This study explores how sports media entertains audiences. A survey found that
sports media provides both enjoyable experiences and meaningful experiences
for audiences. In doing so, this study illuminates how and why sports media
entertains audiences. Watching sports can be understood as a hedonic media
experience that is fun and pleasurable, but this study shows that sports media
consumption can also be a deeper, meaningful experience that gives insight into
the human condition. This shows that even for an audience member who is not
enjoying an event, they still might be deriving meaning from the event. Further,
this study examines how sports media might generate these experiences as the
mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, the dimensions of self-determination
theory and affective state of audience members, are explored. The dimensions of
self-determination theory were instrumental in predicting audience enjoyment
while affect was instrumental in predicting meaningful experiences for audiences.
Overall, this study provides information relevant in understanding how and why
people consume sports media – which should be of interest to practitioners and
scholars alike.