What is sport activity loyalty? Verifying the relationship between passion and psychological well-being.

OBJECTIVE: The variables of sport activity loyalty are being utilized actively in the fields of sports management and marketing. This study seeks to understand sport activity loyalty and verify the causal relationship between passion and psychological well-being to discover a new convergent and comprehensive research model in the field of Kinesiology.

METHODS: Passion, psychological well-being, and sport activity loyalty were measured for 198 college athletes who were registered as athletes in the 2021 Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC). To analyze the data, the SPSS 24.0, PROCESS Macro (V.2.13), and Amos 24.0 programs were used.

RESULTS: First, harmonious passion had a significant positive effect on sport activity loyalty. Second, harmonious passion had a significant positive effect on psychological well-being, and obsessive passion had a significant positive effect on all variables of psychological wellbeing except self-realization. Third, the results of testing the mediating effect based on the direct effect revealed that harmonious and obsessive passion had significant indirect effects on sport activity loyalty through feelings of competence and hedonic enjoyment.

CONCLUSIONS: It is hereby provided that we have examined the causal relationship between sport activity loyalty and sports psychology variables and discovered a new research model convergent between variables in the field of physical education (psychology-sociology, business administration).