International Journal of Sport Management

Measuring Identification with a Sport Team: An Empirical Comparison of the Sport Team Identification Scale with the Sport Spectator Identification Scale

Nikolaos Tsigilis, Yannis Lianopoulos, Nicholas D. Theodorakis

Abstract: The Sport Team Identification Scale (STIS) has been recently developed as a response to raising criticism and shortcomings related to most of the existing scales used to measure fans’ identification with sport teams. However, this instrument has been tested only in one study and has not been empirically compared with any of the existing well-established scales. The purpose of the present study was to further examine the STIS within the Item Response Theory framework and to compare it with the Sport Spectator Identification Scale (SSIS), in terms of psychometric properties and predictive ability. Data were collected from a Greek sporting website (n=4,851). Findings showed that not only STIS is a psychometrically sound instrument, but it also outperformed SSIS in all conducted analyses. The implications of the study were discussed.

Keywords: sport team identification scale; sport spectator identification scale; item response theory; social identity theory; sport fan behavior.

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Citation: Tsigilis, N., Lianopoulos, Y., & Theodorakis, N. D. (2023). Measuring identification with a sport team: An empirical comparison of the sport team identification scale with the sport spectator identification scale. International Journal of Sport Management, 24(2), 171-195.

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