The relationship between watching sport events and spectators’ engagement in physical activities

Background and Study Aim: The purpose of the present research was to investigate the relationship between watching sport events in stadiums and spectators’ physical activities. Materials and Methods: The population included spectators of basketball, volleyball, and handball in Tehran stadiums, which is estimated to be more than a hundred thousand people. The sample consisted of 384 spectators who were chosen using the Morgan Table in the simple random method, and they filled the questionnaire before the games started. The instrument was a researcher-developed questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by sports management and communication experts. The reliability was obtained to be 0.86 using Cronbach's alpha test. The collected data was analyzed using K-S test, chi-square test, Spearman correlation coefficient (using SPSS software), and confirmatory factor analysis (using LISREL 8.8 software). Results: The results indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between watching sport events in stadiums and spectators’ intention to do physical activities. Also, there was a significant positive relation between effective factors on spectator during watching sport events and doing physical activities. These factors are related to the stadiums, sport events and social interrelation. Conclusions : It seems that watching sport events and the encouraging factors in sporting environment and stadiums promotes physical activity and health. Since the present research focuses on an important social effect of sport events, it can be a start point for researchers to discover if encouraging people to watch sport events is a way to maintain social health.