Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2019 Understanding the Value of Social Media in the NBA’s Digital Communication: A Fan(s)’ Perspective Yann Abdourazakou Xuefei (Nancy) Deng California State University, Dominguez Hills California State University, Dominguez Hills
[email protected] [email protected] Abstract information instantly obtainable to view, comment on, and share among a large network of users. Social Social media (SM) has become sports media can be distinguished by six overarching organizations’ most preeminent vehicle to engage with categories, including Wikipedia, blogs, content fans and to enhance relationship marketing. Prior communities, virtual game worlds, virtual social studies have mostly focused on the standpoints of worlds, and social networking sites [3]. This paper sports organizations; less is known about fans’ SM focuses on one type of social media, social networking experience and perspective. This study focuses on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and sports fans’ SM use during a game, and seeks to Snapchat. Such technology-enabled information and understand their popular SM uses and gratifications communication capabilities have been increasingly and the effect of individual characteristics. Informed recognized and utilized by sports organizations to by the uses and gratifications theory (UGT), we enhance their communication strategies and build analyze survey data of 400 season-ticket holders of a relationships with their fans. For example, by professional NBA team. Our quantitative data analysis exploiting the digital communication capabilities of suggests that during a game the NBA sports fans use Facebook and Twitter, National Basketball Association SM for posting on Twitter & Facebook, on Instagram (NBA) teams have been delivering relevant sports & Snapchat, and checking emails.