Abstract: This study examines how to enhance urban community residents’ sense of benefit gained from public sports services through a moderated serial mediation model, addressing a critical dimension of grassroots governance efficacy in China’s urban modernization process. By conducting a questionnaire survey in 12 communities across Chongqing, Zhengzhou, and Suzhou, this study constructed and tested a moderated serial mediation model to elucidate the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions through which service provision influences residents’ perceptions. The findings reveal that: Public sports service provision not only directly increases residents’ sense of benefit but also operates through a serial mediation mechanism involving citizen participation and expectation gaps, with community belonging serving as a significant moderator that both amplifies the benefits of participation and mitigates the negative effects of expectation gaps, while demonstrating notable regional variations influenced by urban development levels. Accordingly, we propose implementing precise service provision to address expectation gaps, institutional empowerment to deepen public engagement, community co-construction to strengthen belonging, and region-specific strategies for refined delivery.