Sport brand ambassadors' experiences in sponsored user-generated branding programs

Purpose:The purpose of this study was to develop an initial understanding of sport brand ambassador participants' experiences in sponsored user generated branding (UGB) programs to assist sport organizations in developing the most mutually beneficial brand ambassador programs possible. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were held with six individuals who serve as brand ambassadors for various sport brands. Data were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. Findings: Participants were intrinsically motivated to serve in brand ambassador roles. Their experiences were impacted by whether their personal expectations were met, perceived relationship with the brand, perceived value to the brand, and perceived amount of work involved. They reported the best aspects of participation were a sense of community and free products and/or discounts. The most challenging aspects included not wanting to come across as a marketer, self-inflicted pressure to perform a certain way for the brand, pressure to purchase products, and lack of clear communication from the brand. Research limitations/implications: As this study was qualitative, the findings are unique to the participants and the brands they represent. Therefore, the findings may be used to guide other research and brands but are not generalizable. Practical implications: Sport brands wishing to employ sponsored UGB strategies such as brand ambassador programs must set clear expectations for ambassadors, communicate regularly, and develop a sense of community with and among ambassadors. Originality/value: This study contributes to the limited sport management research on sponsored UGB and offers theoretical and practical implications in the areas of sport marketing and branding

Media coverage of women athletes during the Olympic Games

As one of the only major international multisport events to feature both men and women competitors, the Olympic Games are unique in that they provide an opportunity for more equitable media coverage between men and women athletes. This chapter presents an historical overview of both the amount and the quality of coverage devoted to women athletes during the Olympic Games, while also discussing the emergence of new media, the potential benefits internet-based media coverage holds for women athletes, the power that social media afford women athletes in terms of promoting their careers and seeking commercial opportunities, and the challenges many women athletes face with social media use. The chapter concludes with a profile of Olympic Gold medal-winning gymnast, Nastia Liukin, who is now a member of US-based broadcaster NBC’s Olympic broadcast team and who founded a company focused on empowering young female athletes via the use of a mobile app

Social media education provided by national governing bodies of sport: an examination of practices for Youth Olympic Games and Olympic Games athletes

Social media provides athletes with many opportunities as well as challenges. Scholars have argued for proactive, educational social media training instead of traditional policy and punishment models, yet research on this topic is limited. Therefore, this study sought to understand the social media training/education national governing bodies (NGBs) provided to athletes ranging from Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to Olympic level, and to examine NGB communication employees’ perceptions regarding athletes’ social media use and their organization’s social media training. Utilizing uses and gratifications theory, a sequential mixed method was employed involving a survey of U.S. NGBs and in-depth interviews with NGB communication personnel. While most NGBs used proactive, educational social media training for Olympic athletes, few did the same for YOG athletes. NGB employees felt social media use posed significant benefits or gratifications to athletes, and education and training helped to enhance those benefits as well as minimize the challenges, or failed gratifications, athletes experience on social media

Social media and consumer behavior

The topics of social media and consumer behavior are inextricably linked. Since 2008, scholars in sport-studies fields such as sport communication and sport management have increasingly focused their research on social media use by sport entities and consumers. This commentary provides an overview of sport social media and consumer behavior scholarship to date, including prominent and growing topics such as consumers’ uses of social media, social media engagement, user segmentation, and user-generated content. A scoping review was conducted to illustrate the current state of research on social media, sport, and consumer behavior. Future research priorities to advance this area of inquiry are also discussed, including more qualitative research resulting in rich and descriptive analyses, the need to better understand Gen Z as sport social media consumers, and the need to understand the connection between social media consumption and purchasing behavior. Finally, the commentary encourages scholars to expand their research focus in geographic contexts outside of North America, on underrepresented groups, such as women’s sport and disability sport, and to adopt new theoretical frameworks for such research.</p

Elite female athletes' perceptions of new media use relating to their careers: A qualitative analysis

Today's elite athletes face increasing demands to develop a new media presence in order to build their personal brand and connect with a wide variety of stakeholders. Myriad studies have focused on athletes' new media use by examining content posted online; however, few studies have examined new media usage from the athletes' perspectives. Using the theoretical framework of self-presentation theory to uncover athletes' new media perceptions, goals, and strategies, semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with six elite female athletes training for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Findings revealed that although athletes had goals for sharing their lives, developing connections, sponsorship, and self-promotion, they did not employ specific strategies to meet these goals or attempt to measure whether their goals were met. Gender-related findings included feeling pressure to post sexually suggestive images and receiving unwanted private communications from male fans. The implications are discussed within the paper

Loughborough University London Institute for Sport Business Annual Report 2023

This report showcases the outputs and achievements from 2023 of the nine staff and 23 PhD students that make up ISB’s committed research community. Additionally, ISB has 141 postgraduate students studying across six specialised programmes: (1) Sport Analytics and Technologies (2) Sport Business and Innovation (3) Sport Business and Leadership, (4) Sport Marketing, (5) Sustainable Sport Business, and (6) MA in Leadership in Sport Studies.</p

Loughborough University London Institute for Sport Business annual report 2022

Located on the London 2012 Olympic Park, The Institute for Sport Business (ISB) is one of seven dedicated postgraduate teaching and research Institutes that make up the Loughborough University’s London campus. This report showcases the 2022 outputs and achievements from the ten staff and 19 PhD students that make up ISB’s committed research community. Additionally, ISB has 160 postgraduate students studying across five specialised programmes: (1) Sport Analytics and Technologies, (2) Sport Business and Innovation, (3) Sport Business and Leadership, (4) Sport Marketing, and (5) Sustainable Sport Business. Through the activities detailed in this annual report, ISB contributes to the University’s status as Global QS’s best university in the world for sports-related subjects alongside the work of colleagues at the School of Sport, Exercise, and Health Sciences and the University’s wider sporting achievements.</p

Social media engagement as a metric for ranking US Olympic athletes as brand endorsers

Athletes often use social media to help build their personal brand, communicate with stakeholders, and promote endorsements. Research suggests that athletes who elicit greater engagement on social media are more valuable to endorse brands than those who simply have a large number of followers. From a regulatory perspective, it is important for athlete endorsers to disclose the commercial nature of sponsored posts. Therefore, based on social influence theory (SIT), the purpose of this study was to examine Olympic athletes’ follower engagement on social media with a focus on brand mentions and disclosures of the relationships. Utilizing a content analysis of 190 US Olympic athletes’ tweets during the 2018 PyeongChang Games, findings revealed statistically significant differences in follower engagement based on the athlete’s gender. Non-brand-related posts received statistically significant greater engagement than brand-related posts, and only 12.90% of the posts that mentioned a brand disclosed a brand relationship. Implications and future research also are discussed

Communicating via photographs: A gendered analysis of Olympic athletes’ visual self-presentation on Instagram

The purpose of this study was to examine Olympic athletes’ self-presentation on Instagram, a social media outlet on which users post photographs as their primary communication mechanism, in order to develop an understanding of the ways in which athletes use this medium as a communication and marketing tool to build their personal brand. Additionally, this research sought to understand whether differences existed between the utilisation of Instagram by male and female athletes. Drawing on Goffman's (1959) theory of self-presentation, this study examined eight purposively selected Olympic athletes’ Instagram photos. Findings revealed similarities to previous research on athletes’ use of written social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, as the majority of photos posted by athletes were personal in nature, thus reflecting backstage performance strategies according to self-presentation theory. The results indicated that female athletes were more likely to share photos of themselves and photos taken in private settings, but male athletes who posted a wider variety of photos encouraged greater engagement from their followers. Personal brand management implications for athletes and sport organisations are examined in greater detail in the discussion.</p

20 years of Olympic media research: trends and future directions

The Olympic Games is the largest multisport event in the world, regularly drawing global audiences in the billions to watch coverage of athletes from hundreds of nations. It has received a great deal of scholarly attention, especially in terms of media coverage, consumption, and co-creation. As coverage has the ability to impact media consumers' perceptions of nations, cultures, and issues, it is important to develop an understanding of research trends relating to the Olympic Games and media in order to uncover gaps in the literature which may be filled by future scholarly work. Therefore, in order to highlight trends in the established literature and uncover areas for development, a systematic literature review was conducted to examine the state of Olympic media research over a 20-year time period (1999–2018). A total of 221 articles were examined, revealing insights into the types of research being produced from theoretical, methodological, and contextual perspectives. Results revealed a significant proportion of scholarship focused on the Summer Olympic Games, the United States, newspaper accounts of the Games, and utilized media framing and agenda setting frameworks and the content analysis methodology. Just over half of the studies utilized a theoretical or conceptual framework, the prevalence of which increased over time. Core areas for continued development in the Olympic media space include embracing and grounding research in theory, diversification in research context, and expanding upon the definition of the Olympic Games within the greater Olympic Movement