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Notwithstanding the dynamics of digital transformation and its relevance for revenue generation in the entertainment industry, empirical research that focused on consumer behavior at the intersection of sport content and media technology acceptance is limited. Virtual reality (VR) is a re-emerging and nowadays commercially available technology that impacts sport consumed through media. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consumer acceptance of VR technology and highlight the effects of content quality and flow experience as influencing factors of behavioral intention.

Based on a literature review, the authors constructed and empirically tested a model that extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) by considering additional antecedent factors. Participants (N=570) in the empirical study viewed sport content via VR technology (Sport VR) and completed a survey before and after viewing. The authors conducted factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

Three UTAUT2 influencing factors, i.e., performance expectancy, social influence and hedonic motivation, showed significant effects. Furthermore, flow and content quality had positive indirect effects. Thus, the quality of sport content and the state of flow that users experience when immersed in a VR environment are relevant factors that determine the performance expectations of consumers and their Sport VR usage intention.

This empirical study contributes to knowledge on consumer acceptance of a hedonic technology in a sport media context. Moreover, two factors extended the established UTAUT2 model.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of social media strategies of sport organizations when an unexpected absence of relevant content occurs. The study explored the typologies of Instagram posts of NHL teams and measured engagement of social media content that was not planned in advance.

A mixed methods approach was utilized through a content analysis of 12 NHL team social media feeds. 502 (n = 502) posts were examined from the period of March 12 – May 26 during which the NHL season was suddenly paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typologies of posts were identified through a qualitative coding process and ANOVA tests were conducted to examine the effectiveness of each typology in engaging consumers.

This study found that social media strategies of the sampled NHL teams is evidence of disinnovation with digital, as opposed to the previously conceptualized innovative properties that these activities bear. Therefore, in order to achieve the consumer engagement outcomes sought to build stronger relationships with fans and deliver on the expected leveraging capabilities for sponsors, sport marketers must reconsider their current, imbalanced approach and whether the more inherently interactive content should be balanced with entertaining content that requires organic consumer engagement.

This study offers a unique application of UGT, highlighting that social media in a sport context is not just about gratifying consumers, but preventing diminishing engagement and exploitation of users through overuse of sponsorship-laced content.

This study aims to understand the impact of content orientation, media type, and information richness on fan engagement in multi-sport global events.

The authors conducted a content analysis on Twitter posts recording over two million user impressions from the official account managed by the International Olympic Committee for India during the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020. A multivariate Poisson model using the Bayesian approach was used for analyzing data.

This study found that fan engagement is likely to be higher for player-oriented content as opposed to team-oriented content. Also, the usage of photos to enhance engagement worked better than any other media type. Finally, the results revealed that the inclusion of hashtags has a positive effect on fan engagement for tweet comments but not for like count and retweet count.

The study highlights the differences in player versus team-oriented posts in global multi-sport competitions. The findings have significant implications for practicing sport managers by informing them about key elements that drive fans to engage in online communication.

This study aims to investigate how sports customers adopted over-the-top (OTT) services to consume sport content. Inspired by the technology acceptance model (TAM), the study aims to understand users' behavior when consuming sporting events and users' perceptions toward OTT services.

The participants of the study are Chinese sports consumers that use streaming services to watch live sport content. An online survey was distributed through HUPU Sports, a Chinese online communication community where sports fans can share opinions. To make sure all responses qualified to take part in the study, skip logic questions were added at the beginning of the questionnaire to ask participants to answer whether they used streaming services for watching sports. A total of 352 responses were received and there were 327 useable questionnaires.

The results revealed that viewing convenience, free of commercials and viewing quality were the main reasons impacting them to adopt OTT services. In terms of users' perceptions, paid users rated higher in perceived enjoyment, perceived value, perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use than nonpaid users. OTT users' fandom and PU could predict the time the users spent on using these services, while the users' fandom and perceived value are positively related to the money users spent on these services. In addition, this study also found that users' fandom, perceived value, content quality, and ease of use are positively associated with users' intention to continue to use the service.

The study is one of the first attempts to explore how sports audiences adopted OTT services to consume sport content and explore the audiences' perceptions toward OTT usage. Previous studies have already investigated how users adopted music streaming services (Fernandes and Guerra, 2019) and other online streaming services (Shin and Park, 2021), but little attention has been given to sports streaming services specifically. Therefore, the findings of the study fill the gap in the extant knowledge of sport consumers' behavior and provide more insights to their online behaviors. Moreover, the authors also contribute to the growing digital media literature by advancing our understanding perceptional differences between paid users and unpaid users. The streaming services literature has primarily focused on general users (Fernandes and Guerra, 2019), but the services neglect to understand the differences in between paid and unpaid users.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model of branded entertainment into sport marketing and highlight Red Bull’s strategy as a “best practice”. Branded entertainment, the full integration of advertising into entertainment content, is an innovative marketing strategy that can provide sport enterprises and sponsors with consumer attention and engagement.

Branded entertainment was theoretically framed and conceptualised. Using an inductive approach Red Bull’s portfolio of self-generated action/extreme sport content as well as its production, distribution and viral processes were analysed.

A communication model of sport-related branded entertainment was developed to distinguish actors such as athletes, sponsors, and co-operating companies, traditional and new (sport) media as well as sport consumers and prosumers and analyse their actions and relationships.

This study is limited to Red Bull’s branded entertainment activities. However, a thorough conceptualisation and analysis of branded entertainment and findings of unique characteristics and anomalies related to branded sport entertainment allows academics and professionals to understand and apply the concept.

The research theme triggers a dialogue and encourages marketing practitioners to consider alternative ways to engage their target audiences and expand their integrated communication strategies via a unique and dynamic promotional tool.

This paper contributes to the sport value framework by addressing “value co-creation” in a sport media and marketing context. By highlighting the Red Bull phenomenon as an innovative approach a successful integration of branding and sponsorship activities into sport entertainment content production, distribution and viral marketing is presented.

Social media enables sport organizations to connect with customers in a dynamic, ubiquitous, and timely manner. Although these organizations routinely use social media, the best practices to improve customer engagement remain elusive. This paper aims to examine National Football League (NFL) teams’ Instagram posts to understand how sport teams can utilize social media to drive customer engagement.

Guided by uses and gratification theory, the author employs a machine learning algorithm to assess the content of NFL teams’ posts from the 2013–2014 season to the 2017–2018 season. The author performs regression analyses to investigate how post topic, together with confounding factors, boost customer engagement.

Results highlight the importance of informational content in eliciting engagement and reveal distinctions in topics deemed “social content” in the literature. The author further identifies variations in how post topics engage sport fans and general customers.

Results provide implications for sport organizations to craft social media content for customer engagement.

Building on the findings of previous related literature, this paper adopts the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory to analyze how social media users engage with content posted by European football associations (FAs). The purpose of this paper is to identify various post attributes that would aid national sports organizations (NSO) in reaching their online audiences and excelling their media presence.

A coding framework was designed to differentiate Facebook posts by topic, post design and content type. A sample of 2,450 posts from the official Facebook accounts of 49 FAs was collected. Engagement was measured using three metrics: likes, comments and shares. The derived categories of content were coded as dichotomous dummy variables and ran through a multivariate OLS regression analysis. Three regression analyzes were conducted, where each of the engagement metrics served as the dependent variable.

The findings of this paper show that relevance of post topics has a significant effect on engagement. Users interacted most with posts related to the male national A-team, while club football news had a negative response from the followers. Graphic elements such as images and videos positively impact an FA’s ability to generate post likes. Exclusive and behind-the-scenes content made users react extremely well, affecting all engagement metrics. Raw news (match reports, team line-ups) was of little interest to Facebook users.

U&G theory has yet to have been applied to social media studies in the NSO context. Previous studies have either looked at specific case studies of a single NSO or NSOs within a single country, while this paper reviewed the social media practices of 49 NSOs under the umbrella of a single continental sports federation.

The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual model to examine the relationships among e‐service quality, consumer satisfaction, attitudes towards the web site and behavioural intentions in the context of content‐driven web sites.

Data from an online survey of 518 consumers were collected with the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling technique used to empirically test the model.

Findings suggest that positive evaluations of e‐service quality influences positive levels of consumer satisfaction, consumer attitudes towards the web site and behavioural intentions within the specific service context of content‐driven professional sports web sites.

The study specifically focuses on content‐centric web sites within a single service domain being professional sport. Future research can apply the framework to other service sectors on the internet, as well as to other cultural settings.

The study suggests that practitioners can use the model developed in this study to assist in allocating resources to the essential, or under‐performing, e‐service quality attributes needed to drive positive consumer satisfaction, attitudes and behavioural intentions.

The paper proposes and empirically supports the idea that e‐service quality influences consumer attitudes as well as consumer satisfaction and behavioural intentions in the context of content‐driven (professional sports) web sites. Moreover, the results of this study provide managers with a useful framework to manage content driven e‐services, as well as for researchers interested in the issue of managing e‐service quality.

In 2016, Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal (SBM) published its 100th article. While a number of other journals have been analysed as to their content, no such study has yet been applied to SBM. The purpose of this paper is to produce a content analysis examining the first century of SBM articles in order to map out what this outlet has published, and to what extent the journal has achieved the objectives set out in the first issue.

This paper employs a content analysis approach, with each of the first 100 research papers being analysed and coded by the two authors.

This study has found that there has been a general focus on sport marketing throughout the first 100 papers, while football is the dominant sport that has been studied. Over the course of the 100 papers, the majority of articles employed quantitative methods, with surveys being the most used method of collecting data. The authors were initially principally based in Europe and North America; however, the geographical location has widened over the period in question.

While there have been a number of other journals which have had a content analysis, this is the first such study into SBM.

In a dynamic, continuously evolving sports landscape, social media have become an indispensable tool for sports organizations to cultivate meaningful connections with fans. The rapid pace of technological advancements has elevated these digital platforms from a supplementary role to a pivotal position within strategic management frameworks. The existing literature explores how football clubs can utilize social media, but analyzing social media strategies within the context of football leagues is lacking. The absence of comparative studies benchmarking clubs across different geographical regions while simultaneously analyzing multiple social media platforms is especially noteworthy. In this study, a comprehensive analysis of social media engagement is undertaken within esteemed football leagues spanning Europe, South America and North America.

Drawing on relationship marketing and employing content analysis as a methodological tool, the study examined 10,772 posts from the official accounts of eight football leagues on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Across the leagues, the findings reveal that content quality drives engagement more than frequency. In addition, several format combinations were identified that facilitate engagement and Instagram emerged as the top social media platform for generating fan engagement.

This is one of the first empirical studies focusing on optimizing the use of social media to amplify fan engagement across various geographies and social media accounts and formats simultaneously.