Chenya Li Weihua Qu ^*

• School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China

With the advancement of the social economy, sports consumption has transformed traditional consumption, centered on material purchases, to experiential sports consumption, which places greater emphasis on psychological engagement and emotional fulfillment. While this shift has attracted scholarly attention, the psychological mechanisms behind experiential sports consumption remain underexplored. Grounded in social exclusion theory, this study constructs a conceptual model with social exclusion as the independent variable, experiential sports consumption intention as the dependent variable, and loneliness and the need for social connection as mediators. This study collected 415 valid questionnaires through a survey. It used structural equation modelling and the Bootstrap method to examine the complex relationships among the variables empirically. The results indicate that social exclusion significantly and positively predicts the intention to engage in experiential sports consumption; social exclusion has a significant positive effect on individuals' loneliness and need for social connection; the mediating role of loneliness in the relationship between social exclusion and the intention to engage in experiential sports consumption is not significant; the need for social connection mediates the relationship between social exclusion and the intention to engage in experiential sports consumption; and a chain mediation effect of loneliness and the need for social connection exists in the relationship between social exclusion and the intention to engage in experiential sports consumption. Based on these findings, this study suggests that sports enterprises and organizations design socially engaging activities to strengthen social connections and alleviate feelings of exclusion.