The Strategies Sport Fans Used to Cope with the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown of Sporting Events

When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down occurred, virtually all sports leagues—from recreational sports to professional leagues—were paused or canceled. This left a gap for fans of those sports to fill. The purpose of the present research study was threefold: 1) to examine what strategies sport fans used to cope with the loss of the live sport viewership/spectatorship; 2) determine how effective fans believed those coping mechanisms to be; and 3) examine fans’ behavioral intentions once sports were allowed to resume. Participants were recruited via a snowball sample and the Amazon MTurk platform. A total of 384 sport fans responded to the survey. While not all participants responded to all items, 168 indicated coping mechanisms for dealing with not watching sports and 219 reported coping mechanisms for not attending sports. The most common coping mechanism was watching old sporting events on television or via the internet. These mechanisms were reported to be very effective in helping participants cope with the loss of sports (M = 5.76, SD = 1.68 on a 1 to 8 scale). These findings provide support for the Team Identification – Social Psychological Health Model and suggest areas for interventions for sport marketers who are looking to maintain fans’ loyalty during future shutdowns of sport seasons, or other instances of missed sporting events.