Understanding why people play fantasy sport: development of the Fantasy Sport Motivation Inventory (FanSMI)

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify key motives for fantasy sport consumption and to develop a valid, reliable scale to measure these motives. A pool of 49 potential items was drawn from the literature and a qualitative study of participants (N=98). The identified items were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N=283) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N=376) in consecutive studies. The instrument consists of 36 items representing 12 dimensions of fantasy sport motivation: (1) game interest, (2) becoming a general manager/head coach, (3) love for the sport, (4) prize, (5) competition, (6) entertainment value, (7) bonding with friends/family, (8) social interaction with other participants, (9) knowledge application, (10) hedonic experience, (11) escape, and (12) substitute for a losing team. The reliability and validity of the final instrument were confirmed and established via examination of the test–retest reliability and criterion validity (N=111; N=29).

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