After the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups, the Japan Rugby Top League games attracted many new fans including female fans and niwaka fans (bandwagon fans/fair-weather fans). Understanding the characteristics of game attendees could be crucial to retain new fans and expand the fan base. The purpose of this study was to categorize attendees into four segments according to gender and fan types and to compare their characteristics, motivations for attending games, and knowledge of rugby. Data were collected from seven games at five venues from January 12 to 26, 2020. The four segments—male niwaka fans, female niwaka fans, male regular fans, and female regular fans—were compared by one-way analysis of variance. It was found that male regular fans had supported rugby since 1980, while female regular fans appeared after the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Further, the motivations of female niwaka fans and regular fans were different.

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COVID-19 outbreak has forced sport spectators to keep social distancing in the stadium/arena, causing economic damage to sport organizations due to a lack of matchday revenue. However, the situation would arouse sport spectators' nostalgia for their past experiences in the sporting venue. Thus, the purpose of this study was to clarify whether nostalgia for spectating sport in the stadium/arena during the pandemic differed by involvement in sport spectatorship. In December 2020, an online survey of Japanese sports spectators (n = 728) was conducted. The result of confirmatory factor analysis explained that sport spectators' experience-based nostalgia during COVID-19 was engendered from memories of their favorite teams, stadiums, and social interactions in the stadium/arena. Mann-Whitney's U tests resulted that sport spectators with higher involvement in sport spectatorship perceived nostalgia stronger than those with lower involvement. Sports teams and leagues could benefit from the knowledge during the “with-corona” period.

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The purpose of this research was to understand sport management faculty's perceptions toward sport management classes in Japanese Universities. More specifically, the study sought to reveal deans' (or program directors') perceptions of importance to these classes at the undergraduate level. Survey results from 48 universities indicated that “Management Concepts,” “Sport Marketing,” and “Internship/Practical/Experiential Learning” were the top three most important classes. “Foundations of sport” and “Capstone Class” rounded the top five important classes. Surprisingly, sports communication classes, deemed most important by practitioners, did not place in the top five. The results inform for a better sport management curricula development in Japanese higher education institutions.

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