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The growth and prevalence of sport event ticket transactions on secondary ticket market platforms such as StubHub has led to the creation of a body of academic research studying this new phenomenon. Factors such as team performance and perceptions of fairness have been explored for their relationship with the price of secondary market tickets. This exploratory study introduces a new potential price determinant - social media activity - itself a popular online phenomenon that has inspired considerable academic research. This exploratory study of prices for eight National Football League games adds use of official team hashtags on Twitter to a multiple regression model, controlling for other price determinants established in previous research two models, one to predict prices for tickets sold on StubHub, the second to predict prices for tickets available on StubHub, demonstrate that increased Twitter hashtag use is a significant positive predictor of ticket prices on the secondary market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explored the use of Twitter for sponsorship activation by the The Olympic Program (TOP) sponsors during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. Using NCapture, a total of 7,519 tweets and retweets of all ten TOP sponsors around the Games were captured from the 1st of January (pre-Olympic) to the 3rd of April, 2014 (post-Olympic). The data were analysed with the aid of Leximancer analytics software. Results show that there is no regular pattern of Twitter use for activation that was identifiable amongst the TOP sponsors; all were found adopting different strategic approaches. Notably, the TOP sponsors differ in terms of the number and types of tweets they produced, retweets they broadcasted, hashtags they rerun, and the registered growth of their followers from pre-games to post-games. The results also show three possible sponsorship objectives communicated by TOP sponsors, namely promotion (of services, products, and companys image), customer appreciation, and athletes encouragement. Potential theoretical and practical implications will be discussed, including suggestions for future research. The work encourages continued investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the hijacking of #CheersToSochi and the potential impact on the McDonald's brand. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on the entire sample of 33,604 tweets, using computer software known as Leximancer. Three key themes were revealed in the analysis including LGBT, Gay, and Sponsors. Seven peripheral themes were also identified in the analysis including Principle 6, Putin, Athletes, send, Equality, #AmericaIsBeautiful, and #CelebrateWithABite. Twitter served as a platform for everyday consumers to control the conversation by utilising a tool (i.e., #CheersToSochi) that was originally designed to be the cornerstone of McDonald's digital marketing initiatives. Furthermore, this hashtag acted as an online soap box where 'normal' citizens could criticise sponsors for their affiliation with a country shrouded in controversy for its discriminatory practices. The loss of message control and ability of individuals to form social groups around a central cause created a perfect storm where the negative associations of Russia's political policies were transferred to the sponsoring organisations, potentially negatively contributing to brand image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2012 London Summer Games earned the nickname 'the Twitter Olympics' for the social media coverage of the mega-event (Whiteside, 2014), and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games witnessed a marked increase in this activity. This study examined social media communities formed during the 2014 Olympic Games. Employing the word-of-mouth (WOM) conceptual framework and social network analysis (SNA), the study examined three social media communities within Twitter - #WeAreWinter, #CheersToSochiand #SochiProblems - and messages posted from February 7-25, 2014, incorporating one of the three hash tags. The findings revealed communities first characterised by spikes in growth often coinciding with viral posts, and later by eventual network decay as the Olympic Games concluded. The most viral messages contained either celebratory information or satirical content. Additionally, key users emerged in each community, most frequently individuals rather than corporate entities and media outlets. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2012 London Summer Games earned the nickname 'the Twitter Olympics' for the social media coverage of the mega-event (Whiteside, 2014), and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games witnessed a marked increase in this activity. This study examined social media communities formed during the 2014 Olympic Games. Employing the word-of-mouth (WOM) conceptual framework and social network analysis (SNA), the study examined three social media communities within Twitter - #WeAreWinter, #CheersToSochiand #SochiProblems - and messages posted from February 7-25, 2014, incorporating one of the three hash tags. The findings revealed communities first characterised by spikes in growth often coinciding with viral posts, and later by eventual network decay as the Olympic Games concluded. The most viral messages contained either celebratory information or satirical content. Additionally, key users emerged in each community, most frequently individuals rather than corporate entities and media outlets. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explored the use of Twitter for sponsorship activation by the The Olympic Program (TOP) sponsors during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. Using NCapture, a total of 7,519 tweets and retweets of all ten TOP sponsors around the Games were captured from the 1st of January (pre-Olympic) to the 3rd of April, 2014 (post-Olympic). The data were analysed with the aid of Leximancer analytics software. Results show that there is no regular pattern of Twitter use for activation that was identifiable amongst the TOP sponsors; all were found adopting different strategic approaches. Notably, the TOP sponsors differ in terms of the number and types of tweets they produced, retweets they broadcasted, hashtags they rerun, and the registered growth of their followers from pre-games to post-games. The results also show three possible sponsorship objectives communicated by TOP sponsors, namely promotion (of services, products, and company's image), customer appreciation, and athletes' encouragement. Potential theoretical and practical implications will be discussed, including suggestions for future research. The work encourages continued investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the hijacking of #CheersToSochi and the potential impact on the McDonald's brand. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on the entire sample of 33,604 tweets, using computer software known as Leximancer. Three key themes were revealed in the analysis including LGBT, Gay, and Sponsors. Seven peripheral themes were also identified in the analysis including Principle 6, Putin, Athletes, send, Equality, #AmericaIsBeautiful, and #CelebrateWithABite. Twitter served as a platform for everyday consumers to control the conversation by utilising a tool (i.e., #CheersToSochi) that was originally designed to be the cornerstone of McDonald's digital marketing initiatives. Furthermore, this hashtag acted as an online soap box where 'normal' citizens could criticise sponsors for their affiliation with a country shrouded in controversy for its discriminatory practices. The loss of message control and ability of individuals to form social groups around a central cause created a perfect storm where the negative associations of Russia's political policies were transferred to the sponsoring organisations, potentially negatively contributing to brand image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of the relevancy of business education has been a topic of ongoing discussion since the late 1980s (Porter and McKibbon, 1988). At the time, business educators also began to recognise the value of experiential learning as a teaching method to increase the knowledge and skill development among graduates (Slavin, 1988). Beginning in 1982, the Sport Administration Program (SPAD) at Laurentian University adopted a 4th Year 'Field Trip' course as the capstone to its applied programme. This experiential learning based course involved students working in teams on Client-Based Projects (CBPs). This paper presents four mini-cases of these field trips over the past 20 years to illustrate the considerable benefits realised by all stakeholders. Key conclusions are drawn to create a proposed model for a CBP-based capstone course for sports management, a model for use by both practitioners and researchers in the development of the future workers the industry desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]