Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has posed several challenges to the sporting industry, caused by the change in behavior of sporting fans from purchasing event tickets to watching live broadcasts of events on the Internet. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of fan behavior in this “new normal”. It adopts a technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore the effects of social presence (SP) in the context of online viewing of professional sports. For this purpose, the authors conducted an online survey of viewers who watched NBA sports events on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website using the Together Mode feature of Microsoft Teams. We collected 209 valid questionnaires and performed a partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis. The results showed that the SP-TAM structural model has adequate predictive relevance, and SP has a statistically significant positive relationship with both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The model was thus validated, contributing to the existing body of knowledge on emerging technologies such as the creation of a virtual audience in sports. The study’s findings suggest that technology developers should focus on the effects of SP and emphasize practical functions to increase the use intention of sporting fans. Furthermore, professional sporting leagues should prioritize the use of virtual fan technology to optimize the viewing experience of their fans.
Highlights
With the onset of COVID-19, almost every country proscribed the organization of public events, including all types of sporting events
Prior to assessing the structural model, we examined for collinearity with the variance inflation factor (VIF) and found all values to be below the threshold of 3 [53], indicating that the model was free from common method bias [55]
This study shows the applicability of social presence (SP) in the novel context of immersive experience technologies such as virtual fandom, revealing that SP significantly affects both PUusefulness estimates (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), which is contrary to those derived in other contexts [31,42,43]
Summary
With the onset of COVID-19, almost every country proscribed the organization of public events, including all types of sporting events. The suspension of events worldwide had an unprecedented impact on the sporting industry and drastically changed consumer behaviors [1]. The National Basketball Association (NBA) was the first professional sporting league to announce a postponement of a scheduled event when one of its players, Rudy. Gobert, contracted the virus in March 2020. This decision marked a turning point in attitudes, with major professional sporting leagues and even the 2020 Tokyo Olympic. Even as countries began to lift their stringent lockdowns, games were played in mostly empty venues or with a restricted audience size to ensure social distancing. Sporting events without the physical presence of fans were deemed unsustainable [3]
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