How to Enjoy Watching One-Sided Sport Games

While sports games in which both competitors have an equal chance to win are preferred by audiences, it is often easy to predict the winners in tennis matches. On the other hand, some audiences are interested in the players' athletic quality as well as which player will win. Whether an individual focuses on primary attributes such as the winner or secondary attributes such as the performance depends on the construal level. Thus we tested whether manipulating construal level can make audiences interested in a one-sided tennis match. We conducted an experiment with participants to evaluate excitement at watching videos of tennis matches just after their construal levels were controlled. The results show that there is a significant interaction between construal level and predictability of the winner, implying that the control had an effect on excitement for at least one video. Our findings suggest modulating the abstraction level of information in broadcasting sport games depending on the winning probabilities.