Action Sport Media Consumption Of Chinese Youth: Based On The Inclusion Of Action Sports Into The Olympic Programs

The aging demographics of Olympic viewers is the main worry for the International Olympic Committee.On August 3,2016,the 129 th plenary session of the IOC approved the inclusion of five new sports into the 2020 Tokyo Olympic program by voting,with including three action sports——skateboarding,surfing and sport climbing,taking such inclusion as a key strategy to connect with youth consumers.With this background,drawing on a questionnaire distributed online and contextualized with analysis of action sport media,this paper would explore Chinese multigenerational(Generation Y,people who born between(in)1977-1994,and Generation Z,people who born between(in)1995-2010)youth action sport consumers’ viewing preferences(TV and Internet),the correlation between their action sports interesting and these trends,and their attitudes towards the inclusion.Our findings suggest that the Generation Y is the major consumer compares to the Generation Z,and skiing is the most popular action sport in the former group,while the Generation Z prefer skating.As to the relationship between those consumption and action sport interesting,conducting canonical correlation analysis,this research revealed that 1)as a whole,Chinese youth’s interest in action sport was relating to both TV and Internet usage,“Action Sport-Related Internet Usage”(advancing the “Action Sport Popularity”)and “Action Sport-Related TV Usage”(enhancing the “Action Sport Familiarity”)in specific;2)for the Generation Y,while both of those two kinds of media consumption affected this generation’s action sport interest,the effective ways turned into “Sport-Related Internet Usage”(promoting the“Action Sport Familiarity”)and “General TV Usage”(boosting both the “Action Sport Popularity” and the “Action Sport Familiarity”);3)Generation Z’ interest in action sport was merely associated with their “General Internet Usage”,by which encouraging their “Action Sport Familiarity”.In terms of the attitude to such inclusion,the Generation Z showed more expectations and supports beyond Generation Y,by whom unfolding more conservative,which from their worries that such inclusion would have the “authenticity” and “alternative” of action sport be challenged,exactly as performing rock and roll in Spring Festival Gala Evening.Nonetheless,the strategy seems is working——more youth are getting start to pay attention to Olympics,indeed.If the IOC is still attempting to draw more youth to Olympics for long run,it’s not sufficient to only upgrade the consumed content,certain changes are required in respects of programming and games broadcasting,with persistently focusing on youth’s media consumption habits and viewing preferences.