Abstract
The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) was launched in part to reignite interest in Olympic sports in the midst of a generation of increasingly overweight and inactive adolescents. But since the initial announcement of the YOG by the International Olympic Committee in 2007, this new third addition to the Olympic family of events has provoked response from loyal advocates and equally committed critics. The purpose of this research study was to assess how attitudes, public awareness, and access to social media impact the sports community in Korea regarding YOG engagement via television viewing or event attendance. The regression results revealed that familiarity with the YOG, public awareness and use of media for sports information were statistically significant contributors for Korean's intention to watch televised Youth Olympic Games. In contrast, social network service (SNS) accessibility, familiarity with YOG and public awareness significantly affected Korean's intention to attend the YOG. These findings are described and evaluated in order to provide further insight during the ongoing development of this relatively new international sport festival and mega-event.