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Sportsmanship Attitudes As A Moderator Of The Relationship Between Team Identification And Spectator Aggression Attitudes, Andrew Rudd, Sarah Stokowski

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has long been concerned with the prac­tice of sportsmanship. However, frequent displays of spectator aggression at collegiate sport events demonstrates a grave contradiction. Fans level of team identification is considered a key influence on spectator aggression. Alternatively, sport marketers have found that team identification plays a vital role in fan consumption (e.g., tickets and merchandise). In the interest of reducing aggressive fan behavior without damp­ening the sport managers' need for highly identified college sports fans, we sought to assess how spectator sportsmanship attitudes might serve to moderate the relationship between team identification and spectator aggression …