Sport Service Quality

Sport service quality measurement adapts general service-quality theory to the distinctive features of sport and recreation settings, where the 'service' is an active, participatory experience rather than a simple transaction. Ko and Pastore's 2005 hierarchical model, the Scale of Service Quality in Recreational Sport (SSQRS), is the most influential sport-specific formulation. Drawing on Brady and Cronin's hierarchical conceptualization and the SERVQUAL tradition of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, it argues that recreational sport service quality is best understood as a higher-order construct composed of four primary dimensions — program quality, interaction quality, outcome quality, and physical-environment quality — each in turn built from more specific sub-dimensions. By structuring quality hierarchically rather than as a flat list of attributes, the model captures both the overall perception participants form and the specific facets that drive it, giving sport managers a diagnostic tool that links measured quality to satisfaction and behavioral intentions.