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Abstract
Previous research suggests that fantasy sport users are avid sport fans and therefore consume more content from media. With a rapidly changing media environment and consumers' viewing habits, this study sought to investigate the role of playing fantasy sport on sport media consumption across both traditional and new media platforms as well as the type of social media usage before, during, and after the sporting event. Data from a national consumer panel representative of the US adult population (N = 615) showed that fantasy sport consumption enhances the level of media consumption across platforms in general, except for legacy media such as television and newspaper. Research further showed that Twitter, YouTube, and website/blog use before, during, and after the event are robust predictors of fantasy sport consumption while Facebook use is not associated with fantasy sport consumption at all.
Keywords: fantasy sport, media consumption, multiplatform consumption, audience journey
DOI: http://doi.org/10.32731/SMQ.293.092020.04
Introduction
Nearly 60 million participants in the US and Canada play fantasy sport (Fantasy Sport Trade Association, 2018). This rate indicates about one in five adults in North America play some form of fantasy sport. Teens are the fastest growing segment, and about 34% of US teens play fantasy sport. Recently, the demand for the daily fantasy sport, which has a daily or weekly duration of competition (compared to a seven-month long traditional fantasy sport), has grown exponentially. In the same Fantasy Sport Trade Association report, the percentage of daily fantasy sport participants increased from 31% to 64% between 2012 and 2015. Now that the US Supreme Court made a decision to legalize sport betting in the United States, the fantasy sport industry seems to continue to proliferate with less debate over whether daily fantasy sport is gambling (Garcia, 2018).
From a marketing perspective, the continued growth of fantasy sport has substantial revenue ramifications for multiple stakeholders, including the leagues, media conglomerates, and advertisers. Leagues will benefit from bringing in more fans interested in the sport as well as forming partnerships with fantasy sport providers. Media companies can benefit from increased media consumption and engagement from fantasy sport users, which are becoming vital media performance metrics over traditional ratings/shares (Chan-Olmsted & Wolter, 2018). In addition, a large population participating in fantasy sport represents...