Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sports Act. Living

Sec. Sports Management, Marketing, and Economics

Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1659416

The Psychological Mechanisms of Spectator Experience: A Pathway Model of Immersion, Identification, and Sport Consumption Behavior

Provisionally accepted
  • Taihu University of Wuxi, Wuxi, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Amid the growing convergence of experiential economy and contemporary sport contexts, the psychological mechanisms through which immersive experience drives spectator consumption remain insufficiently understood. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, Social Identity Theory, and Flow Theory, this study proposes a structural pathway model linking immersive experience, team identification, and sport consumption behavior. Motivational regulation type (intrinsic vs. extrinsic) is introduced as a moderating variable to capture variations in the psychological transformation from affective engagement to behavioral intention. Using a questionnaire-based survey, 728 valid responses were collected and analyzed through structural equation modeling and multi-group comparison. The results reveal that immersive experience significantly enhances team identification, which mediates its influence on sport consumption. Moreover, motivational regulation plays a significant moderating role: individuals with high intrinsic motivation are more likely to follow an "immersion →identification → consumption" pathway, while those with extrinsic motivation tend to exhibit a more immediate behavioral response to immersion. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of how spectators transition from emotional engagement to consumer behavior, offering empirical support for the design of immersive sporting experiences and segmented audience management strategies.

Keywords: Immersive Experience, team identification, Sport consumption behavior, motivational regulation, Psychological mechanism

Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Xiaogan Chen, taihuxy2025@163.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.