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COPYRIGHT 2005 University of South Alabama
Many sports attract large crowds. In Norway soccer is the most popular sport in terms of attracting spectators to the arenas. 1 128 847 spectators attended soccer matches played by the 14 teams at the elite level during the 2002-season. With a mean of 14 626, and a total of 190 138 spectators through the season, Rosenborg Balklubb (RBK) was the one team attracting most spectators at their home matches in the city of Trondheim. Obviously, not all sports share the same popularity. One example is the sport of ski jumping, which gathers a lesser total of spectators compared to soccer, but still draw large crowds to international competitions. The city of Trondheim has a tradition for arranging a yearly competition as part of the FIS World Cup. During the season of 2001/2002, 3000 spectators attended the ski-jump competition held in the K- 120.
According to Sloan (1989), there are five categories of theories concerning motives of sport spectators: salubrious effects, stress and stimulation seeking, catharsis and aggression, entertainment, and achievement seeking. In addition, Warm (1995) suggests between-sport differences in consumer motives and reasons for watching sports. Considering the many different theories and different sports, it should come as no surprise that asking people why they choose to consume sport events will produce multiple answers. By surveying spectators (N=399) attending soccer and ski jump competitions, the aim of this study was better understand why so many people are fascinated by, and choose to attend sport events. Another point of interest was to compare spectators of different sports in order to reveal between sport differences or similarities.
Entertainment Sport
Although comparing different sports might seem a difficult task, this paper argues that different sports have some common features within the concept of entertainment sport. Sports' ability to attract spectators has been captured by Gusfield (2000), when describing spectator sports as "the professionalized, athletic event performed before mass audiences in modern stadiums or observed on radio or television and reported in the press" (p. 63). Others have made a firmer connection between sport spectating and consumption, by categorizing spectators as direct sport consumers--individuals attending a sporting event in person--and indirect sport consumers--individuals spectating through media (Wann, 1997; Warm, Melnick, Russel, and Pease, 2001). This study takes into account two possible explanations to why spectators would want to attend sport events. First, there is the complementary relationship suggested by Guttmann (1986) when defining representational sport, where "Individual identification with the athletes and collective membership in the community combine" (p. 82). Not only are athletes measuring skills, they also represent spectators, who in turn identify with the athletes. There is a complementary relationship between spectators and athletes, where one cannot exist without the other. Second, this study takes into consideration the theoretical framework of Elias & Dunning (1986). Sport as a spare time activity involves the search for pleasurable and de-routinizing emotional arousal via motility, sociability, mimesis, or some combination of all three: "Voluntary sport appears to be largely about obtaining satisfaction from engaging in physical movements, from the social contacts that are made in sports, and from the arousal of affects which bear a playful and pleasurable resemblance to the emotions which are generated in seriously critical situations" (Dunning, 1999, p. 3). Spectators are not engaging in the physical activity of sports per se, leaving us to focus on the factors of sociability and mimesis.
Definitions of spectator sport, representational sport, and voluntary sport, all contribute to understand sport spectators. However, standing alone these concepts are not able to cover consumption, the complementary relationship between spectators and athletes, and motives of spectators. In this paper, the phenomenon subjected to investigation is termed entertainment sport, defined as a professionalized athletic event with athletes representing spectators, who in turn identify with the athletes and consume sport in order to obtain satisfaction from the social contacts and arousal of affects. The concept of entertainment sport implies two central dimensions of motives, namely sociability and excitement. The next step is to look at previous research in order to sum up knowledge related to spectators and motives of sociability and excitement.
Empirical studies of sport consumers and their motives
The last few years there have been several attempts to develop a scale to measure the various motives of sport spectators. The Sport Fan Motivation Scale (SFMS) was first developed by Wann (1995), and included eight factors: eustress, self-esteem, escape from everyday life, entertainment, economic factors, aesthetics, group affiliation, and family needs. Male respondents reported higher levels of eustress, self-esteem, escape, entertainment, and aesthetic motivations. Females, on the other hand, reported higher levels of family motivation. The study also revealed a negative relationship between age and the motive of group affiliation. In a later study Wann, Schrader, & Wilson (1999) tested the SFMS with a more heterogeneous sample through telephone interviews. The authors concluded that male sport fans are more likely to be motivated by eustress, self-esteem, and aesthetics, while female sport fans are more likely to be motivated by family needs. There appeared to be no consistent differences between male and female fans concerning motives of escape, entertainment, economic, and group affiliation. The study also included an analysis of the relationship between education, age, and motives. The analysis involving education revealed one significant effect, finding that subjects with higher level of education reported higher levels of entertainment motive.
The study found no significant relationships involving age, leading to the conclusion of age and sport fan motivation being unrelated.
Some interesting modifications of the SFMS are worth mentioning. Wann et al. (2001) hold that the SMFS subscales...
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