Considering the inconsistency in the literature on crowdinvestment motivations and the uniqueness of football club investors, the purpose of this study is to identify the motivation to invest in football clubs through equity crowdfunding. Following Churchill’s scale development procedure, it is found that those who crowdinvest in football clubs are fans who highly identify with these teams. The fans’ motivations include supporting the cause of the campaign, acquiring the status of a football club owner, and gaining rewards. These findings show the dominance of intrinsic motivations among crowdinvestors of European football clubs, providing evidence for compensatory activities assumed in self-determination theory, which is the theoretical framework for this research. Moreover, we devise a motivation scale that can be adopted in future research on equity crowdfunding for football clubs. For sports managers, the results offer practical recommendations for marketing communication and relationship marketing of equity crowdfunding campaigns by football clubs.
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Mu He and Weiting Tao
In 2019, a controversy between the NBA and China broke out. Although their relationship continues today, negative consequences still linger and cloud their future. As a transnational organization, the NBA was involved in a cross-national controversy, aligning with the theory of cross-national conflict shifting. The current study analyzed 703 posts on Weibo and 1,500 tweets by thematic analysis. It revealed diverse themes of online public discussions regarding the NBA–China controversy. It also found that social media speeded up the transmission of cross-national conflict shifting and complicated the cross-national conflict as it shifted back and forth between the home and host countries. Moreover, the study findings showed that when top executives engage in advocacy by taking a public stand on a controversial sociopolitical issue and get involved with cross-national conflicts, it is hard to separate them from the organization they represent. Also, their public stance might lead to public suspicion that they used social advocacy for private interests. Finally, the themes from the social media posts suggested cultural differences and an ideology crash between the host and home countries’ publics, which generated grander challenges for transnational organizations to deal with.
Bo Li, Olan K.M. Scott, Jerred Junqi Wang, and Liang Xiao
With the development and advancement of new technology and the increasing penetration of digital media, traditional media outlets such as TV, radio, and newspapers are not the only platforms for sports audiences to watch major events such as the Olympic Games. In this study, we explored how Chinese Olympic audiences embraced different media platforms to consume the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Through a survey of 383 Chinese participants, results revealed that social media, TV, and digital media were the most popular platforms on which to watch the 2020 Olympic Games. There were generational differences in media behaviors, motivations, and preferences between Generations X, Y, and Z. In addition, findings revealed that traditionally popular sports in China, such as badminton and table tennis, were still the most popular across different generations. Theoretical and practical implications for Chinese viewers are provided.
Jonas Biel, Tobias Finger, Vincent Reinke, Jennifer Amann, Arne Niemann, and Marc Jungblut
In recent decades, the administrative and competitive structures of men’s elite club football in Europe have undergone a profound transformation toward Europeanization. As a result, football fans are increasingly exposed to European influences. These dynamics shape fans’ perceptions of and orientations toward Europe and contribute to constructions of collective identities. Because football is a highly mediatized sport, fans’ exposure to European influences and their constructions of identity are highly dependent on the representation of Europe in football media. To analyze this, we conducted a quantitative analysis of text-based online news media. Using selected German media outlets, we examined the extent and the patterned variation of media representation of Europe in football news articles. Our results indicate a highly selective media environment focused on a limited set of countries with high sporting relevance and a presence of German national-team players, while other countries rarely enter the media discourse.
Gillian Renfree
Heather Kennedy and Daniel C. Funk
Uses and gratifications theory has often been used in (sport) communication studies to examine social media usage. Yet, criticisms of uses and gratifications theory (e.g., it overstates purposefulness) and competing research suggesting media use is more habitual and unconscious in nature have often been overlooked. Thus, through semistructured interviews, this research explored how social media is used, identifying five themes: passively, distinctly, periodically, habitually, and universally. Theoretically, this research contributes by highlighting the passive, habitual, and unconscious nature of some sport social media behavior, thereby challenging our current assumptions that sport social media usage is always active, purposeful, and goal directed. It also considers the uniqueness (or lack thereof) of sport content within the social media experience. Managerially, this research helps sport organizations understand how consumers use social media to inform marketing and communication strategies.
Keith McShan and E. Whitney G. Moore
The purpose of this study was to systematically review the variables associated with the coach–athlete relationship (CAR) from the coaches’ perspective. Three databases were searched; 57 studies published between January 2000 and May 2021 met the inclusion criteria. Correlates (n = 35) were grouped into three categories: coach variables, athlete variables, and coaching behaviors. Variables positively associated with the coaches’ perspective of the CAR included coaching satisfaction, the teaching of life skills, and engaging in need-supportive behaviors. Negative correlates included coaching burnout, athletes’ avoidant attachment style, and coaches’ controlling behaviors. Aside from coach satisfaction, many of the relationships mentioned came from only one or two studies; therefore, replication studies are needed examining CAR from the coaches’ perspective. In conclusion, the better coaches report CAR to be, the more they also report fostering a caring and autonomy-supportive environment, teaching life skills, and being satisfied with their coaching experience.
Larena Hoeber
This article is based on the 2022 Earle F. Zeigler Lecture Award that I presented in Atlanta, Georgia. For this paper, I reflect upon my career as a qualitative sport management researcher, with a specific focus on the mistakes I have made. I have two objectives with this paper. One objective is to advocate for continued learning about and rethinking how we conduct qualitative research. The second objective is to highlight ways in which we, as a field, can improve our qualitative research literacy. In the paper, I discuss eight learnings on the topics of ontologies and epistemologies, research designs, themes, pseudonyms, rigor, generalizability, positionality, and the publisher SAGE. In learning from my mistakes, we can be better consumers, producers, and evaluators of qualitative research.
Zachary W. Arth, James R. Angelini, Patrick C. Gentile, and Andrew W. Hard
This case study assessed the differences in time on camera dedicated to men and women athletes at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. An analysis of the entirety of the programming on the the American broadcast television company NBC, including the prime-time broadcasts, the daytime programming, and the additional nightly content, yielded nearly 185 hr of coded Olympic content. When excluding mixed-sex events, in the 61.5 hr of prime-time coverage, women received 60.05% of the time on camera. During the non-prime-time coverage, which spanned 123 hr, men received the majority of clock time, accounting for 51.6% of coverage. In addition, differences by sport were uncovered, with the major differences occurring in alpine skiing, which saw more women’s coverage regardless of broadcast. In contrast, women received more coverage in freestyle skiing and snowboarding during the prime-time broadcast, but men were more emphasized in these competitions during the non-prime-time content. Utilizing agenda setting as the theoretical framework for this case study, ramifications for these broadcast trends and differences are discussed.
