Recent scientific research has found that attending live sporting events improves levels of wellbeing and reduces feelings of loneliness.

Published within the journal Frontiers in Public Health, the research is the primary large-scale study to look at the advantages of attending any sort of live sporting event.

The study, carried out by academics from Anglia Ruskin University’s School of Psychology and Sport Science, used data from 7,209 adults, aged 16-85, living in England who participated within the Taking Part Survey, which was commissioned by the British Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

It found that attending live sporting events leads to higher scores of two major measurements of subjective wellbeing – life satisfaction and a way of “life being worthwhile” – in addition to lower levels of loneliness.

These results are significant as previous studies have shown that higher life satisfaction scores are related to fewer life-limiting conditions and higher physical health, successful ageing, and lower mortality rates.

The brand new study also found that attending live sporting events results in a rise in people’s sense that “life is worth it”, and the scale of this increase is comparable to that of gaining employment.

Many initiatives currently promote the advantages of physical participation in sport, however the researchers imagine that watching live sporting events may offer an accessible and effective public health tool for improving wellbeing and reducing loneliness.

Lead writer Dr Helen Keyes, Head of the School of Psychology and Sport Science at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: “Previous research has focused on specific sports or small population samples, similar to college students in the US. Ours is the primary study to have a look at the advantages of attending any sporting event across an adult population, and subsequently our findings could possibly be useful for shaping future public health strategies, similar to offering reduced ticket prices for certain groups.

“The live events covered by the survey ranged from free amateur events, similar to watching village sports teams, all through to Premier League football matches. Due to this fact, further research must be carried out to see if these advantages are more pronounced for elite level sport, or are more closely linked to supporting a particular team.

“Nevertheless, we do know that watching live sport of every kind provides many opportunities for social interaction and this helps to forge group identity and belonging, which in turn mitigates loneliness and boosts levels of wellbeing.”

Source:

Journal reference:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.989706