A Case Study of Regional Sport Organization Development in Triathlon

The current qualitative case study examined how a Regional Sport Organization (RSO) in New Zealand dealt with macro and micro environmental pressures in the development and evolution of increasing participation in the sport of triathlon over a 15-year period. Organizers managed a total participation increase from 300 adult participants in 1999 to close to 1,200 in 2012–13. An increase in child participants from 300 in 2004 to 3,400 in 2012–13 also took place. Archives of the results of the respective adult and children’s series of triathlon events from 1998–2013 were analyzed along with the environmental pressures. The findings indicated that informal and formal organizational responses to internal and external pressures directly or indirectly assisted in increasing sport participation of adults and children. These responses involved new events targeting different groups and periodic adaptive organizational infrastructure review/change. Implications of the research included the highlighted importance of ongoing sport product changes and enhancements and the use of formal internal and external review processes, such as the Organization Development Tool, for community or regional sports to support increased physical activity and participation

An Examination of U.S. and Chinese Online News Coverage of the 2008 Olympics

poster abstractThe 2008 Summer Olympic Games put Beijing, China in the global media spotlight, as over 5,600 journalists from around the world traveled to Beijing to cover the Games. Because the U.S. and China operate under significantly different political structures, the purpose of this study was to examine one Chinese news website and one U.S. news website during the Games to determine what differences, if any, existed in the two countries’ Olympic coverage. This study was based on Siebert, Peterson, and Schramm’s (1956) four theories of the press, focusing on the Social Responsibility theory and the Soviet Communist theory. It was hypothesized that the U.S. media outlet, USAToday.com, would most closely resemble the Social Responsibility theory and that the Chinese outlet, PeoplesDaily.com, would most closely resemble the Soviet Communist theory. Content from both outlets was collected over a 17-day period, and a quantitative content analysis methodology was employed to examine the coverage. The findings revealed that the U.S. news outlet seemed to show a greater bias towards athletes from its own country than did the Chinese news outlet. Additionally, the U.S. news outlet focused more of its coverage on athletes and the actual sporting events taking place at the Games, while the Chinese outlet afforded much more coverage to the host city/country. The results indicated that neither news outlet painted an entirely accurate picture of the Games for their readers. The U.S. news outlet seemed to closely resemble the Social Responsibility theory, as hypothesized, and the Chinese outlet resembled the Soviet Communist theory in some regards, but did not resemble it in other aspects of its coverage. These findings, along with further analysis, will be explained in greater detail in the poster presentation

Examining the Development of a Social Media Strategy for a National Sport Organisation A Case Study of Tennis New Zealand

The application of technology and the rise in social media has not gone unnoticed in sports and has become a vital tool for sport marketers as sport consumers’ media consumption grows. This paper offers an analysis on the development and maintenance of a social media strategy for a National Sport Organisation (NSO) in New Zealand. This initiative, implemented for Tennis New Zealand (TNZ) in 2010, was conducted to provide a minority sport (in terms of mainstream media) with its first online social media presence. This study involved a qualitative and quantitative analysis of Tennis New Zealand’s (TNZ) development and maintenance of a social media strategy through fieldwork, social media metrics data collection and analysis, and evaluation, and highlights a number of issues in the development and effective utilisation of social media for an NSO. In particular applying a ‘one size fits all’ approach to its management despite the uniqueness of the sport product. Creative online strategies using technologies such as Facebook must be employed, monitored and evaluated to ensure they continue to meet the needs and expectations of all stakeholders. Such strategies include the use of promotions, ‘behind-the-scenes’ material, and constant engagement and conversation with fans and followers

Battle of the Sexes: Gender Analysis of Professional Athlete Tweets

Abstract This study employed a content analysis to determine the frames utilized b