This article aims to develop a better understanding of how sport fans perceive events' social media presence. An online qualitative survey was conducted with sport fans (n ¼ 105) of four professional tennis events (Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open). Findings suggest that fans perceive the events' usage of social media to be about three aspects: interaction, insight, and brand anthropomorphism. In addition, fan responses suggest that while Facebook is the most popular site for general social media usage, these fans consider Twitter to be their most preferred platform to follow the events. Finally, fan responses illustrate three barriers that brands need to overcome in order to successfully develop and execute their social media strategy: competition with other media, a lack of yearround incentives, and technological capabilities of the platforms, which ultimately influenced fans' motives and use.

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Purpose As the popularity of social media increases, sports brands must develop specific strategies to use them to enhance fan loyalty and build brand equity. The purpose of this paper is to explore how two social media platforms were utilised by the Grand Slam tennis events to achieve branding and relationship marketing goals. Design/methodology/approach A content analytic design was employed to examine Twitter and Facebook posts from the official accounts during, and post-, each respective event. Findings Both sites were utilised to cultivate long-term relationships with fans and develop brand loyalty, rather than to undertake short-term marketing activations. However, these sites appear to serve a different purpose, and therefore unique strategies are required to leverage opportunities afforded by each. Interestingly, brand associations were utilised more frequently during the post-event time period. Practical implications This study offers practitioners with useful insight on branding and relationship-building strategies across two social platforms. These results suggest that strategies appear dependent on the event, timeframe and specific platform. Moreover, the events’ differences in post use and focus may also indicate some differences related to event branding in an international context. Furthermore, sport organisations should look to leverage creative strategies to overcome limitations that platform-specific functionality may impose. Originality/value This study offers unique insights brand-building efforts in an international event setting, which differ in a range of contextual factors that impact on social media utilisation.

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The entrepreneurial ecosystems literature has increasingly explored network relationships between different stakeholders, as well as the role of context. This article addresses the challenge of including a sport context in the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature thereby contributing to the sport entrepreneurship literature by bringing insights from entrepreneurship ecosystem research. In‐depth interviews of football stakeholders in the sport entrepreneurship ecosystem are conducted in terms of understanding the emergence of digital sport start‐ups. The issues raised help explore the changing nature of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems to take into account new sport technological advances. Mixed embeddedness theory is used as the conceptual foundation to understand sport digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. Key management practices are identified in terms of sport start‐ups participating in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The article concludes by making suggestions for future research.