Stephen W. Dittmore

Exploring the Factors Affecting Popularity in Social Media: A Case Study of Football Bowl Subdivision Head Coaches

Social media have become an increasingly important tool for college coaches and administrators to connect with fans, alumni, and recruits. However, despite their increasing prevalence, it is not well understood which factors may contribute to the reach and popularity in social media of high-profile figures such as coaches and athletic directors. Using Football Bowl Subdivision head football coaches and the popular social-media platform Twitter, this case study sought to explore the potential influence of on-field performance on coaches’ popularity in social media. Among the results is the finding that the most influential factor is the football program’s prestige (long-term success), while the coach’s on-field success and the size of the school’s fan base are of lesser importance. Given the increasing influence of social media in intercollegiate athletics, the case study’s results feature several important considerations for administrators seeking to use social-media platforms to increase the reach of the...

What Motivates Chinese Sports Fans to Subscribe to Athletes' Social Networking Service Accounts?

This study attempted to identify the motivational factors for using athletes’ SNS among Chinese sports fans. The researchers posted a hyperlink of an online survey on a total of 8 Chinese Olympians’ SNS(Weibo) accounts after obtaining the athlete’s approval. A total of 274 surveys were gathered from the visitors of SNS. Of the 274 surveys, 33 were discarded because of missing values. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling revealed the following. Diversion, pass-time, athlete support, and technical knowledge were significantly and positively related to social media consumption while information, socialization, and fanship had no significant predictive effect on social media consumption

For Better or for Worse: The Impact of Social Media on Chinese Sports Journalists:

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social media in Chinese sports journalism. After distributing an online survey using a snowball sampling technique, a total of 133 Chinese sports journalists working in print media participated in this study. The results indicated that news gathering was reported as a primary motivation to use social media. Weibo and WeChat, two localized social networking tools, were the most commonly used tools among participants. Nearly half of participating sports journalists admitted that monitoring information on social media increased their pressure level and created workloads. The majority of sports journalists believed social media had weakened their gatekeeping role due to the increase in citizen journalists and the increase in channels and sources from which users obtain news and information. The study also found that the relationship between journalists and athletes has also been altered with the advent of social media.

Points of attachment on social media: exploring similarities and differences between Chinese and Western National Basketball Association fans

Abstract Given the availability and usage of Twitter, professional sport organizations attempt to embrace this emerging medium to engage with sports fans around the world. While many sports fans use Twitter globally, Chinese sports fans primarily embrace localized social media platforms, such as Weibo, to follow their favourite teams because many international mainstream social media services are banned in China. This study aimed to investigate the similarities and differences between Chinese National Basketball Association (NBA) fans and Western NBA fans in terms of their social media usage and points of attachment to a team with a global presence. The results revealed that Chinese digital NBA fans expressed higher dependence on using social media in their daily life compared to Western counterparts. In terms of sports fans’ points of attachment, Chinese NBA fans had higher associations with basketball, NBA players, and the NBA than Western counterparts, while Western fans perceived a higher attachment to the team.

Motivations and Mediated Consumption Habits of Users of Mixed-Martial-Arts Online Message Boards

As online business models have evolved, learning what drives users’ consumptive behaviors has gained increasing interest to sport researchers and sport properties. An increasing number of sport properties are expanding, and deriving revenues from, their presence on digital-media platforms (e.g., MLB, NBA, NFL, UFC, WWE, etc.). Of the sport properties mentioned, none are more reliant on digital-media activity than the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the motivations and related consumption habits of users of non-subscription-based (i.e., free-to-use) online message boards. Findings suggest that message-board users find value in the opportunities for interactivity and that heavy online mixed-martial-arts users watch more events and purchase more merchandise than those who spend less time online.

The Relationship Among Social Media Consumption, Team Identification, and Behavioral Intentions

This study examined the relationship among social media consumption, team identification, word-of-mouth intention, and attendance intention. By analyzing a total of 146 undergraduate students, this study revealed the following insights. First, social media consumption directly affects team identification and word-of-mouth intention. Second, team identification directly affects word-of-mouth intention and attendance intention. Third, social media consumption affects word-of-mouth intention and attendance intention, mediated by team identification. These results expand the use of social media in the marketing and research field upon prior studies of social media and team identification in sport. The most important contribution of this study was to provide the evidence that social media consumption can affect behavioral intention directly and indirectly with team identification as a mediating factor. Thus, this study suggests the way that social media can be used not only for information distribution but also for driving more revenue by stimulating fans’ team identification and intentions.

Twitter and Olympics: Exploring factors which impact fans following American Olympic Governing Bodies

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Olympic audiences utilized Twitter to follow American National Governing Bodies (NGBs) during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.,Guided by economic demand theory, the researchers sought to explore whether factors such as the content of social media messages, athlete’s performance, event presentation, scheduling, and TV broadcasting contribute to enhancing fans’ interests in following NGBs on Twitter during the Olympic Games. In total, 33 American NGB Twitter accounts formed the data set for this study. Each of NGBs’ Twitter data was collected every night at midnight from August 7 to 23, 2016. Data collected from each NGB account included number of followers, number of accounts followed, number of tweets, and number of “likes.”,Results of this study revealed that team’s performance and the number of tweets had direct and positive relationships with increasing the number of NGB’s Twitter followers on each competition day. The number of “likes,” however, had a significant negative relationship with fans’ interests in following NGBs’ Twitter.,The results of the study are expected to help Governing Bodies in the Olympic sports have a better understanding of fans’ social media usage.

Identifying Influential Users of College Sports Teams` Social Media Accounts

This study tried to identify the influential users of college sports teams’ Twitter accounts and categorize them into three groups including an official account, media account, and layperson account. A total of 14 Twitter accounts at NCAA Division 1 universities were selected through convenience sampling method. In men’s sports, the greatest number of influential users was layperson account followed by media account and official account. In women’s sports, the greatest number of influential users was layperson account followed by official account and media account. The results provided the insight of college sports online social network and will expand the growing literature on social media in sport and offer practical data for marketers to use social media more effectively. 요 약 이 연구의 목적은 대학 스포츠팀의 SNS의 사용자를 분석하여 어떠한 사용자가 온라인상에서 정보공유와 전달에 있어서 영향력이 있는지를 규명하는 것에 있다. 이를 위하여 영향력 있는 사용자는 대학의 공식 계정, 미디어 계정, 비전문가· 일반인 계정으로 구분되었다. 이를 위해 NCAA Division 1에 속해있는 대학교들을 대상으로, 편의표본추출법을 이용하여 총 14개의 공식 트위터 계정이 선정되었다. 분석결과, 남자 스포츠에서는 비전문가·일반인 계정이 영향력 있는 사용자 중 가장 높은 비율을 차지하였으며, 미디어계정과 대학공식 계정이 뒤를 이었다. 여자 스포츠에서는 비전문가·일반인 계정이 영향력 있는 사용자 중에 가장 높은 비율을 차지하였으며, 대학의 공식계정과 미디어계정이 뒤를 이었다. 이 연구의 결과는 스포츠시장에서 점차 중요도가 높아지고 있는 SNS를 활용한 다양한 마케팅 전략과 후속연구를 위한 기초자료를 제공한다.