Understanding motivation of football sport spectators willingness to watch Sabahawks team live matches : empirical study of Malaysian Super League (MSL) in Likas Stadium, Kota Kinabalu Sport Complex / Suhairie Abd Jutup

The purpose of this study is to understand the motivation of football sport spectators' willingness to watch Sabahawks' team live matches in Likas Stadium, Kota Kinabalu Sport Complex. The subject comprised of 669 respondents which consist of 444 male and 225 female attending a Sabahawks' Team live match of Malaysia Super League. The linear regression was used to analyze the data. The hypothesis result revealed that there is a significant relationship between team identification, track record or win/lose record, and stadium facilities (sportscape) factors and spectators' intention to watch Sabahawk team live match. The result also indicate that team identification were found to be the most predictor variable in order to influence the spectators' willingness in attending the live matches of Sabahawk Team (R2 = 0.171, adjusted R 2 = 0.170). Based on this finding, the sport organizations should consider strategizing more in team identification in order to increase the level of spectators' attendances in Likas Stadium which could give advantages in terms of generating profits from ticket selling income. This circumstance would give a better impact towards Sabah Sport Board as well as Sabah Football Association (SAFA) in terms of improving and enhancement of the facilities and increasing management of sports team in addition to pace with their expenditures (Yusof & See, 2008; Pilus et. al, 2010; Neale & Funk, 2006; Barajas & Urrutia, 2007). Other than that, by understand the factors that influence spectators, the researcher believe it will improve the number of future spectators while retaining the existence spectators (Mahony et. al, 2002; Popa & Yusof, 2011; and Yusof & See, 2008).