1. Introduction
The development of sports in Indonesia has a long historical record up to the modern era after independence, precisely in 1947. Although the Indonesia Olympic Committee was formed in 1947, Indonesia was unable to participate in the 1948 London Olympics (
Putra 2021). This is because of a protracted course to satisfy management necessities wherein the visas for Indonesian athletes and officials needed to be issued through the Dutch government for which they were not very helpful (
Lutan 2005). This eventually became an important moment for the development of sports in the country. Sri Sultan Hamengubowono, chairman of the Indonesia Olympic Committee at the time, initiated the holding of a National Sports Week or known in Bahasa Indonesia as
Pekan Olahraga Nasional (PON) on 9 September 1948, in Solo (
Lutan 2005). Presently, this event is still held regularly by competing in various sports and it later became the largest multi-sport event in the country (
Putra and Ita 2019). The 20th PON (PON XX) which occurred on October 2021 in Papua province was a new event for Indonesian sports because apart from being held during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it was also held in four different clusters (cities/regencies). Therefore, the Vice President of Indonesia at the closing ceremony said that the event was the most difficult multi-event sports event in the history of the country’s sports journey.
PON is often used as a barometer to measure the development and progress of sports nationally (
Guntoro and Putra 2021;
Wandik et al. 2021). It involves various competitions and is a miniature of events, such as the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Games, as well as the Olympiads. Furthermore, it is deliberately carried out by the government because aside from having historical value for the Indonesian nation, it is also a sports coaching event that gathers participants and athletes from all provinces (
Putra and Ita 2019).
Studies related to sporting events have rapidly increased in recent years.
Chen et al. (
2021) studied marathon running events but only in one city;
Milovanović et al. (
2021) explored small-scale sporting and single events, namely the World Championship. Furthermore,
Duan and Liu (
2021) examined the satisfaction of spectators running a marathon in a small-scale sporting event in Wuhan, China, while
Duan et al. (
2020) investigated the motivation, satisfaction, and behavioral intention of marathon runners in China.
Girish and Lee (
2019) examined brand experience, sports event image, and loyalty in ultramarathons;
Wann et al. (
2008) analyzed the motivation of supporters in different sports, while
Kim and Chalip (
2004) studied the FIFA World Cup event, specifically regarding the motives, background, interests, and constraints. Moreover,
Kim et al. (
2017) investigated the economic impact of formula one events,
Briedenhann (
2011) identified the expectations in the economy and the tourism sector from the community, while
Preuss (
2005) determined the economic impact of various sporting events.
Rozmiarek et al. (
2021) also investigated the motivation of European Games volunteers,
Wilson (
2006) analyzed the economic impact of swimming events, while
Lai (
2018) studied the Olympics in Beijing, China, but only the event image and destination image were analyzed. Another study by
Waitt (
2003) examined the social impact of the Olympics and
Konstantaki (
2008) investigated the socio-cultural impact of the Olympics from the perspective of lecturers and students.
Brown et al. (
2016) investigated several aspects related to psychology in the Olympic event, while
Kavetsos and Szymanski (
2010), as well as
Dolan et al. (
2016), examined life happiness and community satisfaction in mega-event sports. Furthermore,
Konstantaki et al. (
2019) revealed public opinion related to the theme and content of the Olympics opening ceremony.
Madden and Crowe (
2002) also examined the economic impact of the Olympics.
Mitchell and Stewart (
2015) analyzed the economics of tourism in hosting sporting events, while
Lamla et al. (
2014) investigated the economic impact of the EURO football event.
In general, studies related to the sports events above can be classified into two categories, namely single and multi-event. The size is further divided into three, namely mega-events, such as Olympic Games, medium-sized, such as a national championship, and small-scale, e.g., local or regional level (
Kaplanidou and Vogt 2006). Although the PON XX was a multi-sport event and the largest in the country’s history (
Guntoro and Putra 2021), it is included in the small-scale category because it is a domestic event. The literature has mostly discussed mega sports events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup, while the smaller events have not been widely investigated (
Jeong et al. 2019,
2020). The PON XX is very interesting because the budget spent to organize the sporting event was very large, with an estimated amount of ten trillion rupiahs (
Guntoro and Putra 2021). Second, Papua province, where the PON XX was held, has continuous security issues due to the actions of the armed terrorist criminal groups. In addition, the event was conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has disturbed many human aspects in Indonesia (
Fahriani et al. 2021).
Although issues related to sports events have been widely examined, there are limitations in previous studies. First, no study has jointly discussed public perceptions regarding the impact of sports events related to internal aspects, such as sports event image, satisfaction, and motivation, as well as external aspects including stadium atmosphere and environment in an in-depth manner. Second, similar to other events that require a large budget (
Mitchell and Stewart 2015), PON also consumes a fantastically large budget raising the question of whether it is only a sports event or has an impact on the community. Third, investigations on local sports or small-scale events are limited to single events. These limitations constitute a knowledge gap. Studies on multi-events carried out in Asia also focus on mega sports events, such as the Southeast Asian and Asian Games, as well as the Olympics, while local and multi-sports events have not been examined. Hence, there is a need to identify the socio-cultural perspective from the east (Asia) for a more comprehensive picture related to sports events. Therefore, the aims of this study were: (1) to describe six important domains (constructs) of the PON XX in terms of the sports event image, community motivation to watch the event, community satisfaction, stadium atmosphere, stadium environment, and the community perception towards the impacts of the event; (2) to assess the correlations between the constructs and (3) to investigate the associations of the explanatory variables (gender, distance of residence, and involvement in the sporting event) and the constructs.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Setting and Study Sites
A cross-sectional study was conducted between 2 and 15 October 2021 in Papua, Indonesia where the PON XX took place. Papua is an Indonesian province with 547 islands and the largest area of 312.224 km
2 or 16.64% of the total land area in the country (
BPS 2022). Based on the Human Development Index (HDI), the province is at the bottom with an average score of 60.63 in the last three years, far below the national average of 72.05 (
BPS 2022). Security issues have become a major concern in Papua due to the actions of armed terrorist criminal groups which greatly disturb security and public order.
The PON XX was held in four districts/cities: Jayapura City, Jayapura, Merauke, and Mimika. This study was conducted in all these districts/cities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2.2. Study Participants
The individuals who were around venues in those locations (spectators, committees, community members, athletes or trainers) were approached and asked to participate in this study. The respondents were sampled using a purposive sampling method to include both groups of respondents who were directly involved in the events (such as committees, community members, athletes and trainers) and those who were not involved directly, such as spectators.
This study involved 675 participants aged between 17–57 years with a mean age of 22.87 years (SD ± 5.34). All the participants were citizens living in Papua. The demographic characteristics of participants are presented in
Table 1.
2.3. Study Instrument, Constructs and Variables
A pre-tested instrument was used to assess the six constructs of the study: image, satisfaction, motivation to watch, stadium atmosphere, atmosphere environment, and the perception of the impacts. All these constructs were classified as response variables in this study.
To assess the image related to the implementation of PON, the Sports Event Image (SEI) instrument developed previously by
Kaplanidou and Vogt (
2007) was adapted and modified. SEI initially had 13 items in the form of a semantic differential scale with a range of alternative answers from 1 to 7. Three years later,
Kaplanidou and Vogt (
2010) retested the SEI and released two items in the initial version. In this study, the initial version of 13 items was used because the other two items are still relevant in the context of PON XX in Papua. The test on 68 communities found that one item (Healthy Unhealthy) had a low correlation coefficient value with
r = 0.202 and
p < 0.30. However, considering that the PON XX was held during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was still used. For other items, the validity and reliability values ranged from 0.341 to 0.637 and 0.675 to 0.710, respectively, indicating that the items were acceptable to be used.
Community satisfaction while watching PON XX was measured by the Sports Audience Satisfaction Scale (SASS), modified from the instrument developed by
Huang et al. (
2015),
Lita and Ma’ruf (
2015), and
Škorić et al. (
2021). A total of eleven items were selected by considering the high factor loading value and suitability with the context of the event. The test found a range of validity and reliability values between 0.634–0.775 and between 0.914–0.921, respectively. Each question of SASS has five alternative answers in the form of a Likert scale ranging from completely unsatisfied (1) to completely satisfied (5).
The next four constructs were assessed using the instruments consisting of the questions with five alternative answers ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). To determine the community’s motivation for watching the event, the instrument developed by
Snelgrove et al. (
2008) and
Balaji and Chakraborti (
2015) was used and modified using three subscales, namely entertainment, aesthetics, and vicarious achievement. These factors were translated into eleven items. The validity values ranged between 0.677–0.831 and reliability values ranged between 0.944–0.949.
To measure the perception of the impact of the PON XX on the community, a Questionnaire on the Impact of Sports Events on the Community (QISEC) developed by
Guntoro and Putra (
2021) was used. QISEC consists of 26 items. In this study, simplification and re-testing were carried out on ten items with high validity values, namely four items in economic factors, as well as three each in psycho-social and infrastructure factors. The validity and reliability values ranged from 0.694 to 0.838 and 0.933 to 0.940, respectively.
To assess the stadium atmosphere, a modification was carried out on the Stadium Atmosphere Scale (SAC) (
Balaji and Chakraborti 2015) which consists of different aspects, such as physical layout, facilities aesthetics, entertainment experience, and social interaction. Our study used four items with a high factor loading value only, which were tested in the field. The test found validity and reliability values of 0.704–0.799 and 0.832–0.868, respectively.
The Stadium Environment Scale (SEC) (
Cho et al. 2019) was used to assess the stadium environment. It consists of five subscales: parking, cleanliness, fan control, food service, crowding, and desire to stay. In this study, only six items with a high factor loading value were taken. The validity and reliability values ranged from 0.317–0.749 and 0.759–0.861, respectively.
In addition, some demographic variables (gender, involvement in the event, distance of the residence to the venues and occupation) were collected. Involvement in the event indicated whether the respondents were involved directly during the PON XX as a committee, security, athletes and trainer or as a spectator only. In this study, we considered gender, involvement in the event and distance from the residence to the venues as potential explanatory variables, therefore, their associations with all six constructs were assessed.
2.4. Data Collection Procedures
The initial stage was to adapt the language and modify the instrument according to the objectives. The language adaptation stage involved English and Indonesian language experts who were independent and unrelated to this study. Subsequently, the Indonesian version of the instrument was completed, and all instruments were tested on 68 communities in Papua. The initial test was conducted online using a Google form where the link was distributed to the public. The results of this validity and reliability test were used to modify the final study instrument section.
After the study instrument was declared valid and reliable, 15 final-year sports students were recruited as enumerators. After the intensive training on data collection procedures in the field, they were deployed in the areas where the PON XX event was held. Each prospective respondent was given an explanation related to the purpose and description of this study and then asked for their approval. The respondents answered each of the questions and they could ask the question to the enumerators if they had difficulty understanding the question. All respondents provided their written informed consent prior to participating in the study.
2.5. Statistical Analysis
The mean, standard deviation, and percentage of the data were provided descriptively. To assess the relationship between variables, Pearson’s product-moment correlation analysis was used. All data analyses were performed using the IBM SPSS version 26 program (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA).
5. Conclusions
The implementation of the largest multi-event sport in Indonesia in 2021, the PON XX, was positively rated by the community in the aspects of sports event image, satisfaction, motivation, stadium atmosphere, environment, and the perception of the impact of sporting events. Based on the results, the highest motivation for people to watch the event was for entertainment. In addition, there was a strong relationship between PON XX and the six constructs. The direct involvement in the event was associated significantly with event image, satisfaction, motivation, stadium atmosphere, environment, and the perception of the impact of sporting events. The distance of the residence and the venues was associated with the perceived impact of the PON XX only and gender had no association with all six constructs.
This study provides practical implications that the implementation of sporting events, such as the PON needs to be held continuously by governments since the community tends to respond positively to such events and it could have positive impacts on economics. In addition, the existence of sports events might also be used to evaluate the development and progress of sports that have been carried out by each region in the country. In addition, our data suggest that public perception of the impact of sporting events is closely related to the variables of sports event image, motivation, satisfaction, stadium atmosphere, and stadium environment. Therefore, to achieve the high satisfaction of the community, the stadium atmosphere and stadium environment need to be the priority of the organizing committee.