Americanizing Rio?: Relationships Among Motives for U.S. Nationalism, Motives for Sport Spectatorship, and Olympic Media Consumption.

While the 2016 Summer Olympics was still the most watched program all 17 nights during NBC's coverage, the decline in overall television viewership could be a sign of audience migration to other platforms to consume Olympic content. Because understanding if motives for displaying national identity and motives for spectating sport could play a role in the consumption of Olympic media across televisual, print and digital platforms, a survey of 257 respondents was conducted, and structural equation modeling was used to determine the relationships among national identity motives, sport spectatorship motives and Olympic media consumption. The analysis revealed the strongest relationships in a three-step approach, where national identity motives directly influence sport spectatorship motives, which in turn directly influences media consumption. Specific relationships are discussed, along with their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]