Professional Greek soccer matches’ attendance motives.

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the motives of the spectators to attend matches of the Greek professional soccer league. Due to this purpose, 2322 fans of the Super League teams which competed in the championship of 2011-12, completed a questionnaire relevant with motivations of attending soccer matches (socialization, performance, excitement, esteem and diversion, Funk et al., 2009) and a demographic data sheet. The questionnaires were completed only from the home team fans and every time before the beginning of the games. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics indices and factorial analysis of the questionnaire which revealed five factors throughout 10 items. Dominant factor of soccer matches attendance revealed "pleasure" derived by the fans, while also determinant factors revealed both of "socialization" and "escape" from the daily grind. Conclusively, the strategy of soccer clubs should focus primarily on pleasure offering soccer matches as a spectacle, rather than as ranking exertion, so the presence of spectators to rise to the greatest possible extent.