Abstract: Based on social cognitive theory, the paper interprets sports events media spread effect mechanism, believing that the relevance, the frequency and recency of concept activation, the vitality of concept all work together to influence the accessibility of social cognition of media spread of sports events. Media spread influences audience, viewing behavior influences audience’s cognition and the spread form and frequency influence audience’s cognition. In media communication process, media helps people start some mental models and some particular information in the models while mental models provide theoretical references to explain how the media influences cognitive behaviors.

Key words: social cognitive theory, Event media communication effect, mechanism