Role of the stadium in the value enhancement process of a rugby union match

The role of place value in the value-enhancement process of an experience has been widely debated in the retailing and services sectors. Yet, the role a stadium plays in the overall experience process of a sport event has not received a similar attention. This article aims at filling this academic gap. Through a dyadic qualitative study involving nine professional experts (four club executives and five senior professionals of the sports industry) and seven sports spectators, and its subsequent confirmatory quantitative study (n = 1,429), the authors show that both the value of the match and the value of the stadium have an impact on the perceived global value of a sport event. If match value has a direct influence on global perceived value, stadium value has both a direct and an indirect effect on global perceived value - the latter is mediated by match value. Besides, the results of the structural equation modelling (AMOS 24) show that perceived proximity is an antecedent to both stadium value and match value.