Purpose: This study examines fan participation in a local community football club by investigating whether perceived service quality influences club activation through fan engagement. To address the gap between favorable attitudes and actual participation, service quality was conceptualized as a multidimensional construct (facility/environment, accessibility/information, and safety/trust), and fan engagement was operationalized as fan attachment and fan participation. Method: A survey was administered to spectators attending four home matches of a community-based football club in P City (August 23; September 7, 14, and 21, 2025). Of the 370 questionnaires collected, 363 were retained after data screening. Measures included service quality (12 items), fan engagement (8 items), and club activation (8 items assessing future improvement needs and actual participation experiences), all rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, reliability testing, correlation analysis, and mediation-based multiple regression following the Baron and Kenny approach. Results: Factor analyses supported the proposed measurement structures, and all scales demonstrated satisfactory reliability. All study variables were positively correlated ( r=.289–.712, p Conclusion: The findings indicate that service quality promotes club activation both directly and indirectly through fan engagement, with mediation patterns differing across different service-quality dimensions. Facility/environment and accessibility/information serve as more immediate drivers of participation, whereas safety/trust primarily enhances participation by strengthening fan engagement. These results suggest that local football clubs should integrate service-quality management with engagement-building strategies to sustain and expand fan participation.
Yang et al. (2026) studied this question.