Pro-Environmental Sustainability and Political Affiliation: An Examination of USA College Sport Sustainability Efforts

Jonathan M. Casper, Brian P. McCullough and Danielle M. Kushner Smith
Additional contact information
Jonathan M. Casper: Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Brian P. McCullough: Health & Kinesiology Department, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Danielle M. Kushner Smith: Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Political ideology is one of the most powerful predictors of perceptions about environmental sustainability and related behaviors. The purpose of this study was to investigate how sport fans’ sustainability-specific values, perceptions, and norms related to awareness, engagement, and influence of USA collegiate sport sustainability efforts based on political affiliation, accounting for age and gender. Data were collected using an online survey distributed to season ticket holders after the 2019 college football season that featured three sponsored sustainability initiatives at each home game. Multivariate analysis of variance and chi-square difference tests found that self-identified Democrats reported significantly higher pro-environmental values and norms, but sustainability program engagement, sponsored initiatives awareness, and influence of initiatives on behavior were politically neutral. Path analysis found that ascription of responsibility was a significant predictor of sustainability-related engagement and behaviors for both Independents and Republicans. The results and discussion sections highlight how academics and practitioners can account for political affiliation when creating campaign messaging for environmental initiatives.

Keywords: politics; fan behavior; collegiate sport; environment; sustainability; sport ecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5840/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5840/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:11:p:5840-:d:565020

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().