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  • What Sports Marketing Taught Me About Fans, Media and Modern Sport

    INTRODUCTION

    I believed that I had a good grasp of sport fandom when I joined this module. I had never before seen anyone who had studied football and thought that the world of sports marketing was mainly about the naming rights, the sponsorship and the television rights. The module was a progressive and at times uncomfortable learning of just how simplistic my thoughts had been about fans, media and sport organisations. I’m going to take a moment to reflect on the specific moments and context that influenced my thinking, but not as a mechanical process as Gibbs describes in his Reflective Cycle (1988) but more as a loose guide.

    FAN SEGMENTATION

    The greatest conceptual change occurred when the group was asked to fit the various fan profiles in a seminar discussion in week four into Funk, Mahony and Ridinger’s (2002) Psychological Continuum Model (PCM). I took it for granted when I came in, that fans are a fairly homogenous population: those who enjoy sport and watch teams. The PCM was quite clear right away that this was not the case. Someone who has been watching a game of the World Cup every once in a while is quite different from someone who has been a season ticket holder for the same club for 20 years. They are ‘fans’, but they need completely different content, different emotional appeals and of course different marketing strategies.

    This observation was the basis of the first blog in this portfolio. In my article on the NBA’s use of TikTok as a way to reach the “Gen Z” crowd with funny and “me” oriented messaging, and Instagram to push aspirational lifestyle branding, I didn’t just list out platform strategies. I was using the thinking that there are different kinds of engagement that appeal to different fan segments, at different points on the continuum.

    RETHINKING MEDIA: FROM RECOED TO CONSTRUCTION

    The second big change was my attitude towards sports media. Prior to this module, I would be reading sport journalism and watching sport broadcasts more like a documentary that I would essentially take at face value, as a fairly accurate record of events. The process of the module’s relationship to Boyle’s (2017) approach to sport media as an institution with a commercial agenda and an ideology was initially surprising. There had to be a real re-think of the concept that the media only mirrors sport, and shapes different images of what it is, who it is, who becomes a personality, what becomes a problem, what a controversy, and so on.

    This second blog was directly informed by this rethink. One highlight of the argument was reading the racist abuse report from Kick It Out (2021) for the 2019-20 season. What I remembered was the breakdown of the platform’s architecture – the algorithms punishing engagement and rewarding abuse, and the structural nature of social media platforms makes discrimination virtually easy.

    “The most lasting lesson from this module was a habit of asking: whose interests does this serve, and who does it leave out?”

    BRANDING, ETHICS AND UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS

    The sport branding concept was not just limited to the logos and the visual identity of the module, but it was treated as a comprehensive concept. I learnt the term ‘brand equity’, which I believe refers to the way in which a sport organisation values the emotional goodwill created over time. I learned about the term “brand equity” and how a sport organisation values the emotional goodwill created over time, which I believe is why it invests in community engagement and social cause campaigns that might seem commercially irrational in the short term. This was brought up as a topic for discussion; and an interesting question I had to deal with was when is an athlete truly committed to a social cause and when is it a marketing ploy? Although the answer was uncomfortable — this distinction is often intentionally erased, and audiences are keenly aware of the difference (Zirin, 2008) — it proved to be analytically helpful. The module also raised the issue that the clubs and the platforms are using commercial “behavioural” data from the interactions with fans on social media.

    GAPS & WHAT COMES NEXT

    In order to be productive, reflection must be honest, which means that it must identify what is not understood (Gibbs, 1988). There are two spaces that should be mentioned. While I’m aware of what quantitative sport marketing is related to analytics dashboards, conversion tracking, measuring social media ROI, I’ve never actually managed to be used. The development of more capable quantitative fluency is an obvious priority. Secondly, most of my examples are from the sport context in the UK, Europe or North America.

    CONCLUSION

    I have definitely changed my perspective on sport in all three of the blogs featured in the portfolio. Fans are not a homogenous audience; media is not a pure reflection of sport; branding is not a value free process and digital engagement has ethical connotations that are not always discussed in mainstream marketing. I haven’t managed to resolve these tensions within the module, but I have frameworks that I have within my head to look at them analytically — which is more useful than a set of clean answers.

  • Sport, Media and Identity: How Digital Platforms Expose Social Issues in Modern Sport

    INTRODUCTION

    Sport has historically been a place where more general social contests are played out. The rapidity, magnitude and visibility of those contests have changed with digital media. Previously entertainment platforms, they now have become a public space where race, gender and sexuality are discussed as they happen, sometimes in the context of a live sporting event. What comes from it is a real mixed message: digital media has the capacity of both representing marginalised voices and calling the attention of governing bodies to the demands of society, and reproducing discrimination and hostility that it seems to be countering.

    THE ROLE OF RACE AND RACISM IN THE LIMITATIONS TO VISIBILITY

    Raising concerns about Black athletes, racist abuse online has been reported again and again in academic and industry reports. Kick It Out (2021) highlighted that the number of discriminatory social media incidents against professional footballers in England is substantial, particularly against black players, in the 2019-20 season. There is no random pattern. The architecture of big platforms, especially engagement-based algorithms, fosters situations where inflammatory content spreads more quickly than the amount of content that is considered “abuse,” clicks get clicks, and clicks get clicks, Kilvington (2022) writes.

    There has been coordinated action from sport organisations. A boycott of social media, organised by clubs, governing bodies and players in English football over the course of the weekend in 2021 was a big story. However, others (Carrington 2010) claim that symbolic acts can only be as effective as replacing visibility with structural change. Trending hashtag campaigns create media coverage but don’t change the platform architecture on which it is possible to abuse, nor the racial inequalities which lie at the heart of sport institutions making black people more vulnerable.

    4%   of all UK sport media coverage was dedicated to women’s sport in 2021 (Women in Sport, 2021)

    GENDER REPRESENTATION AND THE PERSISTENCE OF INEQUALITY

    Women’s sport in the UK has traditionally been under-represented in the media compared to men’s sport. According to Women in Sport (2021), women’s sport has increased in 2021 to make up around 4% of all media coverage; although it has grown since then it is a clear indication of the extent of the structural gap. Partly, though, a digital solution has been found: The Women’s Super League’s 2021 broadcast rights package with the BBC and Sky, alongside vigorous investment in social media, helped to see clubs grow in their followings and reach. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup was watched by an all-time high number of viewers on TV, and showed that when distribution is made a priority, there is appetite for women’s sport. Visibility isn’t necessarily equitable representation. Kane (1996) recognized the prevalent news framing of ‘gender marking’ in sports news, that is, news coverage which emphasizes femininity, personal biography, and appearance over athletic ability and tactical acumen. This trend hasn’t gone away on social media either.

    INCLUSIVE SPORT AND ATHLETE ACTIVISM

    Josh Cavallo’s October 2021 coming out as the first openly gay active AFC male footballer was met with extensive media coverage and hordes of homophobic abuse online. The juxtaposition of public solidarity and digital hostility, is the result of the contradictory nature of the relationship between LGBTQ+ athletes and the sport media; as their inclusion in sport continues to be welcomed as a sign of progress, it at the same time is exposing them to greater risks through their visibility as a sign of recognition (Caudwell, 2011). Lack of further openly gay male players in the topflight game indicates the disconnect between what is spoken and lived is still great.

    Digital media has affected the world of sport in general. The Premier League clubs’ solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement had been taken to the knees, with taking the knee being discussed, celebrated and challenged through social media at an unprecedented speed in a pre-digital sport. As the next generation of players emerges to take over the sport, this story of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the 2021 French Open, due to mental health and media commitments, sparked a conversation that was largely held on Instagram and Twitter, and one that would not have been as sustainable before athletes had direct access to audiences (Sack and Johnson 2004).

    CONCLUSION

    The social aspects of sport have become more prominent in digital media and can now be discussed regularly in the public sphere, typically in response to sport events, such as those featuring racism, gender inequality or marginalisation of LGBTQ+ audiences. However, there is a difference between what’s visible and what’s changed. Platforms where athlete voices can be heard host the abuse that makes athlete voices often necessary. Reporting can promote women’s sport and be accompanied by reporting that takes it down.

    “Sport is not a mirror of society — it is a site in which social relations are actively produced and contested.” — Carrington (2010)

  • From Spectators to Digital Communities: How Social Media Is Transforming the Sport Fan Experience

    INTRODUCTION

    Before a major fixture, scroll through the device and the results will be instantly there: TikTok videos of training ground footage, an X thread from the club’s official account counting down towards kick-off, an Instagram Reel going through the starting line-up. The introduction of social media has not just provided sport organisations with new distribution channels. It has revolutionised the meaning of the word fan, turning passive spectators into active consumers, creators, sharers and co-producers of sport content, all day long.

    Platforms, Segmentation and Targeting

    Not all platforms are used in the same way by sport organisations. The sport marketing (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014) central concept of segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) is easily applied to the different profiles to which the various platforms appeal. French club Paris Saint-Germain and the Los Angeles Lakers are two examples that have adopted Instagram to develop an aspirational brand identity that’s made up of visual media and has been extended beyond the games themselves to 18- to 34-year-olds. TikTok is a place that requires content to be quicker and more visceral. It is the NBA’s TikTok strategy that focuses on the Gen Z audience, who may not be ready to pay for a broadcast subscription but are very active for short-form video (Pedersen, 2014).

    X, or as it was known back then, Twitter, is the platform of real-time sport debate, where journalists, analysts and fans meet around the match and a second screen becomes a shared and textual experience, as described by Boyle (2017). YouTube has been the platform for longer videos: tactical videos, documentary series and athlete blogs bring viewers looking for depth.

    PlatformPrimary SegmentContent TypeSport Example
    Instagram18–34, lifestyle-orientedReels, Stories, aspirational imagesPSG, Lakers brand content
    TikTokGen Z, mobile-firstShort clips, trending audioNBA comedy content
    X (Twitter)News followersLive commentary, hashtags, threadsMatch-day trending topics
    YouTubeLong-form viewersDocumentaries, analysis, vlogsClub behind-the-scenes series
    TwitchEsports audiencesLive streaming, real-time chatNBA G League streams

    Figure 1: Platform segmentation in sport marketing (adapted from Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2014)

    THE FAN EXPERIENCE: ACCESS, COMMUNITY AND CONTENT CREATION

    Here are three changes to the fan experience to consider in light of social media. First, the gap between sport and spectators has been reduced. With the launch of Instagram Stories and TikTok Lives, fans have the opportunity to share training sessions or private moments with their favourite stars that would otherwise not be available, fostering a sense of intimacy that Boyle (2017) refers to as parasocial proximity. It’s not transparency, it’s a carefully curated collection of information which is presented to athletes under a strategy of authenticity. However, for fans, the sense of direct access is not just in the mind and their emotional investment in individual athletes increases.

    Second, social media has enabled fan communities to be realized around the world. Now a Premier League fan in Lagos, a Messi fan in Karachi and a Real Madrid follower in Mexico City are all a part of the same conversation, via memes, hashtags and watching games together. This fits in with the social identity theory of Tajfel and Turner (1979), which outlines how the group can influence identity even to an imagined community or online community. Third, there is a change in traditional production hierarchy with user-generated content (UGC). Highlight clips, tactical threads and satirical news are produced by fans and circulate via different channels, including ones that have more reach than the official ones. Most governing bodies haven’t been able to solve the tension between fan creativity and intellectual property rights that arises (Pedersen, 2014).

    CRITICAL ISSUES

    Any celebratory discussion of digital fan culture is faced with two issues. Racist abuse, especially towards Black athletes is a well-documented and ongoing problem on major platforms online. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka have been singled out for racist abuse on X and Instagram within hours of the final of the UEFA Euro 2021. The likes of several England players have then gone on to abandon social media for a period of time. Kilvingting (2022) states that the algorithms used by platforms are designed to increase inflammatory content as it creates a lot of engagement, thus creating structural conditions that promote abuse, which spreads more than what is measured by the response.

    Digital exclusion is the second concern. Older, less confident of digital technology and with limited broadband fans are being increasingly left out of a fan culture that has gone online. It is a frame that obscures the fact that there are inequalities when it comes to who can be a part of fandom today.

    “Fans are no longer passive recipients of broadcast sport — they are co-producers of content, community, and commercial value.” — Rowe (2004)

    CONCLUSION

    From whom receives the attention of the sport to how fans remain connected outside of games, social media has changed and reshaped the sport fandom at all levels. The platform selection logic of the STP, the parasocial relationship that is created by allowing access to athletes and the co-creative power and energy of digital communities are real changes in the experience of sport. However, the prevalence of commercials and online abuse and the exclusion of digital media are not footnotes. The usage of social media by sport organisations as a mere distribution space, rather than as a social space in competition with others with real implications for real people is an ethical and reputational risk.