COVID-19 and Attendance Demand for Professional Sport in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis of Repeated Cross-Sectional National Data during the Pandemic

Hiroaki Funahashi, Shintaro Sato and Takuya Furukawa
Additional contact information
Hiroaki Funahashi: School of Health and Sport Sciences, Chukyo University, 101 Tokodachi, Kaizu-cho, Toyota 470-0393, Japan
Shintaro Sato: Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Higashifushimi Nishi-Tokyo, Tokyo 202-0021, Japan
Takuya Furukawa: Department of Sports Management, Faculty of Management, Osaka Seikei University, 3-10-62 Aikawa Higashiyodogawa-ku, Osaka 533-0007, Japan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: In the current investigation, we assess the effect of COVID-19 on intention-based spectator demand for professional sports in Japan captured by eight, monthly repeated cross-sectional national surveys from May to December 2020 ( n = 20,121). We regress spectator demand on individual (e.g., gender), prefecture-wave (e.g., COVID-19 infection status), and prefecture-level factors (i.e., with or without quality professional teams). The results of multilevel logistic regression demonstrate that individual (i.e., male, younger, full-time employment, and with children status) and prefecture-level team factors (i.e., with teams) were associated with intention-based spectator demand. Nevertheless, COVID-19-related factors were found to be unrelated to spectator demand. The findings imply that sports fans are likely to return to the stadium once behavioral restrictions are lifted. The current research provided further evidence that individual factors and team quality serve as influential antecedents of spectator demand in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; spectator demand; professional sports; multilevel logistic model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5318/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5318/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5318-:d:803537

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().