Fans’ Perceptions of Professional Tennis Events’ Social Media Presence

Abstract

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.

Impact of Sports Mass Media on the Behavior and Health of Society. A Systematic Review

“…With regards to influences on consumption, the media use sportspeople to sponsor their products and influence the desire to acquire these products [59]. To this end, Voorveld et al (2015) [60] stated that the morning hours are primarily used to promote products as there is a large number of spectators at this hour and strategies such as scarcity can be used [41].…”

Facebook as a second screen: An influence on sport consumer satisfaction and behavioral intention

“…The results identified the key role of social camaraderie on sport consumers' satisfaction and behavioral intention when using Facebook while watching a live sport telecast. Prior studies (Stavros et al, 2014;Wang 2015;Thompson et al, 2016;Billings et al, 2017) noted social media as an interactive engagement channel for fans during sporting episodes and engagement. The results suggest that during a telecast, the concurrent use of social media increases the degree of fan-to-fan engagement and connectivity, thus leading to enhanced consumer satisfaction.…”

“…From a sports consumer perspective, social media has been associated with various user emotions. For instance, social media has been noted as promoting emotional connections, enhancing the excitement of attending an event (Thompson et al, 2016). An analysis of Facebook comments by basketball fans identified that certain emotional states underpinned various aspects of the content posted (Stavros et al, 2014).…”

“…Indeed, the authors identify a primary motivation for using social media is to foster community-directed comments that allow a person to interact and socialize with other sport consumers, fans and aficionados. Thompson et al, (2016) indicates that social media can be used to promote fan-to-fan interaction, with highly knowledgeable fans connecting with those who are less-informed. Typically social media can provide people an opportunity to experience social connectivity and reciprocal social interaction-allowing them to increase their reputation (Messhi et al, 2015).…”

He Said, She Said: An Exploration of Male and Female Print Sports Journalist Tweets, Sports Coverage, and Language Style

“…The remarkable evolution of social media has changed the way in which sports are communicated with audiences across the world (Pegoraro, 2013; Sanderson, 2011; Walden, 2015). Sports clubs, leagues and federations, and even professional athletes have invested heavily in communication strategies involving social media to connect directly with fans (Abeza, O’Reilly, & Seguin, 2019; Armstrong, Delia, & Giardina, 2016; Ballouli & Hutchinson, 2010; Frederick, Lim, Clavio, Pedersen, & Burch, 2012; Hambrick, Simmons, Greenhalgh, & Greenwell, 2010; Li, Stokowski, Dittmore, Malmo, & Rolfe, 2016; Pegoraro, 2010; Thompson, Martin, Gee, & Guerin, 2017). The interactive nature of social media has also given sports fans a sundry of social media venues to analyze, discuss, debate, and critique sports (Bowman & Cranmer, 2014; Gibbs, O’Reilly, & Brunette, 2014; Phua, 2012).…”