Motivations of Football Fans in Singapore 1. Matthew, Mohan. Student. Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, MATT0019@e.ntu.edu.sg 2. Ho Keat, Leng. Assistant Professor. Sports Marketing and Management, Nanyang Technological University, hokeat.leng@nie.edu.sg Abstract Spectatorship of local football matches in Singapore has been on the decline. Football fans are now more likely to watch an English Premier League match on broadcast media than a local football game in the stadium. The purpose of this study is to find out the reasons why English Premier League (EPL) football fans in Singapore watch the EPL and to understand how those reasons can be applied to how local football clubs can attract more spectators to their games. A questionnaire adapted from Sport fans motivations: an investigation of Romanian soccer supporters (Izzo et al, 2011) was administered to 53 respondents who are fans of the English Premier League. The majority of the respondents were between 18 to 25 years of age (88.7%) and of male gender (81.1%). The results show that respondents watch football for Entertainment (Mean =4.42, SD=0.56), the Physical Skills of the players (Mean =4.38, SD=0.75), a sense of Vicarious Achievement (Mean =4.31, SD=0.79) and to a lesser extent for Escape (Mean =3.87, SD=0.92). More importantly, the findings show that spectators who are highly involved in Sport are more likely to watch English Premier League because it provides a sense of Escape (Mean High Involvement = 4.17, Mean Low Involvement = 3.11; t(51) = 4.39, p<0.01) and Entertainment (Mean High Involvement = 4.59, Mean Low Involvement = 4.00; t(51) = 3.85, p<0.01). The findings suggest that to attract spectators, local football clubs need to recruit more skillful players to provide higher levels of entertainment and sense of escape for spectators. In addition, local football clubs need to engage spectators to cultivate a sense of belonging to the club, subsequently leading to the sense of vicarious achievement. This is especially so if football clubs are targeting spectators who are highly involved in the sport. Keywords: Motivations, football fans 474
Acknowledgements We wish to acknowledge the funding support for this project from Nanyang Technological University under the Undergraduate Research Experience on CAmpus (URECA) programme. Background The S-League is a professional league for men s association football clubs. It was founded in 1996 as a means to produce more local footballing talents and improve the standards of local football. Initially, the league was well-received with the highest attendance recorded at 30,000 spectators. (S-League facts and figures, 2009) However, the attendance figures have been dropping over the years. The number of spectators dropped to its lowest point of 932 spectators in 2012. (Chin, G. 2014). Football fans in Singapore are now more likely to watch an English Premier League match on broadcast media than a local football game in the stadium. In 2011, the Football Association of Singapore and the Football Association of Malaysia reached an agreement that would see greater co-operation between the two nations. One of the intended avenues would see the Under-23s play in the Malaysian Super League and Malaysia Cup from 2012 onwards, the first time a Singaporean team would be participating in a Malaysian domestic football league since 1994. This team was called the Lions XII. (Asiaone, 2011) The Lions XII s return into the Malaysian Super League (MSL) has also affected the S- League as spectators find the MSL more exciting. The Lions XII in fact play good crowds when hosting their MSL counterparts but S-League attendances remain paltry. Objectives/Research Questions Given the popularity of English Premier League locally, the purpose of this study is to examine the reasons why English Premier League football fans in Singapore watch the English Premier League. This will allow us to see how local football clubs can 475
extrapolate findings to better implement strategies to attract more spectators to the local games by focusing on the motives of spectators in watching EPL matches. Spectators vary in their level of sport involvement and consequently have different propensities to consume sport. Marketers should focus their attention on current consumers and encourage them to be even heavier users (Mullin et al, 2014). In this study, differences in motives between spectators who are high and low in sports involvement will also be examined. Literature Review The motivations of football fans vary between culture, race and gender. Researchers have usually examined differences between genders (Wann, 1995). Male sport fans are more likely to be motivated by eustress (a positive stress that motivates the individual), self-esteem and aesthetics while female sport fans are more likely to be motivated by family needs such as spending time with loved ones (Wann, Schrader, Wilson, 1999). In Japan, seven aspects were identified to measure the motivation of J-League fans (Mahony et al, 2002). They were drama, vicarious achievement, aesthetics, team attachment, player attachment, sport attachment, and community pride. These seven factors were selected based on their applicability to the Japanese context. It was then found that team attachment and vicarious achievement had a significant and positive influence on attendance and motivation to watch football matches. Team attachment was defined through items that measured psychological commitment, team identification, and team importance. In another survey conducted among J-League and K-League fans, it was found that in accordance to (Mahony et al, 2002), team identification and vicarious achievement also were two main factors that affected attendance (Won & Kitamura, 2007). It was also discovered that escape (from reality) was a new reason that contributed to fans watching football in stadia. In Malaysia, the idea of loyalty was found to have been one of the attributes that have also been found to affect why individuals watch matches. This loyalty would usually assume the form of national pride and the one nation identity (Pilus & Husain, 2013). As 476
a result, placing loyalty elements was a suggestion cited to increase the involvement of spectators in the Malaysian league. This definition of loyalty overlapped with the idea of team attachment as defined in (Mahoney et al, 2002). Given that it has been well-established that team attachment does have a positive effect on fan motivation, we eliminated this item from our measuring scale. Furthermore, Singaporeans do not have such forms of loyalty in terms of nationalistic and geographical identification with Barclays Premier League. The footballing situation in Singapore is slightly different from that in Japan, Korea or even Malaysia. Given the lack of the popularity of the local league, the English Premier League is the footballing league of choice. It was found that 88% of respondents in a survey found that the S-league was boring and did not excite them. A further 96% felt that the English Premier League had the upper hand in terms of viewership in the country (Selvam, 2015). Hence, this study would differ from the prior three set in Asia as due to the specific circumstances in Singapore which are different from that in Malaysia, Korea or Japan. The results of (James, et al, 2006) found five factors that found a wide applicability to a range of sports. These were physical skill/ability, drama, escape, social interactions (family& others), and vicarious achievement and were modified in (Izzo et al, 2011). The concept of entertainment was also added. Entertainment is defined as items that represent the desire of some individuals to have a good time and enjoy the excitement associated with sporting events (Al-Thibiti, 2004). The 6 subscales were found to have good basis for application to this study despite the different cultural context and are closely aligned with those in (Mahony et al, 2002) as well as (Won & Kitamura, 2007). Hence, we felt that they were the most applicable to the study. However, it was decided that the concept of social interaction in (Izzo et al, 2011) should be removed as it largely referred to the attendance of matches at football stadia and would not be applicable to a Singaporean fan watching the English Premier League. Inversely, it was discovered that there has been a dearth of studies that explored the 477
idea of how involvement in sport affected sports motivation. Hence, we decided to explore whether the level of Sports Involvement would affect one of the six factors. Research Methodology The survey instrument was adapted from an earlier study on the motivations of football fans (Izzo et al, 2011). The factors measured include Vicarious Achievement (3 items) eg I feel like I have won when my football team wins ; Escape (3 items) eg Football games provide me with an escape from my day to-day activities ; Drama (4 items) eg I enjoy football games when the score is close ; Physical Skill (3 items) eg I enjoy watching the skillful performances of football players ; and Entertainment (4 items) eg I look forward to football games because they are exciting. In addition, the survey instrument included a 3-item Sport Involvement scale (questions) adapted from another study (Gwinner & Swanson, 2003). All items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale. The survey instrument was administered to a convenience sample of 53 respondents who are fans of the English Premier League. All the respondents completed the survey. The majority of the respondents were between 18 to 25 years of age (88.7%) and of male gender (81.1%). The mean score of sport involvement for all respondents was 3.65 (SD = 0.97). Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS. Findings The Cronbach alpha coefficients for Vicarious Achievement, Escape, Physical Skill and Sport Involvement showed good levels of internal consistency. The coefficients for the measures were 0.89, 0.82, 0.92, and 0.85 respectively. The Cronbach alpha coefficient for Drama and Entertainment were lower than the recommended 0.70 for internal consistency. The coefficients for the measures were 0.38 and 0.48 respectively. As the Cronbach alpha coefficient for Drama did not show sufficient reliability, it was not used in further analysis. A further analysis showed that in removing the item I am more interested in watching individual players than the football team as a whole from the Entertainment scale, the Cronbach alpha coefficient 478
will increase to 0.65 which is deemed acceptable given the small number of items in the scale (Pallant, 2010). Moreover, the mean inter-item correlation for the remaining items in the scale is 0.39 which is within an acceptable range. The results show that respondents watch football for Entertainment (Mean =4.42, SD=0.56), the Physical Skills of the players (Mean =4.38, SD=0.75), a sense of Vicarious Achievement (Mean =4.31, SD=0.79) and to a lesser extent for Escape (Mean =3.87, SD=0.92). The results are reflected in Table 1 below. Table 1 : Motives of Football Spectators Mean a Involvement b High- Low- Involvement c t-value Vicarious Achievement 4.31 (SD=0.79) 4.43 (SD=0.77) 3.98 (SD=0.77) 1.96 Escape 3.87 (SD=0.92) 4.17 (SD=0.77) 3.11 (SD=0.83) 4.39* Physical Skill 4.38 (SD=0.75) 4.49 (SD=0.70) 4.09 (SD=0.81) 1.81 Entertainment 4.42 (SD=0.56) 4.59 (SD=0.51) 4.00 (SD=0.47) 3.85* Note. a n = 53. b n = 38. c n = 15. *p<0.01 To analyse whether there were differences in motives between spectators of varying levels of sport involvement, respondents with a Sport Involvement mean score of 3.01 and above were categorised into a High Sport Involvement group (n=38) while the rest of the respondents were categorised into a Low Sport Involvement group (n=15). Independent t-tests were conducted to compare differences between the two groups. The analysis showed that there were differences between the two groups. Respondents who are high in Sport Involvement expressed a stronger motive to watch English Premier League because it provides a sense of Escape (Mean High Involvement=4.17, Mean 479
Low Involvement=3.11; t(51)=4.39, p<0.01) and Entertainment (Mean High Involvement=4.59, Mean Low Involvement=4.00; t(51)=3.85, p<0.01) when compared to respondents who are low in Sport Involvement. Discussion Firstly this study found that the scale as proposed by Izzo et al. is one that can be applied to a different cultural context. Out of the 7 items in the scale proposed in Izzo et al, two were removed in the research process of this study, as they did not apply to watching a football game from the television. Of the 5 that remained, only one (Drama), did not show sufficient reliability, and was not used in further analysis. This was because the Cronbach alpha coefficient for Drama did not meet the requirements of 0.7. Given that four items still are largely applicable to BPL fans in Singapore, this implies that the motivations behind fans watching football at Romanian stadia largely applies to a Singaporean context as well. Secondly, the study also validated that Escape was indeed a factor that explains why people watch football games. Although this was hypothesized in a previous study, the authors stated that more future research needs to be carried out to explain the motives. (Won & Kitamura, 2007). This study shows that escape is indeed a factor that explains the reasons why people watch football games. However, escape is of the four factors, the one that motivates fans in Singapore the least. The study also further emphasized the idea that vicarious achievement was a factor that affected the reasons why people watch football matches. In fact, Vicarious Achievement was found to be the third strongest factor in this study and motivated both fans with high and low levels of sport involvement alike. (Won & Kitamura, 2007), (Mahony et al, 2002), 480
Recommendations Extending these findings to a local context, they suggest that to attract spectators, local football clubs need to make football more entertaining, perhaps by recruiting more skillful players to their clubs. The S-League has recognized this by introducing the Star Player scheme in 2013 where clubs can sign quality players at a higher salary cap. However, the scheme was abolished due to financial constraints this year. While the Star Player scheme need not to be in play to make football more entertaining, S-league teams should broaden their scouting networks and look to bring more talented players to Singapore. These players may not have to be marquee signings but if they play good football, they can draw the crowds. To a lesser extent, spectators also see football as a means to escape from the drudgery of everyday life. An entertaining match is something that spectators in Singapore as well as most other countries, look forward to as a way to get away from stress. As such, organizers of the S-league should market the league as more than just something that is local but also underscore the talents that are on show. This could be done by screening highlights of the week s matches on free-to-air television as well as releasing videos with compilations of the week s top goals as well as skill moves. These tidbits of entertainment will show locals that players in the league do possess the quality that their counterparts in the English Premier League show on a weekly basis, reminding them that the S-League can provide the escape that the English Premier League does. This is especially so if football clubs are targeting spectators who are highly involved in football. For these spectators, they value the entertainment and sense of escape offered by football more so than spectators who are not as involved in football. Their high involvement in the game also means that they are familiar with different football leagues and different players. When S-league teams sign players who have 481
previously plied their trade in the various top leagues, this will arose the interest of these spectators and draw them to the stadiums. In addition, the findings suggest that spectators share a sense of vicarious achievement with their football clubs. For local football clubs, it is clear that they must not only recruit talented players to enhance the level of entertainment, but must also engage their fans to be involved in the fate of their local clubs. This has been done recently in a local context where teams have regular community outreach programmes. Right now, clubs currently reach out to 10 community groups and neighborhood schools. This year, S-League club Geylang International went on door-to-door visits near their stadium while Warriors FC had a walkabout to introduce themselves to residents in Woodlands and also organised a football carnival at Woodlands Stadium for residents. While this is a step in the right direction, more can be done to bolster the sense of vicarious achievement. Billboards of players who live in a particular neighborhood for example, can remind residents to get behind their local talents who share the same roots as they do. Conclusion This study found that football spectators are motivated by the sense of vicarious achievement, physical skills of players, the sense of escape; and the entertainment value of English Premier League matches. It suggests that for the S-League, local football clubs must seek ways to provide better entertainment for their spectators. This may include recruiting more skillful players and engaging the spectators to develop a sense of belonging. This is especially important for spectators who are highly involved in the sport as they value entertainment and a sense of escape more highly. As this study is based on a small convenience sample, its findings remain exploratory and will require further research. In addition, the study also found that the scales of Drama and Entertainment may need to be reviewed in future studies. 482
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