Factors affecting fans' decisions to attend a professional basketball league in Thailand

Abstract

This research is one of the first to consider an emerging market, exploring the factors affecting the decisions of fans to attend a professional basketball league game in Thailand. Fan acceptability and fan base are important measures for a successful league in the early stages of development. The study extracted 19 factors from the literature and from in-depth interviews with a panel of experts. The factors were assumed to be potentially useful in achieving the goal of increasing both fan acceptability and fan base. A survey instrument was developed by analyzing the past studies of fan motives across different sports, and modifying them to fit the context of Thailand. Data was collected from fans who attended the TBL games. The research explored the factors by applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), presenting conclusions along with a discussion, practical implications, and limitations of the study.