Fantasy sport participation as a complement to traditional sport consumption

Most sporting codes encourage participation in fantasy sport, even though few earn revenue directly from it. There is a lack of empirical evidence to determine whether this is good practice for although fantasy sport can increase consumer involvement and education, it may also compete with other forms of sport consumption for a consumer's limited resources. This paper begins to address the question of whether fantasy sport competes with, or complements other forms of sport consumption by comparing fantasy sport players with non-players. Three survey-based studies are used to identify the degree of fan participation in fantasy sport and measure the attitudes and behaviours of fantasy sport players compared to non-players. The findings indicate fantasy sport players are very different from non-players, more so than previous studies suggest. Fantasy sport players scored higher on all tested consumption measures relating to both attitudes (e.g., points of attachment, team identification, loyalty), and behaviour (e.g., game attendance, television viewing, secondary spend). These studies provide evidence that fantasy sport involvement complements traditional sport consumption amongst current fantasy sport players, both for general fans of the sport, as well as highly involved consumers. Whether fantasy sport participation is a consequence of, or antecedent to, heavy sport consumption cannot be determined from this data, but evidence and guidance for future research that examines causality is provided.