The Research of Ritual Implications in Leisure Activities-A Case Study of Chinese Professional Baseball League Spectatorship

[[abstract]]This study aims to explore the ritual implications in CPBL(Chinese Professional Baseball League) spectatorship. Meanwhile, in order to achieve a better understanding of the word ritual, this study will be focusing on the differences of ritual implications between religion and baseball spectatorship. Besides, this study will be discussing the reasons why people may regard baseball spectatorship as ritual(positive) while others consider it as addiction(negative). An in-depth interview was conducted in this study. The participants were recruited from huge fans of CPBL , and were interviewed by the use of a structured questionnaire. Interpretations were revised and compared with new data until saturation and redundancy were achieved. That is, a total of five participants were interviewed in this study. The result indicates that there are six different settings of ritual implications in CPBL spectatorship including, stadium, equipments, jerseys, cheerleading, cheer props, and baseball rules. When it comes to the spiritual differences between religion and baseball spectatorship, the results implies that there are similarities in both aspects in terms of habits, flow experience, beliefs, and stability. Furthermore, the result indicates that self-expression and centrality are the two major reasons why baseball spectatorship may become ritual(positive) or addiction (negative). Finally, it was suggested that the six different settings in baseball spectatorship can be modified and used in order to promote baseball spectatorship. Also, the result may be taken into considerations for those who has been doing the research on addiction treatments. A further research on ritual implications in different sports spectatorship is also advised