A Magic “Bullet”: Exploring Sport Fan Usage of On-Screen, Ephemeral Posts During Live Stream Sessions

The bullet-screen function is an augmented comment feature that has been adopted by the majority of Over-the-Top (OTT) services to foster users’ interaction and watching experience. This feature empowers sports customers to post and view numerous, short, and fast-moving comments that overlap over the screen while watching live stream sports events in real time. This research aims to investigate how sports fans embrace the bullet-screen feature while watching live stream sports. Through a combination of thematic analyzing bullet-screen comments from a National Basketball Association Finals game, and semi-structured interviews among bullet-screen users ( N = 15), the results indicate that sport fans’ bullet-screen messages could be classified into five categories: critical commentary, socialization, supportive interactions, random messages, and trash talk. Four motives for sports fans to engage with bullet-screen posting were identified: entertainment, gathering information, interaction, and finding belonging. The study also showed that the inappropriateness of comments and too much overlay on the screen could prevent sports fans from utilizing the service. Theoretical and practical implications have also been discussed.

Pro softball fan segments: a two-step cluster analysis

PurposeNiche sports such as women's professional sport leagues face many challenges to developing and expanding their fan base. Understanding sport fans, segmenting consumer bases and targeting them effectively can assist in both developing the fan base and competing for investments like sponsorships and media rights. The purpose of this study was to explore consumer segments of the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), a niche softball league, by identifying demographic and psychographic characteristics of the segments and developing a persona for each segment.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 3,463 NPF consumers with the assistance of NPF league officials using their social media outlets. A two-step cluster analysis was performed employing both categorical and continuous variables to inform the segmentation, which was followed with chi-squared statistics and two MANOVAs to compare the segments' demographic characteristics, points of attachment (POAs) levels and attendance and viewership of NPF games.FindingsThree distinct consumer segments with unique demographic, POA and softball participation characteristics were identified. Differences among these segments' consumption of NPF games validated the existence of three distinct consumer segments.Originality/valueThis research is the first to examine consumer behavior in women's softball, and it expands the sport marketing literature through the identification of consumer segments of a niche sport league with a novel cluster analysis. Blending theory and practice by incorporating both demographic and psychographic variables into market segmentation, the research uniquely serves this niche sport and thereby informs improved marketing practice.

What is the Role of Memory in Consumer–Brand Relationship? Insight from sport industry

We live in a time when symbolism is of enormous priority. Memories are a particularly important part of the construction of individual identity and the subsequent relationships established, personal and with the loved brands. Previous research in psychology and neurosciences on negativity effect claims that negative events have more impact than positive ones. In an emotional context like the sports industry, being a fan has implications at all levels: psychological, mental and behavioural. Deepening the theme of memory from a psychological perspective, the present study theorises about the hypothesis of positivity effect in memory in the behaviour of sport fans in consumer neuroscience studies. Theoretical contribution and managerial suggestions are presented, in addition, as direction for further research.

Gamification through fantasy sports – Empirical findings from professional sport leagues

PurposeIn this paper, Fantasy Sports (Hereafter FS) is conceptually classified as a concept of gamification for professional sport leagues. From a sporting perspective, FS is often criticized because such online activities may be at the expense of physical activities. Otherwise, gamification can ultimately lead to economic advantages for sport leagues. To further empirically analyse this supposed juxtaposition, an empirical study is presented.Design/methodology/approachIn the empirical study, participation and non-participation in a sport league-related FS league are analysed and the study uses a divided sample (N = 319) for a one-factor Welch-ANOVA. FS effects on sport practice (engaging in doing sport) and usage (engaging with sport) of FS players as well as on gaining and retaining fans are investigated.FindingsResults demonstrate that participating in gamified FS experiences increases sport usage while not harming general sport practice. Furthermore, FS participation increases consumption capital as well as sport fans' loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) towards the league brand. Building on the results, league brands should foster gamified FS applications to retain their fan base and acquire new fans.Originality/valueThe authors’ theoretical contribution indicates the importance of FS as a gamified application and essential marketing tool for professional sport leagues. By introducing the terms sport practice and usage, the authors bridge the traditional logic of sport consumption with innovative approaches around engagement in and with sports. The results refute the prejudice that FS leads to less physical activity due to time substitution or displacement.

No games to watch: empirical analysis of sport fans’ stress and coping strategies during COVID-19 lockdown

PurposeThe global outbreak of the COVID-19 forced most sport leagues to cancel games in March–April 2020, leaving no sport games to watch for sport fans. The present study examined how sport consumers appraise stress and engage in coping behaviors resulted from sport lockout due to the global pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study examined the relationship between sport fans’ psychological dispositions, threat appraisal and coping strategies among professional sport fans in the USA. A panel of sport fans (N = 446) representative of the US adult population participated in an online survey in the fourth week of April, 2020 when no major sport leagues made a return from the lockout due to the COVID-19 outbreak.FindingsResults of this present study showed that anger, aggressiveness and need for affiliation increased threat perceptions toward the COVID-19 lockout, which subsequently had significant effect on emotion-focused and disengagement coping behaviors.Research limitations/implicationsThis is the first empirical study that examined stress and coping behavior among sport fans in the global public health crisis context. Our findings show what triggers stress appraisals and how fans cope with them.Practical implicationsFindings suggest that segmenting sport fans based on psychological dispositions could be useful in predicting fans that will engage in coping behaviors.Social implicationsWhile the hope is to return to normal postpandemic, COVID-19 might not be the last. We are uncertain whether there might be another potential pandemic-related sport lockdown. Understanding how lack of sport events can create distress in sport fans and have important public health implications.Originality/valueThe findings provide empirical evidence on how sport consumers respond to the pandemic-related sport lockdown and cope with the unprecedented situation. The findings of this study contribute to the sport management literature as we are unsure whether the sport industry might face this challenging situation in the future again.

How nostalgia forges place attachment and revisit intention: a moderated mediation model

PurposeAnalyzing sport fans' emotions has attracted much attention and offered important implications for research on sport consumer behavior. As such, diverse emotional factors have been considered to understand their behavioral responses. However, the concept of nostalgia has been examined to a lesser extent in the context of sport. Thus, this study investigated the role of nostalgia and its relationships with place attachment and revisit intention. The frequency of past experience was used as a moderator in this study.Design/methodology/approachData collection was performed during six professional baseball games in South Korea, and 461 responses were collected from sport tourists. This study tested the reliability and validity of the measurement model and examined the relationships between constructs.FindingsResults showed that nostalgia positively affected place attachment and revisit intention; place attachment played a mediating role between nostalgia and revisit intention. In addition, this study found that the relationship between nostalgia and place attachment was moderated by past experience.Originality/valueThis study identified how nostalgia can drive the development of a bond between place and sport fans, encouraging them to keep returning to the place where they are attached.

Types of CSR Initiatives and Fans’ Social Outcomes: The Case of Professional Sport Organizations

While the burgeoning research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) indicates the importance of tracking the interest of external stakeholders to obtain societal goals, insight into what types of CSR activities contribute to social outcomes remain scarce. As such, the purpose of this study was to identify the relevant dimensions of CSR that can enhance the social outcomes of one specific group of external stakeholders (i.e., sport fans). Data were collected from US sports fans (n = 312) over the course of two weeks. The present research indicates that fans gain more excitement and happiness as well as increased their social cohesion if sport organization CSR initiatives are concentrating on sport governance, environmental management and sustain-ability, and philanthropy issues. Assessing the impact of CSR from micro-level approach would be one way to strengthen the relationship between existing fans and sport organizations to make positive social impact

Pro-Environmental Sustainability and Political Affiliation: An Examination of USA College Sport Sustainability Efforts

Political ideology is one of the most powerful predictors of perceptions about environmental sustainability and related behaviors. The purpose of this study was to investigate how sport fans’ sustainability-specific values, perceptions, and norms related to awareness, engagement, and influence of USA collegiate sport sustainability efforts based on political affiliation, accounting for age and gender. Data were collected using an online survey distributed to season ticket holders after the 2019 college football season that featured three sponsored sustainability initiatives at each home game. Multivariate analysis of variance and chi-square difference tests found that self-identified Democrats reported significantly higher pro-environmental values and norms, but sustainability program engagement, sponsored initiatives awareness, and influence of initiatives on behavior were politically neutral. Path analysis found that ascription of responsibility was a significant predictor of sustainability-related engagement and behaviors for both Independents and Republicans. The results and discussion sections highlight how academics and practitioners can account for political affiliation when creating campaign messaging for environmental initiatives.