The Paradox of Excess and Fatigue in Sports OTT Content: Effects of Choice Overload and Subscription Fatigue on Continuance Intention

Objectives This study aims to empirically analyze how the characteristics of sports content on OTT (Over-The-Top) platforms influence users' cognitive and emotional fatigue, and how these factors affect their continuance usage intention. The theoretical framework integrates the Stress–Emotion–Behavior Model and Expectation–Confirmation Theory, examining the structural relationships among content characteristics (content diversity, personalized recommendation services, interactive reviews, interactive sharing, content information, and UI/UX design), choice overload, subscription fatigue, and continuance intention. Methods A survey was conducted with 373 users of sports OTT services. The collected data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, multiple regression, and bootstrapping to test mediation effects. Results The results indicate that content diversity, personalized recommendation services, and interactive sharing significantly increased choice overload, whereas content information reduced it. Choice overload had a significant positive effect on subscription fatigue but did not directly influence continuance intention. Similarly, subscription fatigue showed no significant direct effect on continuance intention. However, the bootstrapping analysis revealed a full mediation effect, indicating that choice overload indirectly affected continuance intention through subscription fatigue. These findings suggest that accumulated user fatigue may lead to long-term service disengagement. Conclusions This study contributes both theoretically and practically by framing user experience with sports OTT services around negative emotional factors. It highlights the need for future platform design strategies that mitigate fatigue and emphasizes the importance of developing personalized curation systems tailored to individual user characteristics.