Mood Effects of Televised Sports Events : The Impact of FIFA World Cups on Viewers’ Mood and Judgmen...
The Impact of FIFA World Cups on Viewers’ Mood and Judgments

<jats:p> Television viewers attend to sports programs primarily to gain emotional rewards. As not only wins but also defeats are inherently rooted in sport competitions, television viewers can be positively as well as negatively affected in their feelings when watching sports on television. Interestingly, some studies were able to show that the feelings evoked by watching sport television also influence viewers’ judgments, following feeling-as-information theory. The present study builds on these results by investigating the mood effect of viewing televised football Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup games on personal as well as economic estimations of viewers. A quasi-experimental design was employed, assessing the moods and estimations of viewers before and after a win and a defeat of the German national team. The results support feeling-as-information theory, as viewers reported enhanced mood and estimations after watching the victory. Results of previous studies are extended, as longer term effects are included and the mediating role of mood was explicitly tested and supported. </jats:p>