2019 Sport Marketing Association Conference (SMA XVII) Chicago, IL
2019 Sport Marketing Association Conference (SMA XVII) The “Double Doink” Double Whammy: Fan Reactions When an On-field Mistake is Compounded by an Off-field Gaffe Matthew Zimmerman, Mississippi State University Sarah Stokowski, University of Arkansas Jimmy Sanderson, Texas Tech University Ali Fridley, University of Arkansas Nathan Hutchens, University of Arkansas Wednesday, November 11, 2019 50-minute poster presentation 5:45-6:35 PM, Chicago River Ballroom Salon D,E,F,G The 2018 Chicago Bears’ once-promising season ended in the wild-card round of the National Football League playoffs, as kicker Cody Parkey’s attempted game-winning field goal hit both the crossbar and the upright before bouncing out. Television analyst Cris Collinsworth described the play as a “Double Doink” and the term soon found a way into fan and football vernacular and conversation (Thompson, 2019). Despite the NFL ruling a day later that the kick had been partially blocked (Reyes, 2019), fans’ disappointment at the abrupt end of a 12-4 NFC Central Division championship season remained. Parkey drew further criticism with an appearance on NBC’s Today morning show, with many Bears enthusiasts expressing their displeasure on social media (Ellis, 2019). In the wake of Parkey’s miss and subsequent Today appearance, two coders examined 526 Tweets, gathered from the microblogging service Twitter through a manual search for Parkey’s last name. The aspect of fandom in this particular case not only applies to Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), but also to Maladaptive Parasocial Interaction (Sanderson & Trueax, 2014). While sports fans often use social media (Haugh & Watkins, 2016) to be part of a larger whole comprised of individuals with similar interests, negative news such as playoff losses can also lead to commiserate reactions in a parasocial manner as the athlete in question does not respond to the messages sent their way through social platforms.
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