. Previous research defined and conceptualized an athlete brand ( Arai et al., 2014 ) and suggested branding strategies can change over the course of an athlete’s career as they progress in their sport ( Hasaan et al., 2019 ). These strategies may be unique to the preferences of the athlete and according to
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A Tale of Two Brands: Examining Elite Female Athletes’ Branding and Self-Presentation Strategies Over Time
Hailey A. Harris and Natasha T. Brison
Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the National Football League: A Case Study of the NFL’s Response Strategies to Its Concussion Crisis
Sabrina Castonguay and Mark Lowes
al., 2017 ). It follows that the protection of reputational assets is crucial for an organization’s well-being and should be a priority in crisis communication planning. Therefore, the overarching objective of the framework is to select the appropriate crisis response strategies for the crisis at hand to
Evaluating Broadcast Strategy: The Case of Australian Football
Hunter Fujak and Stephen Frawley
The central aim of this study was to evaluate the broadcast strategies of Australia’s 2 leading commercial sports leagues, the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. Specifically, the research focused on assessing the degree of exclusivity and geographic reach embedded in each broadcast agreement. In doing so, the research considered the impact of strategy in providing value to the broadcasters and teams, as well as utility to fans of each league, within Noll’s framework of broadcasting principles.
Life After the Gridiron: Examining Retired National Football League Athletes’ Self-Presentation Strategies and Follower Engagement on Instagram Personal and Business Pages
Felipe Tamayo, Natasha T. Brison, and Hailey A. Harris
). Since Lebel and Danylchuk’s research was published, several sport management scholars have examined the methods and strategies by athletes to brand themselves through Instagram posts (e.g., Geurin & Burch, 2017 ; Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016 ; Smith & Sanderson, 2015 ; Su et al., 2020 ). This is
Inoculating Against a Losing Season: Can Inoculation-Informed Public Relations Strategies Protect Fan Loyalty?
Josh Compton
Inoculation theory is a classic theory of resistance to influence, modeling a way to confer resistance to challenges based on biological inoculation processes. This commentary explores inoculation’s efficacy in the applied context of sport communication, with special consideration of how inoculation may guide sportmarketing strategies to preemptively bolster existing support for a team in the face of challenges (e.g., a losing season).
Tinkering With Policies in the Digital Age: How Interscholastic Athletic Directors Address Social Media Use by Student-Athletes
Blake L. Price, Gene L. Farren, Jennifer A. Stoll, Andrew Goldsmith, Michael Carroll, and Christina Martin
employed a variety of strategies to combat social media concerns, including monitoring students’ online activity ( Browning, 2012 ; Sheridan, 2015 ), creating acceptable use policies or athletic codes of conduct ( O’Connor et al., 2016 ), or banning social media in its entirety ( Hauer, 2012 ). However
Winning With Apps: A Case Study of the Current Branding Strategies Employed on Professional Sport Teams’ Mobile Apps
Brandi Watkins and Regina Lewis
In this case study, the authors take a first look at how professional sports teams are using mobile apps as part of their branding and marketing strategies, as well as to enhance fan experience. Through the use of quantitative content-analysis methodology, professional sports teams’ mobile apps (N = 72) are analyzed to assess branding and marketing strategies and opportunities for fan engagement. The branding strategies most prevalent on the mobile apps include information about the teams and their performance. In terms of marketing strategies, 32 of the mobile apps provide an opportunity for fans to purchase team merchandise, and 75% provide an opportunity for fans to purchase tickets. Fan-engagement features that were most prevalent in mobile apps include check-in features (40%) and fantasy-league information (33%). Nearly 90% of mobile apps in the sample integrated Twitter, while 65% provided fans with access to Facebook.
Game Changer: A Case Study of Social-Media Strategy in Big Ten Athletic Departments
Makayla Hipke and Frauke Hachtmann
This study used a case-study approach to develop an understanding of how social-media strategy is developed and deployed in Big Ten Conference athletic departments and to explore the issues associated with it. Based on in-depth interviews with department officials, the following 6 themes emerged: connecting with target audiences, varied approaches in coordination of postings, athletic communications as content gatekeepers, desire to incorporate sponsors and generate revenue, focusing on building fan loyalty through engagement, and challenges of negativity and metrics. The social-media strategy in Big Ten Conference athletic departments appears to be driven by athletic communications/sports information departments as opposed to marketing departments. The greatest benefit of social media has been the ease of engagement and instantaneous connection between fans and the teams they love, which can lead to building greater loyalty to a team. Some of the challenges departments face include having to deal with the reality of crises and negative attention around programs more quickly than with traditional media and to measure social-media success accurately.
“How Do You Prove a Negative?” Roger Clemens’s Image-Repair Strategies in Response to the Mitchell Report
Jimmy Sanderson
This case study examines star Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens’s image-repair strategies during a press conference he held to respond to allegations that he had used steroids and human-growth hormones earlier in his playing career. When professional athletes are confronted with allegations of cheating or illegitimately enhancing their athletic performance, they are faced with a crisis situation, and selecting and performing the appropriate response is paramount in repairing their image and mitigating personal harm (e.g., loss of endorsements). In many cases, however, professional athletes rely on attorneys, agents, or other individuals who might underestimate the relevance of appropriately communicating image repair, thereby resulting in the athlete’s image being further damaged. Although Clemens employed various image-repair strategies during his press conference, his failure to enact these strategies appropriately further harmed his reputation and ultimately raised more questions than he answered.
Commercial Programming at a Single-Sport Cable Channel: Strategies and Practices at Golf Channel
Douglas M. Carroll
The emergence of single-sport cable channels represents a refinement of the allsports cable-channel concept and a new trend in the televised-sport marketplace. This study analyzed the contents of 24 continuous hours of programming on Golf Channel and tabulated the number and types of advertisements to better understand commercial programming strategies and practices. Commercial programming elements such as spot commercials, spot promotions, sponsored graphics, pop-up promotions, mentions, infomercials, and public service announcements were identified. In addition, commercial programming during live tournament coverage was compared with golf telecasts at 2 broadcast networks and an all-sports cable channel. The study measured 3 indicators of the amount of advertising presented in the telecasts: the number of commercial minutes per hour, the number of advertisements per hour, and the average duration of spot commercials. Results of the study were interpreted in terms of advertising clutter.
