A comparison of media and live dominant sport consumers

Consumption of sport through TV and internet broadcasts continues to become more attractive to consumers as a result of improved quality of sport broadcasts, 'live against the gate' broadcasts and the integration of interactive elements with broadcasting. These developments mean that the decision of whether to consume games live at the stadium, or elsewhere via media broadcasts, is becoming increasingly difficult, even for even highly committed fans such as season ticket holders (STH). On the producer side, sport organisations have come to rely heavily on the revenue generated from media broadcasts rights, and are faced with the task of creating and managing products that ensure TV ratings justify the rights spend paid by media companies, while also attracting fans to the stadium. Given this, there is a need to better understand media and live consumers, and how behaviour and attitudes towards products such as season ticket packages may differ. This study segments and explores STH with variant modes of sport consumption. Data were collected from STH of four Australian Football League (AFL) clubs (n=14,547) through online surveys conducted at the conclusion of a season. Our study focused on identifying differences between two segments within this sample; media dominant consumers (n=2483) who primarily watch games on TV and live dominant consumers, who consume in the majority through game attendance at the stadium (n=1648). The results showed gender and behavioural differences across the two groups.