The perceived level of enjoyment in sports violence: An experiment examining how sports commentary, fanship, and gender affect viewer emotions

This investigation examines if the independent variables of sports commentary, fanship, and gender affect the viewer's level of perceived enjoyment while watching sports violence through televised professional football and hockey clips. Previous studies have found that these three variables contribute most to a viewer's level of perceived enjoyment. This study aimed to test to see if that was still true, while taking into account new rules regarding violence by the National Football League and the National Hockey League. This thesis addresses all variables in one study, which something past research has failed to do. Perhaps the most significant finding from this study pertained to the variable of gender. Using t-tests for inequality of means and Pearson Product Moment correlations to test all hypotheses, both the football and hockey groups reported significant findings with gender, with men having a higher enjoyment average for both sports compared to women. No other variables were consistent predictors of perceived enjoyment. However, in addition to gender, the sport of football did yield four significant results. Pre-game rituals, suspense, and fan emotions (feeling happy or disappointed) were all found to affect enjoyment levels. The investigation resulted in the sport of hockey not yielding any other supported hypotheses.