Two pillars of football’s popularity in Singapore : television viewership and amateur leagues

Football/soccer’s popularity in Singapore is evidenced by the high television viewership and high participation rates (Sport Singapore, 2016). This is an irony in a nation with little interest in the Singapore Premier League (SPL) and national team. Since there is a lack of studies that examine this irony, this research aimed to identify the potential root causes that make football the most watched sport on television and an appealing sport to play. Document analysis was used and 85 documents relevant to football leagues and television viewership of games were collected from online newspaper articles, websites, journal articles and books (O’Leary, 2004). Data was analysed by integrating features of content and thematic analysis (Bowen, 2009). The two main themes developed were television broadcasting development of English Premier League (EPL) games and rise of amateur leagues. They are indeed significant factors that contribute to football’s popularity. Football is popular in the rest of the world too because television viewership of EPL is similarly high in many countries and amateur football leagues in United Kingdom (UK) are so popular that they include gay players and use the leagues as a channel to eradicate homophobia (Curley & Roeder, 2016; Willis, 2014). By determining the root causes of popularity of watching EPL on television and playing in amateur leagues, this study serves as a foundation for sport organisations like Football Association of Singapore (FAS) and Sport Singapore to provide recommendations to attract fans to watch SPL and players to join SPL.Bachelor of Science (Sport Science and Management