YouTube has become a go-to platform for sports content, offering far more than traditional game broadcasts and sports news. Alongside highlights and commentary, viewers can find content tailored to their interests, including home-training tips, diet and nutrition advice, and information about sports equipment. College students in their 20s are among the major consumers of sports content on YouTube. They use these videos for entertainment, social interaction, information seeking, spending time, and experiencing sports indirectly through others.
Given the popularity of the platform, a study led by Professor Youngho Kim and Dojin An at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Korea, examined what drives college students to use YouTube sports content and whether this engagement could translate into participation in sports in the real world.
The study finds that simply engaging with sports-related videos may not be enough to encourage viewers to become more physically active. The paper was made available online on August 12, 2026, and published in Volume 14, Issue 4 of Performance Enhancement & Health on September 01, 2026.
"In our analysis, we found that motivation to use YouTube sports content and technology acceptance increase users' intention to engage with the content. However, these factors do not directly translate into actual sports participation," says Prof. Kim.
To investigate these relationships, the researchers surveyed university students in their 20s who had experience watching sports content on YouTube. They examined whether students' motivation to use YouTube sports content was related to their intention to use the content and their participation in sports in real life.
The study also examined whether the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a framework used to explain how people accept and use technology, would act as a mediating factor. TAM considers how useful and easy to use people perceive a technology to be, as well as their attitude toward using it. The researchers examined whether students who were more motivated to use YouTube sports content were more likely to view it as useful and easy to use and whether this was related to their intention to use the content and their actual participation in sports.
In the questionnaire, students rated factors related to their motivation to use YouTube sports content and their intention to use it on a five-point scale, ranging from 1, "not at all," to 5, "very much." Sports participation was measured by asking students how often they engaged in vigorous, moderate, and light physical activities for at least 15 minutes per session during the week.
The results showed that students who were more motivated to use YouTube sports content were more likely to intend to use it and to perceive the technology more positively. TAM also significantly contributed to their intention to use the content. However, neither motivation nor intention to use YouTube sports content was significantly related to actual sports participation.
TAM partly explained the relationship between students' motivation and their intention to use YouTube sports content. However, it did not explain the relationship between motivation and actual sports participation.
These findings suggest that engaging with sports content online does not necessarily lead to greater physical activity. The researchers suggest that YouTube sports content could include practical features, such as easy-to-follow exercise guides, links to local sports facilities, and social support, to help viewers turn what they see online into real-world physical activity.
"Integrating the following features into digital sports content could help users move beyond passive viewing and engage in sustained physical activity: exercise action plans, links to local sports facilities, social support, and strategies to enhance self-efficacy," says Prof. Kim.
