Factors Associated with Professional Baseball Consumption: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Study

Abstract

Sports are very much a part of global markets. This study compares the underlying differences of professional baseball consumption behaviors between two distinct cultures, the United States (US) and Taiwan. Previous studies have indicated that sporting event consumption is influenced by sport fans' identity or team identification, sport consumption motivation, the influence of social agents, and some demographic variables. However, there is still a lack of integration of the aforementioned factors, and our understanding on cultural differences is relatively sparse when explaining sporting event consumption behaviors. In the current study, data were collected from questionnaires sent to residents in one US and one Taiwanese city. The authors used independent t-tests, stepwise multiple-regression analyses, and path analyses to explore the cultural differences in sport consumption. The comparison results indicated that the Taiwanese tend to watch more professional baseball games on television and have higher levels of identification as a baseball fan, rather than as the fan of one particular team. Family influence on sport consumption was found to be particularly important for people in the US, whereas escape motive and gender were found to be important for the Taiwanese.