Stadium Travel and Subjective Well-Being of Football Spectators

Abstract

In the context of leisure travel in sport, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to promote public health and combat climate change may be addressed simultaneously. This study investigates football spectators’ carbon footprint that is generated from traveling to the stadium. It also examines the effects of stadium travel and everyday pro-environmental behavior on spectators’ subjective well-being. The study uses data that were gathered from an online survey in Germany in 2021 (n = 1605). For a detailed carbon footprint assessment, spectators were allowed to indicate multiple transportation means if they switched them during their stadium journey. Seemingly unrelated regression models were calculated to examine the effect of transportation behavior (i.e., stadium travel) and everyday recycling, consumption, and energy-saving behavior on life satisfaction and happiness. Traveling to a home game caused an average carbon footprint of 7.79 kg CO2-e per spectator, or 190.4 tons CO2-e for all home game spectators. Regression results showed that sustainable consumption increased both well-being measures while recycling behavior only positively contributed to happiness. Stadium travel and energy-saving behavior showed no significant effect. These findings implicate that achieving both sustainable development goals can go hand in hand in some contexts of pro-environmental behavior, but not in all dimensions.