How public sport centers can improve the sport consumer experience

Abstract

Purpose The sport consumer experience is becoming an important aspect to sport center’s management. From this point, the purpose of this paper is to explore and examine the relationship between sport centers’ absorptive capacity and sport consumer experience, proposing that internal knowledge management processes act as mediators in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The study offers empirical insights by applying the consistent PLS algorithm (PLSc-SEM) in an analysis of data from 156 sport centers in Andalusia (Spain) and a sample of 3,150 sport users from these sport centers. Findings The results demonstrate that a sport center’s absorptive capacity for external knowledge is crucial for enhancing the sport consumer experience and also that this effect requires additional knowledge management, such as the sport center’s knowledge storage and knowledge application. Practical implications The practical implication for sport center managers is that knowledge management processes have a very strong influence on the sport consumer experience, when they are managed in a sequential way. Originality/value The main value of this paper is draw conclusions using a study of sport managers and sport consumers to increase value experience of those ones.