Influence of Multiple Interactions in Value Cocreation on Sports Spectators’ Perceived Value of Sports Events

This study analyzed the effects of multiple interactions in value cocreation activities involving sports spectators. Interaction activities for value cocreation at sports events comprise spectator-athlete and spectator-staff interactions. A survey of spectators at the 2017 Wuhan Open revealed that spectator-athlete and spectator-staff interactions increased spectator perceived value, which in turn increased spectator satisfaction and loyalty. Spectator-staff interactions had a greater effect on spectator sports event value than did spectator-athlete interactions. Therefore, organizers of sports events should effectively manage multiple value cocreation interactions to improve spectator satisfaction and loyalty. The present study’s consideration of the effect of multiple interactions in value cocreation extends value cocreation theory.

Effects of Game Situation-Dependent Emotions on Sport Spectators’ Food Craving

This study sought to challenge prevalent accounts of emotional eating by exploring the effects of situation-dependent emotions on consumers’ food craving. Four specific game situations in the context of spectator sports, each corresponding to the four types of emotional coping (outcome-desire conflict, avoidance, fulfillment, and pursuit), were identified as follows: decisive victories, decisive losses, close victories, and close losses. By employing laboratory-based virtual reality spectatorship, Study 1 tested the causal effects of happiness (fulfillment), anger (conflict), sadness (conflict), fear (avoidance), and hope (pursuit) on food craving. Study 2 further designed fans’ previous association between emotions and eating as a moderating mechanism in the context of online sport viewership. The results of the two experiments supported the three theoretical principles of eating behavior, including the “food as fuel” principle of anger, the hedonic eating principle of happiness, and the self-regulation principle of hope. However, the results rejected the escape awareness principle of sadness and fear. The study concludes with a discussion of context-dependent emotional positioning and intervention strategies for marketers and policy makers.

Constructing Authentic Spectatorship at an Esports Bar

Spectatorship is a core element of esports. Short for “electronic sports,” esports encompasses organized, professional competitive videogaming practices produced and consumed as a spectator sport. Esports’ computerized nature grants it a placeless quality, which creates ambiguities around what authentic esports spectatorship ought to be. Notably, some notions theorized prior to the emergence of contemporary esports imply that authenticity and placelessness are incompatible. We address this conundrum by presenting an ethnographic study conducted at an esports bar; a venue designed for the spectatorship of esports alongside other fans and alcohol consumption. While embodying seemingly placeless qualities, esports spectatorship nevertheless takes place in situated places. We found spectators at the bar worked to authenticate their spectatorship by drawing on conventions of legitimacy, professionalism, and spectacle from elsewhere, particularly spectator sports. Through their spectatorship, those at the bar constructed and affirmed a convention of authenticity for esports.

“Shut up and Dribble”

This research paper seeks to explore the intersection of race, seen through the predominantly Black athletic body of the NBA, with the rise of the capitalist, consumer-oriented entertainment industry of professional sports throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It will attempt to illustrate how racial identity and capitalism have reacted to one another to create one of the biggest – and one of the most complicated – entertainment entities in North America. To explore this issue, I will outline the social setting from which Black athletes grew to participate in spectator sports, touching on notable persons such as Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Bill Russell. I will then examine the importance of broadcasted sports and race’s role therein during the 20th century to contextualise capitalist practices in entertainment. I will conclude with an examination of capitalist practice as regulators for Black identity in the NBA by focusing on its direct and indirect attempts towards regulation. This will be done through an examination of Black athletes’ participation in social justice movements as measures of regulation, using the 1992 Rodney King trial riots and the events of Summer 2020 as comparative case studies. While this may appear to simply be an exploration of sports history, one should consider that sports are a primary form of entertainment in both North American and global popular culture. As such, this research project goes beyond an attempt to contribute to sports history, instead seeking to delve into the complementarity of social history, consumerism, and race.

Seeing is Believing: Special Olympics Events and the Society of the Spectacle

The purpose of this research project is to better understand how one global sport for development agency takes advantage of events to build partnerships. This study demonstrates how the current social context, as theorized in Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, facilitates the implementation of what we label as a “seeing-is-believing” strategy. This strategy allows Special Olympics to capitalize on society’s fascination with events to activate partners. Accordingly, a conceptual model that synthesizes and contrasts the aims of commercial spectator sports and sport for development events is provided. This model demonstrates that events are effective partnership-building arenas because, on one hand, they offer opportunities to efficiently evaluate mission attainment. These opportunities exploit our familiarity with events and the unthreatening passivity of watching. On the other hand, events provide pretexts for getting over the initial awkwardness sometimes associated with interacting with athletes identifying with intellectual disabilities. Theoretical and practical implications of the concepts that make the seeing is believing strategy work will also be provided.

Spectator Sports as Context for Examining Observers’ Agreeableness, Social Identification, and Empathy in a High-Stakes Conflict Situation

In a high-stakes conflict or dilemma situation, observers often feel empathy for one side versus the other. Using a high-profile conflict situation in a world-renowned spectator sport (the US Open) as context, the authors of this study examined the roles of personality and social-cognitive factors, specifically agreeableness and social identification, on empathic concern towards three individuals (a focal actor or instigator, a target, and an “innocent” bystander) involved in an emotionally charged conflict situation. Results showed direct and indirect effects of agreeableness on identification with the focal actor and empathic concern towards the individuals involved in the conflict situation. Participants’ social-cognitive processes of identification with the focal actor or instigator fully mediated the effect of personality trait of agreeableness on empathic concern towards the focal actor, whereas agreeableness was directly related to empathic concern towards the target and the bystander without (full) mediation by social identification. Gender differences were found with women reporting higher empathic concern and identification towards the female focal actor and lower empathic concern towards the male target in the conflict situation, suggesting potential automatic or implicit in-group bias. Study results highlight the complex integration of personality and social-cognitive processes, including intersectionality of social identities, in the dynamics of empathic reactions during high-stakes and emotionally charged conflict situations.