Analysis of match-related information seeking behaviour during the act of watching football matches on TV

This paper presents a study that investigates how, when, why people seek football match-related information via their second screens when they watch football matches on Television (TV). The study focuses on the type of match-related information that TV football audience seek during their act of football match viewing and whether this info seeking activity improves their TV experience in that context. In addition, triangulating the ideal second experience of the aforementioned group is another aspect of this study. In order to gather data, an online questionnaire was distributed and interviews were conducted. A total of 70 people completed the questionnaire and 12 participated in the interviews. The key findings indicate that, almost half of TV football audiences seek match-related information that is not provided by the TV broadcast, usually in the moments of any pause during the game, before kickoff or after the final whistle. On average, viewers seek four different types of aforementioned information on two media devices. Overall, second screen users believed that the match-related information seeking activity enhanced their perception of matches and socialisation. Lastly, they tended to have more tailored social media feeds, several of stats and all-in- one type of applications for better second screen experience in this sense.