Quality of sporting events: Validation of the EVENTQUAL scale

Abstract

Service quality is an important variable for managing sports organisations. In the management of sports events it becomes necessary to have valid and reliable scales to evaluate the event in order to make good decisions. In the literature of sport management there are few contributions in this regard. The aim of this study is the validation of a scale that measures the spectators’ perceptions of service quality in sporting events through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The EVENTQUAL scale was administered to a sample of 2,154 spectators, subsequently broken up at random into three sub-samples, M1 = 703 subjects, M2 = 713, M3 = 740. The results scale, consisting of 14 items showed good reliability and validity indexes in all tests, likewise, different confirmatory factor analysis conducted, confirmed the four dimensions of spectators’ perceptions of quality in sporting events: tangibles, staff, complementary services and accessibility.