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Official onsite event versus unofficial streaming: Understanding the wellbeing formation in esports spectatorship

Sungkyung Kim & Hee Jung Hong

Computers in Human Behavior2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108950article
AJG 2ABDC A
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

This study explores how esports spectators' motivations lead to psychological benefits in two settings: official onsite events and unofficial online streams. The benefits examined are flow experience and subjective wellbeing. A professional research company conducted a cross-sectional survey of 400 South Korean esports consumers with 200 per viewing context. We used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships. The results showed that all three motivations predicted flow for onsite spectators, while only skill-based and relationship-based motivations influenced flow for online viewers. Entertainment-based motivations directly enhanced wellbeing in both contexts, while relationship-based motivations predicted wellbeing only for online viewers. Flow experience contributed significantly to wellbeing in both groups and fully mediated the skill-based motivation-wellbeing relationship. Despite these variations, multigroup analysis showed no significant differences between viewing contexts. These findings demonstrate that fundamental psychological mechanisms remain consistent across viewing contexts. • Flow experience fully mediates the relationship between skill-based motivations and wellbeing for both official onsite spectatorship and unofficial online viewership. • Entertainment-based motivations of esports consumption directly enhance wellbeing for both viewing contexts. • Permutation multigroup analysis confirms that the psychological pathway from motivation to wellbeing is consistent, showing no significant structural differences between onsite and online viewing contexts. • The study validates and extends Barney and Pennington's (2023) second order motivational framework in two different viewing contexts.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108950

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@article{sungkyung2026,
  title        = {{Official onsite event versus unofficial streaming: Understanding the wellbeing formation in esports spectatorship}},
  author       = {Sungkyung Kim & Hee Jung Hong},
  journal      = {Computers in Human Behavior},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108950},
}

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Official onsite event versus unofficial streaming: Understanding the wellbeing formation in esports spectatorship

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.