Complementarity or substitution

This study examined the complementarity or substitution effects (COSE) between spectatorship and physical activity participation (PAP) in 34 countries and the boundary conditions for the COSE. Using data from the ISSP Leisure Time and Sports survey, we found that the correlation coefficients of spectatorship and PAP varied across the compared countries. In some countries, spectatorship was positively related to PAP, consistent with the prediction of a complementarity effect; in other countries, the coefficients were not significantly different from zero; and in yet other countries, spectatorship was negatively related to PAP, an evident substitution effect. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, our results suggest that COSE can be predicted (R ² = 0.72) by a country’s economic (i.e., per capita GDP and its squared term, and working hours), geographic (i.e., population density) and sports development (i.e., mass sports involvement rate, and total number of medals won in recent summer and winter Olympic Games) characteristics.