Greening Professional Sport: How Communicating the Fit, Proximity, and Impact of Sustainability Efforts Affects Fan Perceptions and Supportive Intentions

Abstract

Grounded in multidisciplinary literature from public relations, sport communication, and marketing, this study examined consumer reactions to sustainability initiatives launched by major sports leagues. Through an online survey (N = 254), the results showed that sports league-cause fit resulted in more positive organization–public relationships (OPRs) such as through trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality. Further, the findings revealed that a closer geographic proximity of the sustainability initiative and an increased perceived impact (donation amount and number of beneficiaries affected) triggered higher perceptions of trust, organizational authenticity, and fandom toward the sponsoring sports league. Interestingly, a significant two-way interaction between spatial proximity and impact suggested that lower perceptions of the impact of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) program evoked more positive attitudes when involving local beneficiaries, whereas higher perceptions of impact improved organizational attitudes when the beneficiaries were located faraway. Lastly, the findings indicated that the OPR variables, especially trust, as well as fandom, and organizational authenticity elicited higher supportive intentions (e.g., support CSR cause, donate, volunteer, share on social media) toward the sports league. Theoretical implications for fit, construal level theory, and CSR impact as well as implications for sport communication practitioners are discussed.

1. Introduction

The Super Bowl is a sporting event like no other in the United States. Each year, the grandeur of the National Football League’s (NFL) marquee game is viewed by millions of people [1], and producing this yearly spectacle is no small feat for the NFL. The Super Bowl can produce an estimated 160,000 pounds of trash and waste [2]. In older events, all that trash was destined for landfills; However, since 1993, the NFL has utilized a comprehensive sustainability program, called the NFL Green initiative, with five main programs—solid waste management, material reuse, food recovery, sports equipment and book donations, and greenhouse gas reduction [3]—with the goal of making its largest event “the greenest professional sports event in America” [4] (para. 2).

As public consciousness concerning the importance of reversing man-made climate change continues to grow [5], major sports leagues like the NFL are recognizing the environmental impact of their events, regular season games, and stadiums, and their role in addressing this issue and educating others. As Long [6] argued, “from fostering awareness and advocacy to fundraising and influencing consumer [behavior], one of sport’s major opportunities when it comes to sustainability leadership is the sheer number of people it can influence through positive environmental action” (para. 3).

For this reason, practically every major sports league in the United States has established their own sustainability initiative within the last few decades [7]. Food recovery is espoused by both the NFL and the National Hockey League’s (NHL)’s green programs [4,8], and teams across sport have recently worked to build stadiums that are rated for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) [7]. The newest arena in the NHL, Climate Pledge Arena, is even the first zero-carbon arena in the world [9]. Globally, sport has also taken on this cause. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has long highlighted sustainability practices at the Games [10], while the U.K.-based English Premier League [11] and Formula One [12] have publicly committed to the United Nations’ Sports for Climate Action Framework.

As the emphasis on sustainability is a relatively new trend in the sporting industry, there is a relative lack of scholarly research focusing on this subject [13]. This study makes a number of contributions to the sustainability and sport communication literature. First, it further investigates how sport fans feel about sustainability as its own cause, rather than including it as just one part of a sport organization’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) plan [13], which can include other efforts not related to the environment. While certainly sport organizations have begun to mitigate and attend to the impact of sporting events on the environment [13,14], we wish to further unpack the ways that sport organizations sustainability efforts in particular resonate with fans. The growing importance of environmental causes within sport organizations’ CSR agendas today (e.g., NFL Green, NASCAR Green, Formula One’s WeRaceAsOne) further highlights the need to investigate the real-world implications of this growing focus.

Secondly, we add to the already strong tradition of qualitative work in sport sustainability [13,14,15] by adopting survey methods to better understand sport sustainability message effects. With this different approach, our study brings variables from various areas of CSR research (e.g., public relations, advertising, marketing, sport) and combines them in a sport sustainability communication context to provide a framework for evaluating sustainability messages from sport organizations. While CSR cause fit has been a variable of focus in studies across disciplines [16,17,18], we add to this literature by connecting this concept to strategic communication outcome variables. The perceived distance between donors and donation beneficiaries has long been studied in fundraising communication [19]. Accordingly, this paper incorporates the concept of perceived distance (called proximity) into sport CSR communication to better understand how fans feel about an organization’s sustainability initiative depending on the location of those benefiting from the effort. While certainly professional sport teams that are geographically bound often focus their efforts within their communities [20], sport has become a global phenomenon and teams are increasingly expanding their CSR reach [21]. Additionally, the concept of CSR impact has been studied previously [22], but our contribution includes defining impact as both the number of people [22] and the funding amount that the organization is contributing to the initiative [19]. Because CSR efforts require financial investment, we hope this definition provides some understanding of how organizations can best communicate their efforts to their fans to demonstrate a meaningful CSR impact.

Lastly, we argue that sport organizations are an important and vital source of communication on sustainability, especially as these efforts continue to grow in investment and scope [21]. Sport has been suggested as one of the drivers of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [21], and it may be uniquely positioned to advance conversations around environmental justice and equality [23,24]. Thus, our study examines how fans may be motivated to support such efforts themselves after reading about a sports league’s sustainability initiative. We provide practical implications for sport communicators to consider the ways that they can more effectively message their sustainability initiatives and perhaps motivate fans to support this work.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Sustainability and Sport Communication

Sport organizations have increasingly focused on participating in and communicating about their CSR efforts among their fans and stakeholders [13,25,26,27,28]. While sport organizations have lagged behind corporations in incorporating CSR messages into their communication efforts, they have been facing institutional pressures to transform their business models to incorporate CSR efforts into their everyday business practices [13,14,29]. In fact, sport stakeholders now expect teams and leagues to practice CSR, particularly when it involves community involvement and giving back to the team’s fans [20,27,28,30]. Mirroring findings from corporate CSR, sport CSR research has also demonstrated the business benefits of engaging in CSR: communication about such initiatives motivates positive affect toward a team and future purchase intentions [18,26,28,31].

Sustainability, when considered a part of a team’s CSR business practices, has only recently received focus from sport organizations, likely due to less pressure from stakeholders to prioritize environmental efforts [13,14]. Many sport organizations have realized the financial benefits of incorporating environmentally friendly practices into their CSR efforts [29,32] and have recognized how these efforts support organizational legitimacy [15], but these sustainable practices range widely in impact from asking fans to recycle at games or sourcing an entire stadium’s electricity from renewable energy [13]. Communicating these efforts has also grown in frequency, but a recent study has shown that many of these messaging efforts reflect only surface-level commitments to environmental efforts by joining alliances or publishing cursory reports [14]. While a sport organization’s communication efforts are still nascent, the importance of sport organizations to communicate and lead the conversation about environmental practices continue to grow with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and its call for sport to be a leader in the effort [21]. Thus, more work needs to be done to understand the ways that sport organizations can push forward the effort around sustainable practices and how to effectively communicate these efforts to stakeholders [14,21].

Much of the work on sport sustainability communication has originated in sport management literature [13,29,33], while studies in sport communication have instead focused on sport CSR, without isolating the role of sustainability within these communication efforts [26,30]. This paper attempts to bridge the two areas of literature by combining knowledge from sport sustainability management and sport CSR communication toward an understanding of sport sustainability strategic communication. Thus, we focus specifically on the potential of major professional sport organizations, who often have resources in public relations and marketing departments to disseminate messages about sustainability efforts [14,20]. The remaining sections of our literature review will detail key factors of sport sustainability initiatives that may play a role in how the communication about these initiatives is perceived.

2.2. Partnership Fit

One of the main determinants of CSR effectiveness is the fit between the company and the advocated cause or partner [16]. CSR fit refers to the “observed link between a CSR domain and a company’s products, image, positioning and/or target groups” [17] (p. 281). In other words, fit denotes the perceived relatedness between the characteristics of an organization and its CSR endeavors. A strong association between the organization and its CSR efforts is more likely to evoke positive consumer evaluations.

A fit is perceived as high when organizations support social issues or engage in partnerships that reflect their core business, serve similar stakeholders or embrace similar values [34]. Hence, it is crucial that there is a logical connection between an organization and the cause [35]. For example, a partnership between Shell Oil and the Nature Conservancy may be perceived as high fit by consumers. A high fit organization–cause alliance can be beneficial for the sponsoring organization since it can generate positive attitudes [36] and mitigate consumer skepticism about the latter’s CSR motives [37,38]. Additionally, in high-fit CSR collaborations consumers may assess the received information as credible [39], perceive the company’s motives as public-serving [40], and exhibit higher purchase intentions [17] and loyalty [41,42].

On the other hand, in low-fit CSR programs, the incongruency that exists between the organization’s business and the supported cause can affect consumer evaluation [43], for example, an initiative between Shell Oil and the Susan Komen Foundation may be perceived as a low-fit alliance. Low-fit CSR activities can enhance consumer elaboration and result in negative perceptions and increased skepticism about organizational motives [37,43,44]. Melero and Montaner [45] found that low-fit campaigns can lead to lower perceptions of credibility and purchase intentions toward the organization. Interestingly, even during a crisis an organization–cause incongruency can exacerbate any negative spillover effects by producing negative attitudes and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions toward the main organization [46].

In the realm of sport, a number of studies have further underlined the salience of fit in CSR effectiveness. Experimental evidence suggests that perceived fit can lead to positive attitudes [18], as well as increased donations [47] and supportive intentions toward the sports team [48] or league [49]. While fit has been tested before in the sport CSR context, its role has not been investigated in conjunction with public relations/strategic communication outcomes such as organization–public relationships (OPR) or organizational authenticity. Hence, our paper aims to merge ideas in both fields to more comprehensively understand sport sustainability communication by using strategic communication theory.

2.3. Construal Level Theory, Spatial Distance and CSR Beneficiaries

Construal level theory (CLT) asserts that the psychological distance that humans experience affects their mental processing and behaviors. According to the theory, individuals interpret the same object or event differently depending on their construal level [50]. At higher construal levels people evaluate objects or events in more abstract, decontextualized, and superordinate ways, whereas at lower construal levels the focus is on subordinate, detailed, and contextualized features [51,52].

This construal variation is attributed to the concept of psychological distance, that is, the degree of proximity that a person has from an object or event. According to CLT, psychological distance has four dimensions: spatial, temporal, social and hypotheticality (uncertainty) [51,52,53]. Spatial distance refers to whether individuals perceive that an object/event is geographically faraway or nearby [54]. Temporal distance is conceptualized as the extent to which an event is temporally close or distant. Social distance is defined as the degree to which individuals perceive another person as being socially close to them or as a stranger. Hypotheticality is defined as the extent to which an event is feasible to occur or not. In sum, the extent of psychological distance and construal process is important in how people mentally represent the surrounding world [55]. A greater psychological distance evokes higher levels of construal and mental abstraction. Conversely, an object is represented more concretely in the presence of decreasing psychological distance.

Donation proximity, which is the spatial distance between consumers and the locus of the donation beneficiaries, can influence consumer reactions toward the campaign [19,56,57]. There is empirical evidence that consumers, overall, become more positively predisposed toward CSR activities when the location of action is close to them than far [57,58,59]. For example, Winterich et al. [58] indicated that Americans showed higher donation intentions to help victims of Hurricane Katrina than tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean. Likewise, in an experiment, Wiebe et al. [59] found that American participants were more inclined to contribute to a national health organization that assists children in the U.S. than an international organization that helps children abroad.

Sports teams cater to diverse stakeholders such as sponsors, fans, and the communities where they operate [25], thus it is crucial to cultivate and nurture positive relationships with them [60]. To that effect, most of the extant research focuses on sport organizations engaging in national or local CSR activities [27,61,62]. Yet currently, sport organizations such as the NFL and NASCAR transcend national borders as they try to expand their reach given the potential revenue generation that global markets confer [63]. Against this backdrop, in the current study we attempt to shed light on the effects of spatial proximity on consumer reactions when sport organizations launch spatially proximal or distal CSR initiatives and wherein the beneficiary impact varies. We expect that the CSR campaigns directed locally will be more effective than international ones.

2.4. Impact of a CSR Program

When CSR studies discuss the impact of the CSR program, it is conceptualized as the number of people benefitting from the CSR activity [22,35] or the resulting supportive intentions towards an organization or initiative [31,64]; however, the perceived impact of the CSR may be inherent in the program itself [22], and actually be a predictor of consumer attitudes towards the CSR [57]. Often, the concept of impact is operationalized as other variables such as donation amount [19,57] or commitment and effort toward the program [35,65]. These studies have shown that larger donation amounts from a company [66,67,68] and greater perceived corporate effort [19,65] may signal a greater intended impact of a CSR initiative and more positive evaluations of the company; however, much of this research has been studied in the corporate cause-related marketing (CRM) context and little if any research in sport CSR has quantitatively examined how a sport organization’s donation amount affects the perceptions of the CSR effort. Given that providing the details of a CSR program’s impact is a critical part of effective CSR communication [35], this study examines how these details can be effective for sport CSR communication about sustainability efforts. Because donation amounts (or the financial investment a sport organization makes to its CSR program) can be controlled by an organization [27] and disclosed in CSR reporting [14], communicating a donation amount toward a beneficiary of a sustainability program may be an important way to demonstrate the impact of the sport CSR program.

Mirroring the approach of Joo et al. [22] who extrapolated broad impact as a salient factor in stakeholder evaluations of a sport CSR program, we conceptualize impact in this study as a predictor of perceptions towards the sport CSR program and one that can be communicated by an organization. Studies have shown that communicating about an organization’s donations within its CSR programs can lead to positive attitudes towards the company and purchase intentions [19,57,65]; thus, we expect that a sport organization’s donations towards its CSR efforts would have a similar effect on fan perceptions as corporate donations would for consumers. However, given that the perceptions of corporate donations can depend upon what the individual perceives to be “enough” of a financial investment [19], the impact may also be signaled by other factors such as the number of people who benefit [22,35]. Unlike Joo et al. [22], however, we examine impact as a standalone variable that may predict sport fan perceptions toward the sport CSR given the plethora of work in marketing that positions perceived impact as a predictor of consumer attitudes [35,57,65,69]. We predict a similar result for perceptions of a sustainability-specific initiative given its position as part of an organization’s CSR programming [13]. Thus, impact in our study is defined as both the number of people impacted by the sport sustainability initiative [22] and the donation amount invested by the sport organization toward the sustainability initiative [19].

2.5. Sport CSR Affective Outcomes

As explained above, few studies have quantitatively examined the effects of sport sustainability communication on organizational outcomes. Thus, our literature review focuses on CSR and sport CSR communication research with applications to sustainability-specific sport communication in the present study.

2.5.1. Fan Identification

Sport fandom is a process by which individuals see themselves as part of a group of like-minded supporters towards a sport organization [70]. This psychological process is deeply rooted in the concept of identification, whereby individuals see themselves as part of an organization and its culture so that this connection becomes part of their identity [71]. Sport fandom, therefore, is a way that people see themselves and how they fit into groups of sport fans, and their behaviors and attitudes tend to align with their group [72]. Sport fandom is unique in that fans derive psychological benefits from their team’s positive performances [73], called basking in reflected glory (BIRG) [74,75,76]. Additionally, sport fandom may transfer positive attitudes towards a sport organization’s CSR simply because the individual is a fan of the organization to begin with [18,26]. Given that highly identified fans are more likely to talk about a sport organization’s CSR after reading about it [26] and the psychological tendency of fans to BIRG [76], perhaps fans would feel an even greater sense of identification with the organization after reading about a team’s or organization’s sustainability efforts. The moderating effect of team identification on the perceptions of a team’s CSR is still inconclusive, with some findings being nonsignificant [26], some showing higher identified fans with stronger supportive intentions [28], and some showing fans with low identification but more positive reactions to CSR [77]. While fandom has also been used as a control [18], our study considers that fandom may not be a conclusive moderator, but instead may be positively affected by sustainability communication such that fandom increases when reading about sustainability efforts, similar to BIRGing. Perhaps pride in the organization’s efforts as a result of perceived fit with the organization, giving back to a local community, or making a noticeable impact can have a halo effect [26] on fandom.

2.5.2. Organizational Authenticity

Often, when authenticity is studied in the sport CSR context, it is often measured as perceptions of authentic CSR programming [20,22]; however, research in public relations has explicated the concept of organizational authenticity, which relates to how an organization communicates and acts in ways that demonstrate truth or alignment with its values [78,79,80]. Public relations can communicate these values, and stakeholders perceive the authenticity of the organization itself through these messages and behaviors [78]. Perceived authenticity can create favorable attitudes towards an organization and positive stakeholder relationship outcomes [78,81], including trust [79]. Additionally, perceived authenticity is connected with stakeholder advocacy efforts in support of a brand [81]. Given recent research that sport sustainability communication lacks depth and fails to show a true commitment to sustainability efforts [14,21], studying the perceptions of sport organization authenticity from an organization’s fan base is warranted. Public relations scholarship has often considered authenticity an outcome of organizational actions and behaviors [80,81], and thus we evaluate authenticity as an outcome of the sport sustainability communication in our study.

2.5.3. Organizational Attitudes

Attitudes towards the organization is a common dependent variable in sport CSR research, particularly when combined with purchase intent or other consumer behaviors [22,26]. These are affective judgments of the organization, and research across disciplines have demonstrated that CSR messages lead to positive affective judgments about the organization communicating about the CSR [22,35,64,66,69]. Thus, we predict that sport fans will similarly view a sport organization positively after reading about its efforts to support sustainability programming.

2.5.4. Organization–Public Relationships (OPR)

The public relations paradigm of relationship management posits that the goal of organizations should be to cultivate and nurture mutually beneficial relationships with their publics [82]. Supported by empirical research, the main tenet of the theory is that positive organization–public relationships (OPR) are essential for organizational success since they can evoke favorable attitudes, behavioral intentions as well as reputation toward the organization [83,84]. According to Ledingham and Bruning [85], OPR is defined as “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics, in which actions of either can impact the economic, social, cultural, or political well-being of the other (p. 62).

To measure relational quality public relations, the scholarship mainly uses a four-dimensional framework, comprised of commitment, satisfaction, control mutuality, and trust [86]. Briefly, commitment refers to what extent the parties believe that they should expend effort to continue their relationship. Satisfaction is defined as the degree of contentment that both partners have because of the relational benefits they enjoy. Control mutuality refers to the degree of shared and equal power that the relational partners exhibit within this relationship. Trust is conceptualized as the confidence that parties have to each other and their eagerness to open up.

Extensive research has attested the importance of these indices in evaluating the quality of OPRs in diverse domains, such as in nonprofit [87], health [88], disaster management [89], political [90], and CSR [91] communication. OPRs are particularly important for understanding communication outcomes because the relationship qualities of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality have been shown time and again to impact organizational success and individual support for a corporate brand or a nonprofit cause [82,86,91]. Nevertheless, research at the intersection of sport CSR and relationship management remains scarce. Advancing past the research, we are interested in examining how partnership fit can influence outcome measures such as OPR, organizational authenticity, fandom, and attitudes towards the organization. Based on the reviewed literature about CSR fit and OPR, we propose that:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

Greater perceived sport organization–cause fit will be associated with (a) more positive relationship outcomes, (b) higher perceived organizational authenticity, (c) stronger fandom, and (d) more positive attitudes toward the organization.

Additionally, we extrapolate findings about proximity and impact from well-established literature in marketing [19,52,57] to the sport sustainability communication context. Similarly, we understand that trust is one of the most salient of the OPR outcomes found in marketing [35,79] and sport [20] CSR literature. Trust is particularly important as a precursor to individual support for a brand through purchase intent [79] or donations to nonprofits [92]. This literature also suggests that organizational authenticity [80] and fandom with the organization [26,29] may be outcomes of these message factors. Thus, we propose:

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

Closer perceived proximity of CSR beneficiaries will lead to (a) higher trust, (b) higher perceived organizational authenticity, and (c) stronger fandom.

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Higher perceived impact of the CSR initiative will lead to (a) higher trust, (b) higher perceived organizational authenticity, and (c) stronger fandom.

Additionally, research investigating the perceived impact of a company’s donations towards CSR initiatives shows an interaction between donation amounts and the location of beneficiaries [19]. Specifically, when beneficiaries are perceived as being “local” to the reader of CSR communication, people have a more concrete view of the programming and its effects, and therefore have a more favorable view of the programming [51,52,93]. Additionally, people may feel a stronger obligation to improve their own communities, and such local CSR efforts are more positively viewed [56]. As a result, stakeholders have more favorable attitudes towards the corporation when the impact of the CSR campaign is perceived as being close in proximity [19,56,57,58,67]. To our knowledge, construal level theory and the variable of impact have yet to be tested together in the CSR context of major professional sport. Thus, based on the CRM literature, we pose the following research question to examine a potential interaction between proximity of the CSR and perceived impact of the CSR on attitudes toward the sport organization.

Research Question 1 (RQ1).

What is the interaction between impact and proximity on attitudes towards the sport organization?

2.6. Supportive Intentions towards Sustainability Initiatives

Traditionally, studies have evaluated consumer supportive intentions as outcomes of CSR communication to help justify the financial impact of a company’s CSR programming [35]. Similarly, CSR studies in sport often examine supportive intentions towards the team related to fans’ roles as consumers, such as purchase intent or intent to attend a game [26,28,31]. Thus, it is well-known that CSR in sport can lead to positive consumer intentions toward the team and its brand; however, given the responsibility and unique position of sport organizations in helping achieve the SDGs [21], sustainability communication from sport organizations may motivate fans to support these initiatives themselves. This outcome may be particularly critical for sport organizations, especially those who pledge to support the U.N.’s climate goals. Because sport has a unique platform to influence its followers across society, motivating fans to espouse or support a prosocial cause such as sustainability can have implications for the sustainability movement and how it can motivate action [23]. Recent work in sport CSR has explored this question related to a general CSR program. Lee et al. [47] found that the CSR partnership may have impacted feelings of fit and efficacy, which in turn motivated fans to donate to the advertised CSR initiative. Work in CRM has also shown that corporate support for a nonprofit brand can influence consumers to support the nonprofit themselves [69], and communication about environmentally focused corporate-nonprofit partnerships can motivate environmentally conscious consumers to support the CSR initiative [64]. Thus, we want to add to the conversation about ways that sustainability-specific communication can motivate sport fans to support these efforts themselves. Hence, our study examines the ways that affective outcomes of the sustainability communication may motivate fans to take action such as by donating [47] or volunteering [64,94].

Additionally, stakeholders who voice positive support for a CSR initiative and express it on social media can provide a megaphoning effect for an organization’s initiatives [95]. Although these studies were conducted outside of sport, given the growth of conversation about sport on social media [96], these signs of support for a team’s initiatives may be also crucially important to sport as it takes the conversation about sustainability online [14]. Moreover, we know that CSR can lead to positive word-of-mouth towards a team [31], so perhaps it may transfer to the CSR initiative as well.

To summarize, support for our hypotheses around supportive intentions comes outside of sport sustainability communication research, but we expect that sport sustainability communication would have similar effects for sport fans. Specifically, OPR outcomes have long been connected to supportive behaviors towards the initiative in CSR contexts [97,98]. While fandom has not been directly connected to supportive intentions towards a CSR initiative, sport fans can be motivated to donate to their team’s CSR initiatives [47]. Lastly, research in public relations has also demonstrated that organizational authenticity can be connected to supportive behaviors like positive word-of-mouth [81] and to showing support on social media [80]. Thus, we make the following hypotheses connecting affective outcomes to supportive intentions towards the communicated sport sustainability initiative:

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

More positive perceptions of OPR outcomes will be associated with greater supportive intentions toward the sport sustainability initiative (e.g., show support, donate, volunteer, and post on social media).

Hypothesis 5 (H5).

Stronger fandom will be associated with greater supportive intentions toward the sport sustainability initiative (e.g., show support, donate, volunteer, and post on social media).

Hypothesis 6 (H6).

Higher perceived organizational authenticity will be associated with greater supportive intentions toward the sport sustainability initiative (e.g., show support, donate, volunteer, and post on social media).

3. Methods

3.1. Procedure

A survey of sport fans in the United States was launched where participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) platform, which is an online tool that allows “requestors” to ask for “workers” to complete tasks for compensation. It is a commonly used method for recruiting participants in the social sciences, and data quality is on par with and sometimes superior to other survey panel recruitment tools [99,100,101]. Additionally, the demographics of MTurk panels are typically reflective of the U.S. population and that of other online survey participant pools [100,101]; however, we requested that our survey be available only to MTurk workers with a 95% task completion rate, a performance metric tracked by Amazon that ensures the participants are reliable in completing tasks as assigned [101]. This metric is associated with data quality [101].

After consenting to participate in the study, respondents were asked two screening questions, namely, if they considered themselves sport fans and if they resided in the United States. It was important to ensure all participants were located in the same geographic country close to the sample sports leagues so that their evaluations of proximity would be similar.

Then, after answering some preliminary questions about sport fandom and attitudes towards sustainability, each participant was given a short paragraph to read about a fictitious sustainability initiative launched by a major sport organization in the U.S. The paragraphs included a short headline, highlighting the sustainability initiative either to mitigate the impacts of the sport’s events (NFL Green) or to create new technology to make the sport more sustainable (NASCAR Green), which was based on real, contemporary efforts publicized on these leagues’ websites. Two different sports leagues were used to mitigate the impacts of league-specific fan bias. The short paragraphs (approximately 100 words) included how much money was donated to the initiative (e.g., USD 2 million), how many people would be impacted (e.g., “numerous people”), and where the initiative would take place (e.g., “people in the United States”). The participants also had to pass two attention checks (e.g., “choose strongly agree”) and correctly identify the name of the sports league in the paragraph they read (see Appendix A). Our participants were compensated USD 0.25 for their response. The survey took approximately 15 min to complete.

3.2. Sample Demographics

The average age of our sample (N = 254) was 38.4 (SD = 11.9). Reported gender was 63% male, 37% female, and no other genders were indicated. The majority of our sample was White/Caucasian (88.2%), followed by more than one ethnicity reported (3.9%), Asian/Asian American (2.8%), Native American/Alaskan Islander (2.4%), Black/African American (1.4%), Hispanic/Latino (0.8%), and other (0.2%). The majority of our participants indicated they had a four-year degree (70.5%), a professional or master’s degree (17.7%), or had completed high school (6.7%). The most commonly reported household incomes included USD 40,000–49,999 (20.9%), USD 50,000–59,999 (18.8%), and USD 70,000–79,999 (12.2%). Political views were slightly conservative on a 5-point scale (M = 2.41, SD = 1.36). These demographics are generally representative of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021), with slightly more males, proportionally more white participants, and higher education level; however, MTurk panels typically skew whiter and with a higher education level [100]. The implications are discussed more in limitations.

3.3. Measures

This study utilized survey scales and measures utilized in previous public relations and sport CSR research to access fit [22]; OPR dimensions of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality [86]; organizational authenticity [81]; sport fandom [72]; and attitude toward the organization [77]. Impact included measures from Joo et al. [22] with two original measures asking about perceptions of the adequacy of the donation amount. All scales met an adequate reliability with Cronbach’s α > 0.6 (see

Table 1. List of measures and items.

Scale	Items	M (SD), Cronbach’s α
Fit [22]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree The (organization) and sustainability fit together well. There is a logical connection between the (organization) and sustainability. Sustainability seems to align well with the (organization). Sustainability and the (organization) seem compatible.	5.44 (0.85), α = 0.80
Impact (based on [22])	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree The (organization) program positively impacts a lot of people. The (organization) program benefits many individuals. The (organization) program helps numerous people. The amount of money being donated to sustainability in this scenario seems… A little/A lot Not generous enough/Generous	5.51 (0.82), α = 0.80
Trust [86]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree The organization treats people like me fairly and justly. Whenever the organization makes an important decision, I know it will be concerned about people like me. The organization can be relied on to keep its promises. I believe that the organization takes the opinions of people like me into account when making decisions. I feel very confident about the organization’s skills. The organization has the ability to accomplish what it says it will do.	5.39 (0.83), α = 0.84
Commitment [86]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree I feel that the organization is trying to maintain a long-term commitment to people like me. I can see that the organization wants to maintain a relationship with people like me. There is a long-lasting bond between the organization and people like me. Compared to other organizations, I value my relationship with the organization more.	5.37 (0.85), α = 0.78
Satisfaction [86]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree I am happy with the organization. Both the organization and people like me benefit from the relationship. Most people like me are happy in their interactions with the organization. Generally speaking, I am pleased with the relationship the organization has established with people like me.	5.44 (0.85), α = 0.80
Control Mutuality [86]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree This organization and people like me are attentive to what each other say. This organization believes the opinions of people like me are legitimate. This organization really listens to what people like me have to say.	5.38 (0.89), α = 0.76
Organizational Authenticity [81]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree This organization always tells the truth. I believe that this organization’s actions are genuine. I feel that this organization is willing to admit to mistakes when they are made. I feel that this organization accepts and learns from mistakes. I believe that this organization’s behavior matches its core values. The organization’s beliefs and actions are consistent. I think this organization matches the rhetoric with its action.	5.40 (0.80), α = 0.86
Fan Identification [72]	1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree I consider myself to be a real fan of (organization). Being a fan of (organization) is very important to me.	5.43 (0.90), α = 0.63
Attitudes towards the Organization [77]	Please select the answer that best represents how you feel about (organization). Dislike/Like Unfavorable/Favorable Negative/Positive	5.77 (0.90), α = 0.75
Issue Involvement [37]	The issue of sustainability is… Unimportant/Important Of no concern to me/Of concern to me Means nothing to me/Means a lot to me	5.64 (0.90), α = 0.80

). Proximity was measured on a 7-point Likert scale with a single-item measure based on Zhu et al. [19], “the beneficiaries of the CSR program are far from me/close to me” (M = 5.31, SD = 1.25). Intentions to donate (M = 5.35, SD = 1.06), volunteer (M = 5.32, SD = 1.17), show support (M = 5.45, SD = 1.14), and post on social media (M = 5.50, SD = 1.04) in support of the CSR initiative were single item-measures on a 7-point Likert scale based on supportive intention measures from Joo et al. [18].

Based on previous research about communication effects, controls for prior attitudes towards the sport organization ([77]; M_NFL = 5.74, SD = 0.95, Cronbach’s α = 0.78, M_NASCAR = 5.56, SD = 0.98, Cronbach’s α = 0.80), prior fandom ([72]; M_NFL = 5.38, SD = 0.89, Cronbach’s α = 0.72; M_NASCAR = 5.35, SD = 0.98, Cronbach’s α = 0.68), and attitude toward the issue of sustainability [37] (see Table 1), were measured and included for all analyses. Attitudes were measured on a 7-point semantic differential scale.

4. Results

Before the analyses were conducted, univariate and multivariate outliers were removed using chi square and Mahalanobis distance criteria, respectively [102]. The final sample (N = 254) statistics are reported in demographics and measures. To differentiate between the perceptions of fit, proximity, and impact, the data were divided into high and low fit, high and low impact, and local and distant proximity based on the scale mean. Because there were no significant differences for the predictor variables between the participants who read the paragraph about the NFL compared to those who read about NASCAR, these conditions were collapsed before determining the means. Analyses were run using high and low or local and distant groups to better understand how these perceptions impacted the organizational outcomes, following previous literature in public relations [103]. All analyses were run using SPSS 27 software. Criteria for statistical significance was p < 0.05 [102].

H1 predicted that a higher perceived sport organization–cause fit would be associated with (a) higher OPR outcomes, (b) higher organizational authenticity, (c) stronger fandom, and d) more positive attitudes towards the sport organization. To answer H1a, MANCOVA with the four OPR outcomes as the dependent variables was used. The model was significant, Wilks’ λ = 0.80, F (4, 244) = 15.01, p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.20. Fans who perceived a higher organizational–cause fit rated all OPR outcomes higher (see

Table 2. Univariate results for the effects of fit on organizational outcomes.

Outcome	F (df), Partial η2	M (SEs)
Trust	46.61 (1, 247), 0.16 ***	High fit, 5.62 (0.04) Low fit, 5.14 (0.05)
Commitment	37.64 (1, 247), 0.13 ***	High fit, 5.60 (0.05) Low fit, 5.10 (0.05)
Satisfaction	13.41 (1, 247), 0.05 ***	High fit, 5.59 (0.05) Low fit, 5.25 (0.06)
Control mutuality	11.97 (1, 247), 0.05 **	High fit, 5.24 (0.06) Low fit, 4.86 (0.07)
Authenticity	37.82 (1, 247), 0.13 ***	High fit, 5.95 (0.06) Low fit, 4.76 (0.05)
Fandom	7.37 (1, 247), 0.03 **	High fit, 5.96 (0.06) Low fit, 4.89 (0.08)
Attitudes	4.66 (1, 247), 0.02 *	High fit, 6.29 (0.09) Low fit, 5.17 (0.08)

*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

), supporting H1a for trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality. To answer H1b–d, separate ANCOVAs were run for the relationship of perceived fit with authenticity, fandom, and attitudes. All relationships were significant (see Table 2) in the predicted directions. Thus, H1 was supported.

H2 predicted that a higher perceived proximity of CSR beneficiaries would be associated with (a) higher trust, (b) higher organizational authenticity, and (c) stronger fandom. ANCOVAs were run for each dependent variable. For H2a, the relationship between proximity and trust was significant such that a closer proximity resulted in higher trust (see

Table 3. Univariate results for the effects of proximity on organizational outcomes.

Outcome	F (df), Partial η2	M (SEs)
Trust	5.62 (1, 247), 0.02 ***	Local, 5.47 (0.04) Distant, 5.31 (0.04)
Authenticity	3.64 (1, 247), 0.02 *	Local, 5.45 (0.04) Distant, 5.34 (0.04)
Fandom	3.77 (1, 247), 0.02 **	Local, 5.50 (0.05) Distant, 5.35 (0.05)

*** p < 0.05, ** p = 0.05, * p = 0.06.

). ANCOVAs for H2b and c were marginally significant such that closer proximity indicated a higher organizational authenticity (p = 0.06) and higher fandom (p = 0.05) (see Table 3). Thus, H2 was supported for trust and marginally supported for authenticity and fandom.

H3 predicted that a higher perceived impact of CSR beneficiaries would be associated with (a) higher trust, (b) higher organizational authenticity, and (c) stronger fandom. Again, ANCOVAs were run for each dependent variable, and all three were significant in the predicted directions (see

Table 4. Univariate results for the effects of CSR impact on organizational outcomes.

Outcome	F (df), Partial η2	M (SEs)
Trust	15.63 (1, 247), 0.06 ***	High, 5.48 (0.03) Low, 5.18 (0.06)
Authenticity	12.12 (1, 247), 0.05 **	High, 5.47 (0.03) Low, 5.21 (0.06)
Fandom	16.58 (1, 247), 0.06 ***	High, 5.54 (0.04) Low, 5.16 (0.07)

*** p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.

). For H3a, a higher perceived impact resulted in higher trust; a higher perceived impact indicated higher organizational authenticity; and higher impact resulted in a higher fandom. Thus, H3 was supported.

RQ1 aimed to better understand the interaction between proximity and perceived CSR impact on attitudes towards the sport organization. An ANCOVA with Bonferroni post-hoc comparisons showed a significant interaction effect (Wilks’ λ = 0.94, F (2, 246) = 8.27, p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.06). A lower perceived CSR impact was associated with higher organizational attitudes for local beneficiaries (M_local (SE) = 5.93 (0.16), M_distant (SE) = 5.64 (0.08)) while a higher perceived CSR impact was associated with higher organizational attitudes for distant beneficiaries (M_local (SE) = 5.75 (0.05), M_distant (SE) = 5.90 (0.06)).

The final three hypotheses predicted that more positive perceptions of OPR outcomes (H4), higher perceived organization authenticity (H5), and higher fandom (H6) would be associated with a higher intent to support the sport sustainability initiative. To answer these questions, linear regressions with the five covariates were run individually for each supportive intention (show support for the initiative, donate to the initiative, volunteer with the initiative, and post on social media about the initiative). For H4, which focused on OPR outcomes as predictors, only trust significantly predicted an intent to show support; commitment marginally predicted an intent to donate (p = 0.06); trust predicted an intent to volunteer; and trust, commitment, and satisfaction predicted an intent to post on social media (see

Table 5. Linear regression results for the effects of organizational outcomes on supportive intentions.

Supportive Intention	Predictor	R2, F (df)	β
Show support		0.48, 24.71 (9, 244) ***
	Trust		0.47 ***
	Commitment		0.08
	Satisfaction		0.11
	Control mutuality		0.07
	Fandom	0.42, 30.36 (6, 247) ***	0.42 ***
	Authenticity	0.42, 29.20 (6, 247) ***	0.44 ***
Donate		0.49, 26.39 (9, 244) ***
	Trust		0.16
	Commitment		0.20 ^
	Satisfaction		0.11
	Control mutuality		−0.05
	Fandom	0.46, 34.47 (6, 247) ***	0.15 ^
	Authenticity	0.47, 36.34 (6, 247) ***	0.29 **
Volunteer		0.51, 28.50 (9, 244) ***
	Trust		0.25 *
	Commitment		0.18
	Satisfaction		0.13
	Control mutuality		0.08
	Fandom	0.44, 32.85 (6, 247) ***	0.19 *
	Authenticity	0.48, 37.46 (6, 247) ***	0.42 ***
Post on social media		0.55, 33.00 (9, 244) ***
	Trust		0.24 *
	Commitment		0.24 *
	Control Satisfaction		0.25 **
	mutuality		−0.06
	Fandom	0.46, 34.93 (6, 247) ***	0.26 **
	Authenticity	0.55, 49.25 (6, 247) ***	0.65 ***

*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05, ^ p = 0.06.

). For H5, fandom significantly predicted all supportive intentions, but its effect on an intent to donate was marginally significant (p = 0.06) (see Table 5). For H6, authenticity significantly predicted all supportive intentions as well. Thus, H4 was partially supported, and H5 and H6 were supported.

5. Discussion

This study aimed to contribute to the growing body of sport sustainability communication literature by incorporating concepts from strategic communication disciplines. With the increasing emphasis on sport sustainability as part of teams’ and leagues’ CSR portfolios [13], there is a growing need to study the impact of these strategies. While many studies have looked at what teams are communicating [14] or how they practice sustainability from a management perspective [33], our study seeks to understand the impacts of communication about sport sustainability programs by incorporating knowledge from marketing and strategic communications literature. Sport has a unique role in society, one that—if practiced ethically—can inspire and motivate individuals or shed light on issues and injustices around the world [21,23]. Thus, sport is a particularly powerful institution that can have political and societal sway over its fans and onlookers. Understanding the impact of sport organizational communication is a missing piece of the puzzle for strategic communications generally and for understanding our global political climate where sport and society are intertwined [104]. Our study attempts to shed some light on the impacts of sustainability communication from sport organizations and how this growing trend to publicize their sustainability efforts affects fan perceptions and prosocial movements across society.

Thus, we created hypothetical (yet realistically grounded) communication about sport sustainability efforts from two well-followed organizations in the United States: the NFL and NASCAR. By testing for attitudes about perceived fit, the proximity of beneficiaries, and perceived impact, the survey contributes to both sport communication and sustainability strategic communication literature. This may be one of the few applications of construal level theory in sport, and the use of impact as a communication variable is seemingly a new approach. Our data showed that such communication may heighten fan trust in sport organizations. Perceived organizational authenticity may be a powerful predictor of supportive intentions towards the sustainability initiative, and heightened fandom may be an outcome (not simply a moderator) of this communication as well. We unpack the theoretical and practical implications of these findings in the following sections.

5.1. Theoretical Implications

While relationship management theory is a long-standing paradigm in public relations literature, the public relations-specific outcomes of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality have only cursorily been discussed in sport communication literature [105,106]; however, evidence for OPR outcomes exists in sport management literature without directly utilizing public relations theory, especially trust [14,20] and commitment [13,15]. Thus, our study examines more specifically the connection between OPR outcomes and sport fan relationships, extending preliminary work in public relations in the sport context. Our findings indicate that trust is one of the most salient outcomes of these relationships when fans read about sustainability efforts from a sports league. Similar to findings in public relations [91], OPR outcomes are heightened when fans perceive a strong fit between the cause of sustainability and the sports league’s purpose. Our study helps to extend public relations theory into sport by showing the value of OPR outcomes for organization–fan relationships.

Additionally, this paper also builds theory related to organizational authenticity and its role in sport communication. Distinct from CSR or message authenticity [22,107], organizational authenticity is how the organization itself is perceived as a result of communication [78,81]. As such, it is an overall evaluation of an organization rather than a fleeting case-by-case evaluation [79]. Thus, by bringing organizational authenticity into the sport communication literature, we add to the conversation started by previous investigations of CSR authenticity in sport [20,22]. Our findings indicate that organizational authenticity is also particularly powerful in predicting sport fan outcomes, such that a higher perceived organizational authenticity can lead to higher supportive intent towards the sustainability initiative. Echoing findings in the corporate communications literature [107], a higher perceived fit and impact led to stronger perceptions of authenticity in our study. Thus, organizational authenticity may be an important affective outcome of sustainability communication from sport organizations and warrants further investigation and study in the sporting context. As argued by public relations scholars [105,106], sport communication may benefit from an infusion of public relations theory, and organizational authenticity may be one such contribution.

Our study also incorporated marketing theory on the impact of geographic proximity in CSR communication. Construal level theory has shown that individuals may be more inclined to help beneficiaries located near to them [51,52,58,59]. This theory may be a new application to sport sustainability communication, although considerable research in sport has described how professional teams feel compelled to focus their CSR efforts on their local communities and fan bases [20,27]. Nevertheless, we found weak support for the predicted impact of spatial proximity. Closer proximity of the sustainability effort was only associated with higher levels of trust, while authenticity and fandom were just below significance. This finding supports previous understandings of construal level theory outside of sport [19,58,59] such that fans have a more concrete and detailed view of efforts perceived as closer to them, thus, fans perceive more trust in their relationship with the sports league. Interestingly, the interaction between impact and proximity resulted in counterintuitive findings. When the sustainability initiative was deemed to have a low impact and local beneficiaries, the attitudes were greater than for distant beneficiaries. When the initiative was perceived to have a higher impact and distant beneficiaries, the organizational attitudes were greater than for local beneficiaries. Perhaps skepticism is at play here, such that fans assume sustainability efforts are not impactful at the local level but more impactful at a distance, following the “not-in-my-backyard,” patriarchal attitude that sport for development work has often been criticized for [21]. Thus, fans look more favorably toward a sport organization that is making an impact on a global scale, following the recent impetus for sport to move forward the U.N.’s SDGs. While our finding is still preliminary, maybe this signals a different kind of mental processing around impact and spatial proximity for sustainability-focused CSR in sport, which has been underdeveloped compared to corporate sustainability perceptions [14,15].

Finally, our study’s emphasis on supportive intentions towards sustainability initiatives is a contribution to the sport CSR literature, which often focuses on business intentions [18,28]. A recent trend in CSR communication is to evaluate the intention to support a CSR initiative [47,64,94], as the financial benefit for businesses is well-established in marketing and CSR literature [35,66]. We found support for all of our intention measures, especially showing that trust, authenticity, and fandom seemed to be the most influential in predicting supportive intentions; however, the intent to donate or volunteer with the sports league’s sustainability initiative did not seem to have strong support as compared to the intention to “show support” generally or to post on social media. Certainly, donating or volunteering to any cause requires deeper psychological commitments and motivation than simply feeling generally supportive toward a cause [92]; however, the inclination of fans for showing support or posting support on social media relate to concerns about virtue signaling, or the trend for individuals to project morality and stances and to shame others into behaving similarly especially on social media [108]. While certainly sports leagues should be encouraged to know that sustainability communication can motivate demonstrations of support for their initiatives, getting these fans to support the initiative with their money or time may require different kinds of communication or deeper efforts. Promisingly, organizational authenticity was the only factor that motivated an intention to donate and intention to volunteer, which may be a place to start.

5.2. Practical Implications

Echoing previous literature in public relations [105,106], sport strategic communication practitioners can borrow ideas from already established theory and practice in public relations. First, our study supports the notion that communicating sustainability initiatives with fans leads to positive affective outcomes as well as supportive intentions, providing justification for sport practitioners to invest time and resources into such communicative efforts [35]. Unlike the reality of sustainability reports currently found in practice [14], our fictitious examples of sustainability initiatives in professional sport include details about proximity and impact of the initiatives, thus demonstrating a strong commitment to the initiative. Therefore, practitioners should not be afraid to explain the impact and the location of the potential beneficiaries of their work in their communication to the public. Thus, sport communication can move beyond “sustainability signaling” [14] and still find positive affective and supportive benefits from the messaging. For example, writing a press release about a new sustainability project that emphasizes the benefits to a local community and the amount of money invested by the organization, may help to build organizational trust, authenticity, and fandom.

Additionally, finding fit between the sport and its chosen sustainability initiative may also help to engender these positive outcomes. For example, when a sport community relations team is determining what sustainability programs to institute in the coming year, they should seek ones that convey fit between the sport and the program. For example, the NFL reducing waste after mega-events such as the NFL playoffs or Super Bowl, especially in the city where the game is being held, can evoke a positive effect among fans and supportive intentions towards the initiative. For a sport like NASCAR, highlighting the technology being developed by the sport to mitigate climate change may also signal a fit between the league and its sustainability programming. Demonstrating a significant financial investment and local beneficiaries (e.g., new jobs, residents’ cleaner air) of the new technology may also heighten more positive attitudes when fans read about the program.

Lastly, our study shows preliminary evidence for why professional sport practitioners should embrace their roles in the sport for development (SFD) movement. Certainly, sport has a history of taking a top-down, authoritative approach to SFD and has been rightly criticized for its missteps [21]; however, our study shows that sport sustainability communication can motivate supportive intentions towards the initiative itself. If this inclination of sport fans to respond positively to communication about quality sustainability programs led by sport can be harnessed appropriately, perhaps the U.N.’s call for sport to help accomplish its SDGs is warranted. We cautiously but optimistically hope our study provides some impetus for sport to take its role seriously in motivating fans and greater society to embrace its potential as a leader of CSR and the sustainability movement [23].

5.3. Limitations and Future Research

Our study has some notable limitations. First, our sample was more white and more male than the general U.S. population [109]. We think this is likely due to the fact that we screened for participants who considered themselves sport fans, which tend to include significantly more males than females (84% vs. 61%, respectively; [110]). The whiteness, youth, and education level of MTurk panels has been documented, but these same studies indicate that the results of MTurk are on par with other online sampling panels [99,100], and online survey panels have been used previously in literature cited in this study [19,47]; however, we acknowledge these characteristics may limit the generalizability of our findings, and it calls attention to the need for a more purposeful sampling of sport fans of color in future studies on sport communication.

Additionally, our measure for spatial proximity was based on one item, asking if the fans perceived the beneficiaries to be “close” or “far” from them. Construal level theory (CLT) identifies four key dimensions of construal: spatial, temporal, social and hypotheticality [51,54]. Our single measure may not have tapped into the full range of construal processing, which may explain some of the weaker findings for the spatial proximity’s impact on affective outcomes. Future research on CLT in sport communication should develop and utilize a measurement scale for these four dimensions to understand what specific factors influence perceptions of psychological distance and what mechanisms are at work when fans make judgments about sustainability communication.

Lastly, our study used survey methods to test how perceptions of high fit, high impact, and closer proximity impacted fan outcomes for sports leagues in the United States. As a survey, this study cannot determine what language or specific message factors led to the outcomes, but instead concludes only that the perception of the message factors as high/low or close/distant were associated with certain outcomes. Future studies may attempt experimental methods to better understand exactly how these factors can be curated by sport professionals when communicating sustainability efforts. Additionally, comparing geographic effects of fandom may be an interesting direction in future surveys or experiments. The present study ensured all fans were based in the United States to eliminate geographic effects on proximity and familiarity with two U.S.-based sports leagues. Future research may consider comparing fans from geographic regions of the world to better understand the global reach of sport.