams, therefore, try to establish online social communities by creating Facebook fan pages so that sports fans can join and stay in touch with fans affiliated with the same teams. For example, the Dallas Cowboys is the most popular NFL team on Facebook and has more than 7,500,000 Likes. Even the least popular NFL franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars, also attracts over 480,000 Likes on its Facebook fan pages (NFL Teams on Facebook, 2014, n.p.).

Sports fans tend to maintain their social identities by affiliating themselves with one or more sports teams, or a specific group or community such as a university, city, or local sports team (Haridakis, 2010). Fan pages can lure sport fans to share their interests and ideas with others because fan pages often provide team-themed information, activities, breaking sports news, and score updates (Reysen, Lloyd, Katzarska-Miller, Lemker, & Foss, 2010). Thus, through these interactions, fans can strengthen their interpersonal relationships with other admirers of their affiliated teams, and thus promote common goals and value (Liao & Welsch, 2005).

Motivations for SNS Usage

Increasing popularity of SNS has gradually become one of the most interesting research topics, attracting researchers to examine the underlying reasons that motivate people to partake SNS and social media (Brandtzæg & Heim, 2009; Jung, Youn, & McClung, 2007; Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Adopting uses and gratifications theory, many studies have investigated motivations for SNS. The uses and gratifications theory provides a conceptual framework to explain the way people satisfy their psychological needs and desires by consuming media (Katz, Blunder, & Gurevitch, 1974; Roy, 2009). Studies based on the uses and gratifications approach have shown that Facebook can help users gain interpersonal feedback and peer support and affect individuals' self-esteem (Ruggiero, 2000). On Facebook, users can join selected groups according to their priorities of needs so that users can share common interests with peers in the same communities. The desire for integration and social interaction thus is the most prominent motivation for Internet users to work in SNS as people try to gain a sense of belonging and connection with family, friends, and communities (McQuail, 2005).

Most researchers have found a positive association between motivations to use SNS (e.g., informational, recreational, communicative, entertainment, self-status, or socialization) and social interaction (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009), and demonstrated that maintaining friendships and information seeking are major reasons for people to use SNS (Raacke & Bonds - Raacke, 2008). Jung, Youn, and McClung (2007) suggested six motivations to use SNS in Korea, including entertainment, self-expression, pass time, communication, profession advancement, and trends. Brandtzaeg and Heim (2009) also identified four reasons to use SNS in Norway, including information, entertainment, social interaction, and personal identity, and found that social interaction was the most impactful drive for SNS participation. Furthermore, other researcher (Nyland, Marvez, & Beck, 2007) discovered that social interaction is the most influential gratification that encourages people to participate in SNS to gain peer support, get along with interesting people, belong to a community, and keep in touch with friends. In addition, peer groups have been shown to positively influence an individual's socialization than other group agents including parents, school, etc. (Eitzen & Sage, 1986), and individuals' affiliation to a community is the most important factor for human socialization (Miracle & Rees, 1994). Consistently, interpersonal relationships satisfy the need of users the most (Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000), because one of the most attractive advantages for using SNS is communication that helps users to engage in interpersonal utility.

One study found that the information motivation of SNS usage was a stronger driver for social involvement than was entertainment motivation, even though the purposes of online SNS groups were to satisfy social contacts, community engagement, and attachment to the whole community through networks (Kavanaugh, Reese, Carroll, & Rosson, 2005). For sports fans, sports Web or Facebook Groups provides breaking news about the team issues and the progress in a game, and team information about rankings, schedules, or specific promotional events. For example, most professional or intercollegiate sports teams have launched Facebook Group fan pages to satisfy the needs of sports fans. Consequently, by joining these fan pages, sports fans can now share their knowledge with others who also have similar interests and fulfill their desire to improve and maintain human relationships (Korgaonkar & Wolin, 1999). Thus, sports fans enjoy sharing their personal opinions and discussing several issues in regards to individual athletes or team performance and general topics happening in sports leagues. In light of these viewpoints, this study suggests that becoming college sports fans who have fanship for a certain intercollegiate sport lead to motivations to use Facebook fan pages. Therefore, the researchers hypothesized:

HI: College sports fanship will be significantly related to motivations for sportrelated SNS usage.

College Life Satisfaction and SNS Use for Intercollegiate Sports

Most educational institutes have focused on strengthening life satisfaction of students (O'Neill, 1981). According to Yoh, Mohr, and Gordon (2008), college satisfaction refers to college students' overall feeling about their experience in college. Satisfaction focuses on how people live their lives in favorable ways, and the term satisfaction connotes a perceived better quality of life (Cummins & Nistico, 2002). College satisfaction mostly has defined with two different terms: Quality of College Life (QCL) (Sirgy, Grzeskowiak, & Rahtz, 2007; Yoh et ah, 2008) and Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) of students (Cha, 2003). The use of media technology as well as access to leisure activities have assessed QCL (Wei & Leung, 1998) because the use of media technology as a leisure activity plays an important role in predicting psychological wellbeing (Cotten, 2008).

McQuail (2005) notes social interaction and integration are the most explicit motivation for online members to use an SNS. Social capital plays a role in understanding social interactions among people (Lin, 2001; Putnam, 2004). The resources generating in interpersonal social relationships are broadly referred to social capital (Coleman, 1988). A definition of social capital is "the resources accumulated through the relationships among people" (Ellison et ah, 2007, p. 1145) and appreciated in various ways (Adler & Kwon, 2002), and people can regard social capital as both a cause and an effect of social relationships (Williams, 2006). Individuals are more likely to have social capital in a large and diverse network than a small and less diverse network. People often are willing to earn social capital through frequent interactions with peers and new acquaintances (Resnick, 2002). Additionally, much research has taken place to examine the potential positive when researchers see the uses of the correlations between motivations of Internet usage (e.g., informational, recreational, communication, or entertainment motivation) and social capital (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Specifically, informational motivations, online news, political blogs, and virtual communities are all positively related to social capital. In contrast, entertainment and diversion motivations, games, and online movies are negatively related to social capital (Shah, Schmierbach, Hawkins, Espino, & Donavan, 2002). This is why people tend to use Facebook to keep in touch with friends. Because communication with others on SNS can enhance individuals' self-esteem and improved life satisfaction, using SNS help could help individuals to maintain and strengthen their social networks (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten, 2006). That is, college students can identify with common issues of peer groups, feel a sense of belonging, and connect with friends and their community, allowing them to accumulate social capital that is closely associated with life satisfaction (Ellison et al., 2007).

Some also consider social interaction as the most central part of leisure activities (Auld & Case, 1997), and often people have the most positive experiences with their friends (Leung & Lee, 2005). Previous studies also suggest that an individual's well-being in society most likely relates to social interaction (Ellison et al., 2007; Valkenburg et al., 2006). Of note, sport is the most important and easiest for individual's affiliation with friends because sport exhibits human spirit and social bonding (Funk et al., 2002). Intercollegiate sports are helpful for college students' interactions such as friendships and social affiliations with peer groups (Sperber, 2000; Duderstadt, 2001). Further, social capital allows individuals to gain opportunities and information that are unavailable in other ways, improving people's well-being and quality of life (Lin, 2001). For example, an early study reveals that friendship and social integration are positively related to college satisfaction (Spady, 1970). Satisfaction itself shows a positive quality of life (Cha, 2003; Sirgy, et al., 2007), and college satisfaction reflects the overall feeling of students' experience in campus life. Thus, engaging in sports relates positively to improved quality of life (Wankel & Berger, 1990).

College sports, in particular, college football, are as popular as, if not more so than, professional sports among college students in the United States. College sports potentially permeate all university campuses because college sports allow students to gain pride by attracting media attention from all over the country (Crompton, 2004). College students' pride of belonging to a collegiate sport institution could affect positively individual students' emotions through forming a positive image of themselves because their university features a prominent, big-time athletic program (Johnson & Whitehead, 2000). People feel pleasurable and triumphant when they set their personal meanings on a sport with individual involvement (Havitz & Dimanch, 1999), and the team then serves as a means to strengthen their status and show personality (Crompton, 2004). Emotional involvement with their college teams enhance college students' sense of motivation and interest into their college athletic teams so that college students can feel better about themselves and stay committed to their college. Thus, online activities of college students seeking gratifications through using Facebook sports groups fan pages may have a positive impact on their social capital, ultimately college life satisfaction. This leads to following hypotheses:

H2: Motivations for sport-related SNS usage will be significantly related to college satisfaction.

H3: College sports fanship will be significantly related to college satisfaction.

Recently, sociodemographic characteristics such as race and ethnicity researchers have investigated different types of SNS use. Cultural background is a crucial sociodemographic variable that could affect how students use SNS for sport-related purposes. Asian countries such as China and Korea generally observe collectivism, whereas Western cultures such as the United States are more likely to associate with individualism (Cho, Kwon, Gentry, Jun, & Kropp, 1999). Previous studies have provided some preliminary evidence showing that students with different cultural orientations use SNS for different purposes. U.S. college students are more likely to use SNS for seeking entertainment, whereas Asian college students (e.g., Korean) have greater motivation for information and social support (Kim, Sohn, & Choi, 2011). Accordingly, this study hypothesized that:

H4: The relationships among fanship, motivations, and college life satisfaction will be moderated by country of origin (Domestic vs. International students).

Another stream of research has focused on the frequency of SNS participation. In fact, the frequency of Internet usage is also an important factor to predict individuals' psychological well-being in online activities (Cotten, 2008). Previous studies have intended to classify Internet users as either heavy or light users, and investigated the relationship between usage frequency and different motivations (Korgaonkar & Wolin, 1999; Roy, 2009). Consistent with previous studies studying frequency of using SNS, the researchers hypothesized:

H5: The relationships among fanship, motivations, and college life satisfaction will be moderated by frequency (High vs. Low frequency).

Method

Participants

The participants were college students (N = 289) at a large southeastern university playing in National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The participants consisted of a relatively even mix of male (N = 153, 52.9%) and female (N = 136, 47.1%). There were 40.8% Whites, 5.2% Blacks, 15.2% Hispanics, 37.1% Asian, and 1.7% listed as Others. The mean age was 22.43 years (SD = 4-78).

Procedures and Data Analysis

The researchers used AMOS 8.0 and SPSS version 18 to analyze the day. The researchers carried out Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test the psychometric property of the survey instruments and then Structural Equation Modeling to test this study's hypotheses. The researchers accessed the reliability of the construct indicators with Cronbach's alpha, Construct Reliability (CR), and Average Variance Extracted (AVE). In addition, the researchers accessed the overall fit of the measurement and structural models based on the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker Lewis Index (TLI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA).

Measures

The researchers used six motives, including interpersonal utility (IPU), entertainment (ENT), pass time (PT), self-status (SST), information (IFM), and socialization (SCZ) to represent college students' motivations to participate in sports-related SNS. The researchers determined the inclusion of these six motives by two steps. First, The researchers conducted a literature review to identify suitable motives for SNS usage among college students. Previous studies examined college students' SNS usage by using several motives such as SCZ, ENT, SST, IFM (Park et al., 2009), IPU, SCZ (Lou, Nickerson, & McMorris, 2012), PT, ENT, IPU, SCZ (Kim, Kim, & Nam, 2010), and ENT (Lin & Lu, 2011). The researchers subsequently chose the six motives because they are in common usage to measure college students' motivations to engage in SNS. College students with higher scores indicated they had higher motivations for using sports-related SNS than those with lower scores. Second, an expert panel containing faculty from sport management and communication further reviewed the six selected motives. According to the feedback of the panel, all six motives were appropriate and thus the researchers retained them.

To measure the six motives for SNS usage among college students, this study adapted 11 items from the Computer-Mediated Communication motivations scale (CMC, Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000) to measure IPU (a = .95), ENT (a = .91), and PT (a = .94), six items from the Scale of Motivation for Online Sport Consumption (SMOS, Hur, Ko, & Valacich, 2007) to measure IFM (a = .91) and SCZ (a = .95), and three items from Park, Kee, and Valenzuela's (2009) scale to measure SST (a = .89).

In addition, the researchers adapted five items from the Sport Fanship Scale (SFS, Warm, 1995) to access participants' level of fanship (a = .96). The researchers measured the outcome variable, College satisfaction (CS), with three items they adapted from Sirgy, Grzeskowiak, and Rahtz (2007) (a = .95). The researchers measured all survey items on a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Results

Measurement Model

The results of CFA yielded an acceptable model fit (x2 - 712.05, df = 322, x2/df = 2.21, RMSEA = .07, CFI = .95, IFI = .95, TLI = .95, Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). All factor loadings exceeded the 0.7 threshold and ranged between .80 and .95. All loading of items on measurement model were statistically significant (p < .001).

The researchers examined the construct reliability estimates of the measurement model using AVE and CR. The AVE values were greater than .50, and CR values also met the suggested .70 cutoff (Hair et ah, 2006). In addition, the Cronbach's alpha of all survey constructs exceeded the .70 threshold, providing evidence for internal consistency and reliability (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Furthermore, the researchers carried out a correlation analysis for discriminant validity among all factors to test discriminant validity. The inter-construct correlations were all below .85 and ranged between .03 and .79, suggesting discriminant validity (Kline, 2005).

Hypotheses 1-3

The results of the SEM showed a good model fit (xz = 712.05, df = 322, x2/df = 2.21, p < .001, RMSEA = .07, CFI = .95, IFI = .95, TLI = .95). First, the results fully supported hypothesis 1. Specifically, fanship has a positive impact on IPU (ß = .48, p < .001), ENT (ß = .53, p < .001), PT (ß = .31, p < .001), IFM (ß = .24, p < .001), SCZ (ß = .51, p < .001), and SST (ß = .43, p < .001), suggesting that sport fans are mostly driven to participate in sportsrelated SNS from such motivations.

Furthermore, among the six motivations for SNS usage, only the paths between ENT (ß - .17, p < .01) CS and SST (ß = .27, p < .001) and CS were significant, providing partial support for hypothesis 2. Last, the results of SEM revealed that fanship was significantly related to CS (ß - .57, p < .001), and thus supported hypothesis 3. The results from hypotheses 1-3 are visible in Figure 1.

Hypothesis 4

The researchers conducted a multiple-group SEM to understand whether U.S. students (N = 152) and international students (N = 137) had differences in the relationships among fanship, motivations, and college life satisfaction (hypothesis 4). The result of a chi-square difference test (Ax2 = 30.88, df = 20, p -.06, x2 < 31.41, p > .05) was not significant from group invariance (unconstrained model: x2 = 1317.46, df = 644, x2/df = 2.05, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06, measurement weight: x2 = 1348.34, df = 664, x2/df = 2.03, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06).

This result indicates that, compared with the results from the international students, the fanship of domestic students had significantly weaker effects on IPU (ßdomestic = 0.43 vs. ßinterrmtionai = 0.57, p < .001), ENT (ßdomestic = 0.29 vs. ßmtemati(nal = 0.48, p < .001), SCZ (ßdomes[ic = 0.45 vs. ßintemationd = 0.67, p < .001), and SST (ßdümestic = 0.27 VS. ßmtematl0nal = 0.57, p < .001) hut stronger effects on IFM (ßdutneslic = 0.28 vs. ßintemationd = 0.09, p < .001) and PT (ßdomestic = 0.61 vs. ßintemational = 0.50, p < .001). In terms of the direct effect of fanship on college life satisfaction, a stronger effect was among domestic college students than among international students' level of fanship, and had a stronger impact on their college life satisfaction (CS) than that of the international students (ßJojneslic = 0.63 vs. ßmlemationa[ = 0.51, p < .001).

Furthermore, the effects of the six motivations on college students' life satisfaction also varied between the two groups of students. For domestic, U.S. students, similar to the results from hypothesis 2, ENT (ß =.48, p < .001) and SST (ß =.57, p < .001) accounted for their overall satisfaction with their college experience. On the contrary, none of the six motivations significantly determined international students' overall college satisfaction - evidence supported hypothesis 4, which predicts that the interrelationships among fanship, motivations for SNS usage, and college life satisfaction vary between international and domestic students. Table 1 and 2 summarize the results of hypothesis 4 testing.

Hypothesis 5

To test hypothesis 5, the researchers further classified participants into two independent groups the frequency of SNS usage determined. Participants in the low frequency group (N = 159) used the sport-related SNS few than one time daily, whereas those in the high frequency group (N = 130) visited the sport-related SNS twice or more on a daily basis. A multi-group SEM of the unconstrained model (x2 = 1207.31, df = 644, x2/df = 1.88, CFI = .93, RMSEA = .06) and measurement model (x2 = 1226.733, df = 664, x2/df = 1.85, CFI = .93, RMSEA = .05) showed an acceptable fit of the data.

Regarding the hypothesized moderation effect by usage frequency, the results showed, regardless of the two group memberships, participants' fanship significantly affected their college life satisfaction and all six motivations for SNS usage, except ENT in the low frequency group and IFM in the high frequency group (see Figure 2). More importantly, compared with the high frequency group, the low frequency group exhibited significantly stronger fanship effects on IFM (ßlow = 0.38 vs. ßhigh = 0.01, p < .001) but significantly weaker fanship impacts on IPU (ßlnw = 0.23 vs. ßhigh = 0.61, p < .001), ENT (ßbw = 0.10 vs. ßhigh = 0.55, p < .001), PT (ßlow = 0.29 vs. A* = 0-71, P < -001), SCZ (fito = 0.30 vs. ßlugh = 0.61, p < .001), SST (ßhw = 0.32 vs. = 0.42, p < .001), and CS (ßlow = 0.48 vs. ßhiglt = 0.78, p < .001). Fast, the results also suggested that participants in the low and high frequency groups varied in the path between entertainment and college life satisfaction (ßlow = 0.21 vs. ßlligh = 0.02, p < .001). In sum, evidence supported hypothesis 5, which predicted that usage frequency further moderates the structural relationships among fanship, motivations for SNS usage, and college life satisfaction.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the structural relationships among college students' fanship, motivations for sport-related SNS usage, and their satisfaction with college lives. According to extant literature, people often use SNSs such as Friendster, CyWorld, MySpace, Twitter, or Facebook, or combinations of these, to present themselves, build their social networks, and maintain the links with others (Ellison et al., 2007). Nevertheless, existing studies on SNSs have predominantly focused on the network structure of friendship of what motivates individuals to join particular communities (Backstrom, Huttenlocher, Kleinberg, & Lan, 2006). In this study, we investigated the relationships among fanship, motivations to use Facebook sports groups, and college life satisfaction, by extension, to different effects of U.S. students and international students, and low frequency and high frequency users on the relationships.

Fanship and Motivations for SNS Usage

The results of the study showed that the need to discuss sports with their peer students, pass free time, find entertainment, acquire information about sports, socialize with others, and seek self-status when using sport-based SNS tend to motivate college students who are fans of intercollegiate sports. Importantly, college students' fanship can contribute to their college life satisfaction both directly (i.e., hypothesis 3) and indirectly (i.e., hypothesis 2) through the entertainment motivation (ENT) and social status motivation (SST). This result provides an important implication for higher education institutions. First, the importance of being a sport fan for college students is not deniable. According to the results, avid fans are the ones who are more satisfied with their college lives. These individuals are also highly motivated to participate in sport-based SNS. Accordingly, school officials should develop sport-based SNS forums for students and fans to engage in SNS discussions.

Interestingly, when one further divides the student body based on a student's nationality, domestic, U.S. students exhibit a structural relationship among fanship, motivations for SNS usage, and college life satisfaction that is different from that of international students. First, although fanship relates closely to all motivations to use sport-based SNS for domestic students, fanship has no effect on international students' need for information (IMF). Moreover, for international students, their fanship has stronger impacts on motivations that relate more closely to the social aspect, including interpersonal utility, entertainment, socialization, and self-status, compared with their domestic counterparts. In contrast, domestic college students are more likely to consider participations in sport-based SNS a simple tool to kill time. These differences between domestic and international students could ascribe to the differences in their cultural backgrounds. Previous studies that argued that U.S. users representing individualism are more likely to use the Internet for seeking information, while users with collectivistic cultural background, such as those in Hong Kong, tend to join the Internet for seeking social interaction (Chau, Cole, Massey, Montoya-Weiss, »Sc O'Keefe, 2002).

Of note, two motivations for SNS usage, including entertainment and self-status, determine only domestic college students' life satisfaction. Thus, offering sport-based SNS that focuses on fulfilling students' need for entertainment and self-esteem, two important indicators of social capital and subsequently college life satisfaction would benefit only domestic students.

Services such as e-mail and instant messaging allow college students to establish or maintain friendship with their high school friends after entering different colleges and becoming apart from each other (Cummings, Fee, »Sc Kraut, 2006). In contrast, college students often are proud of themselves as being members of collegiate sports belonging in the NCAA Division I (Johnson & Whitehead, 2000), thus boosting college students' status and personality (Crompton, 2004). According to Crompton (2004), media all over the country pay attention to collegiate sports. For example, on a college football game day, students tailgate and make plans with others to enjoy the game. For them, performance of the team is extremely important in their life. College sport is not just a sport per se but a culture that is the center of college students' life. Because the continuation of existing relationships for students who recently entered colleges is pivotal to many SNSs and the prominence of college sports on college campuses in the United States, domestic students might have well accustomed to sport-based SNS. Thus, domestic students may be more likely to be concerned with self-status and the entertainment value that associate with college sports than do international students.

Sport-based SNS Usage and College Satisfaction

Another interesting result indicates that being a college sports fan exerts different impacts on college students' satisfaction with their college life that their SNS usage frequency are determine. First, as the researchers expected, light users or those who visit sport-based SNS once a few per day exhibited weaker fanship effects on interpersonal utility, pass time, socialization, self-status and a stronger fanship effect on information, compared with the heavy users. This patter is straightforward. Compared with heavy users, light users only log onto sport-based SNS once a fewer per day primarily for the need to obtain the updated information about sport competition outcomes.

Interestingly, despite the various positive relationships between fanship and motivations for SNS usage, most of the six motivations do not determine both heavy users' and light users' college life satisfaction but their fanship does. Although these patterns may seem surprising, they are not beyond expectation. To be more precise, considering the role of collegiate sports in U.S. universities, it is logical to expect that avid fans have the edge over lukewarm fans or none fans with regard to accumulating their college social capital. As a result, although avid fans still engage in sport-based SNS, their participation in SNSs does not necessarily make their college life more satisfying because avid fans can already secure their social capital through in-person interaction with others. Nevertheless, the researchers observed a stronger fanship effect among heavy users than among light users, suggesting the benefits of participating in sport-based SNS. That is, accumulating social capital in the virtual world also could benefit college students' college life satisfaction, despite the positive effect being an avid college sport fan has on a college students' life satisfaction.

Limitations and Future Directions

In addition to students' nationality and usage frequency, other demographic factors could also affect students' satisfaction with college life (Koilias, 2005); however, this study failed to consider other demographic variables. Future research should include demographic or even psychological variables (e.g., cultural differences) to further investigate the effect of fanship and sport-based SNS on college students' life satisfaction. Furthermore, because the researchers collected data from only one large university competing in NCAA's FBS division, they could not generalize the findings to all college students all over the country. Thus, future research should replicate the current findings in schools that compete at different levels. It would also be interesting for future research to consider the effect of schools' academic performance and rankings on the effect of sport fanship on college students' life satisfaction.

Conclusion

This study provided new tools for U.S. higher education institutions to increase college students' satisfaction with their college life. First, sport is again a crucial driver for college life satisfaction. Accordingly, it is not surprising that schools often strive to expend their athletic programs by adding prominent sports. Second, given that sport-based SNS, such as the Facebook, is the most popular channel for college students to meet new friends, maintain existing interpersonal relationships, and thus accumulate social capital, schools also should develop sport - based SNS that focuses on increasing entertainment value and assisting college students in building self-status.

Sidebar

To Cite this Article

Yoon, Y., Wang, R., & Jeong, S. (2016, Fall). Role of fanship in college satisfaction through using SNS for sports .Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 8(3), 23-40.

References

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