Sport Consumption Intentions during a Crisis: The COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a disruption to daily life and to the sport industry not seen before by generations of consumers. The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of three external factors (i.e., perceived State/County opening phase status, work status and sheltering status) along with consumers’ past spectating behavior on their intentions to attend live sport events in the near future. In this examination, we controlled for COVID-19-related beliefs, as well as for consumers’ emotional states (i.e., scared, optimistic). Data were collected from 382 Amazon Mechanical Turk respondents. The findings revealed how external factors happening due to a crisis (i.e., pandemic) and past spectating behavior influence consumers’ intentions to attend live sport events. Furthermore, beliefs and emotions related to the threat of COVID-19 sport spectators’ intentions to go to live sport events in the COVID-19 era.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• sport consumption intentions
• external factors
• emotions
• COVID-19 beliefs
• past behavior

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kyriaki (Kiki) Kaplanidou

Kyriaki (Kiki) Kaplanidou (Ph.D.) is Professor in the Department of Sport Management at the University of Florida. Her research interests are focusing on sport event consumer behaviors and the impacts of sport events on community development. Her work has appeared in such journals as Journal of Sport Management, European Sport Management Quarterly and Journal of Business Research among others.

Artemisia Apostolopoulou

Artemisia Apostolopoulou (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, U.S.A.) is a University Professor in the School of Business at Robert Morris University in the Departments of Sport Management and Marketing. Her research interests include branding and brand extension strategies of sport organizations, sport sponsorship, and the consumption and value of sport licensed products. Her work has appeared in such journals as European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Marketing Communications and Sport Marketing Quarterly, among others.

Inje Cho

Inje Cho is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sport Management in the University of Florida. His research interests include sport event consumer behavior with a focus on gamification, social comparison, information and communication technology, and physical activity.