The influence of triathletes’ serious leisure traits on sport constraints, involvement, and participation

ABSTRACT

This study aims to confirm a structural model of serious leisure traits, constraints, involvement, and resultant participation with a sample of triathletes in Taiwan. Questionnaires were collected from 371 triathlon participants in the 2015 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan. The findings confirmed the antecedent role of serious leisure traits in the constraint–involvement relationship. In particular, serious leisure traits exerted a positive influence on sport participation through constraints and involvement, and sport constraints and involvement fully mediated between serious leisure traits and sport participation. The results show that triathletes with stronger serious leisure traits participated more frequently in daily training, finished longer distances in the event, and had spent more years as triathletes due to their low perceived constraints and high sport involvement. Based on these findings, several managerial implications for triathlon event organisers and governing bodies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Serious leisure
• constraints
• triathlon

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (R.O.C.) [MOST 104-2410-H-020-012].

Notes on contributors

Shang-Ming Ma

Shang-Min Ma is Professor in the Department of Recreational Sport and Health Promotion at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. His research interests concern player performance in tennis, positive psychology in leisure behaviour and recreational sports constraints negotiation process.

Shang-Chun Ma

Shang-Chun Ma, PhD, is a professor in the Institute of Physical Education, Health, & Leisure Studies at the National Cheng Kung University. His research interest includes legacies of sport events, leisure behavior, sport consumer behavior.

Sheng-Fong Chen

Zhe Chen is PhD candidate in the Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology. His research interests include positive psychology in leisure behaviour and recreational sports constraints negotiation process, data mining, Text mining, Deep learning and Big data.