Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Trust in fairness, doping, and the demand for sports: a study on international track and field events

2021; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/16184742.2021.1942125

1746-031X

Felix Otto, Tim Pawlowski, Sonja Utz,

Sports, Gender, and Society

Research question We investigate empirically the impact of spectators' trust in fairness of the sporting competition on TV demand for sports as well as its role in the doping-demand relation.Research methods We use data from a two-wave panel survey and a sporting event scenario where doping issues are present. The effects are estimated using Zero-Inflated Poisson regressions and radius matching based on the propensity score.Results and findings Results of the panel survey analysis suggest that trust in fairness has no impact on TV demand. Our scenario analysis further reveals that awareness about a major doping case negatively affects trust in the fair conduct and integrity of athletes. However, we again find no general effect on the demand for sports.Implications Results of our study suggest that athletes can be seen as (dis)trust ambassadors promoting the (un)fairness of the sporting competition to consumers. However, in contrast to popular (political) claims, our results question the trust channel as a driver for spectator sports demand and as a mechanism in the doping-demand relation.