Factors associated with spectator nonattendance at professional basketball games in Greece

Date of Completion

January 2000

Keywords

Business Administration, Marketing|Business Administration, Management|Recreation

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

Basketball has been Greece's national sport for nearly two decades. Despite its rapid growth, in the last few years the Greek professional basketball league has been concerned with the significant decrease in the general interest surrounding the sport, which has resulted in a fewer number of fans attending the league's games. ^ Although there is extensive literature on attendance at professional sports, there is a very limited number of studies that examine factors that are associated with spectator non-attendance at professional basketball games. The present study had two objectives: first to identify, describe and explain (demographic and sociomotivational variables) the different population segments that do not attend professional Greek basketball league games, and second, to investigate how these three groups differ in their reasons for non-attendance at professional Greek basketball league games. Using the basketball Spectator Non-Attendance Scale (Douvis & Yiannakis, 1999) as the instrument, data were collected by phone from a systematic random sample (combined with quota sampling) of 450 residents of the city of Athens. The data were analyzed using SPSS crosstabulations and discriminant analysis. ^ This exploratory study is the first one to focus on the investigation of the non-attending segments of the population. Most of the existing research is on attendance. By identifying the non-attendance and sociomotivational factors that are associated with each non-attendance group, and combining this information with the demographic characteristics of their members, it is now possible to more accurately target these segments for the purpose of increasing their attendance frequency at Greek professional basketball league games. ^

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