The Effect of Air Pollution on Professional Sports in South Korea

Purpose: This study sought to explore the effects of air pollution on professional sports in South Korea. Research design, data, and methodology: The dependent variable, the number of attendances, was comprised of 2013-2017 K-league, 2015-2017 KBO, 2014-2017 KBL regular season games, resulting in 1,063, 2,121, 810 individual match-level observations, respectively. With the actual data collected from each place across the country, we created a categorical variable which identify the air quality index divided into four categories by K-eco (i.e., good, moderate, unhealthy, hazardous). To analyze data, ANOVA was employed. Results: First, there was a significant group effect on K-league attendance. Second, there was a significant group effect of KBO attendance. Lastly, there was a significant group effect on KBL attendance. Conclusions: Summary of above results showed that each professional sport leagues attendance was significantly different depending on the levels of air pollution. Implications were also discussed. Keywords: air pollution, sport spectatorship, professional sports.