A study on sport participant's lifestyle and their generation

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to apply and test lifestyle concept in the field of sport management research. The AIO (Activities, Interests, and Opinions) approach is used to operationalize the lifestyle concept. Questionnaires containing 41 AIO statements are administered to a total of 585 members of a privately owned sport club in Osaka,Japan. Three hundred ninety-four usable questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 67.4%. Factor analysis is used to identify the overall structure of club member's lifestyle. Factor scores are then compared for differences in generation and gender status. The findings of the study include:(1) There exist ten factors representing dimensions of sport participant's lifestyle. They are named as 'Self-Confidence','Weak-Will','Nihilistic','Sports','Affirmative','Brand Conscious'and 'Health Conscious' factors, respectively. (2) When generation is considered, mean scores differ significantly for 6 of the 10 factor dimensions. (3) When both generation and gender are considered, mean factor scores differ significantly for 4 of the 10 factor dimensions. These findings confirm that lifestyle is an observable construct and differs according to generation and gender. It is suggested that the future research has to consider the idea of lifestyle segmentation and its application for sport club management.