Behavioral Intention Model of College Students in Their Watching Major League Baseball Games

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the intention and behaviour of college students in their watching the Major League Baseball (MLB). The major reason is that the number of Taiwanese players in MLB has been increased due to their outstanding performance. In addition, the innovations in the professional sport industry and sports broadcasting may influences the value cognition of the college students in their sport-watching, and may eventually affect behaviour model in sports watching. This trend becomes a very important factor for sports organizations to analyze the current sports market situation. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Aizen, 1991), this study conducted a survey on a group of college students, who watched the games of Wei-Yin Chen, a Taiwanese MLB player, to understand the behaviour model of Taiwanese college students in their watching professional baseball games. The results from 443 valid samples showed that all independent variables, including attitude, subjective and norm perceived behavioral control showed significant effects on behavior intention. In conclusion, an additional confidence interval method was applied to verify whether a mediating effect existed between perceived behavioral control and behavior intention in this study, and a positive result was confirmed. Some research suggestions were raised for related sports organizations and future studies may necessary.