Beyond Spectator Sports: Scale Development and Validation for Mediated Sports Consumption

One apparent trend impacting spectator sports is the shift in sport fans’ consumption opportunities, having now gained many alternative formats to access sporting events. Sport fans are allowed intentionally and constantly to move from platform to platform and access content on demand. These substitute platforms, including home television, online streaming, social networking, sports bars, and movie cinema, are considered mediated sports consumption, alternative outlets to actual physical attendance of sporting events. As the phenomenon of mediated sports consumption has become a predominant means of spectating sports consumption practice, it is more important than ever to identify and understand how mediated sports consumption impacts sport fans behaviors. The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to explore what motives influence sport fans’ consumption practice regarding mediated sports consumption not only to extend our understanding of sport consumers but also to help explain sport fans’ decision making, (2) to develop a comprehensive motivation scale for mediated sports consumption (MSMSC); and (3) to provide initial validation for MSMSC. This study was composed of five stages, including face-to-face interviews, a panel of expert review, exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling, was used to determine the validity and reliability of the MSMSC. The developed MSMSC has seven key motives, including convenience, sociability, emotional hedge, programming, ownership, team identification, and security. The seven-factor model was confirmed and had achieved a good model fit, which suggested that this newly developed MSMSC was adequate to capture mediated sports consumption behavior