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Value co-creation for service innovation is a rapidly developing concept in the current competitive market. Prior studies emphasize the conceptual aspects of the value co-creation, with limited research focusing on the interactive effects between firms and their customers created in the process of value co-creation. We propose a framework for synthesizing the interactive concepts associated with service innovation based on the service-dominant logic. We recruited participants (N = 448) from 11 sports clubs in Iran. Results indicated that openness and consumer engagement facilitate value co-creation, which in turn leads to perceived service innovation. Furthermore, perceived brand interactivity moderated the mediating role of value co-creation in the relationship between consumer engagement and perceived service innovation. Results from this research suggest openness and consumer engagement are key antecedents of value co-creation and highlight the significance of perceived brand interactivity and value co-creation in promoting service innovation at sports clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media has changed how sport organizations and individuals in the sport industry communicate and conduct business. The increase in the number, complexity, and capabilities of platforms provides ample opportunities and data for researchers to employ quantitative research methods. In this article, we provide an overview of the state of scholarship by conducting a scoping review of sport social media research published between 2010 and 2022 with a focus on articles based on quantitative data. We then critically discuss four areas that present opportunities for improvement—scope, theory, data collection, and data analysis. Based on these four areas, we introduce the social media research framework to guide future social media research in sport. Within the social media research framework, we outline three focal areas of research—people, spaces, and technologies—and suggest examining these areas simultaneously, rather than in isolation, as well as their intersections in the sport industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most collegiate athletes in the United States monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through social media influencer marketing. This provides an opportunity to examine the factors that impact their social media NIL value. Therefore, we investigate the effects of personal branding factors (quality of Instagram biography, posting frequency, and account verification status) and institutional factors (competition level, university brand, and sport gender) on the social media NIL value of men's and women's college basketball athletes (N = 907) in California while controlling for local market characteristics. A linear regression analysis shows significant relationships between social media NIL value and competition level, university brand, sport gender, posting frequency, and account verification. Our results offer new theoretical and practical understandings of the relationships between brands in the sport brand ecosystem and the NIL value of sport influencer's social media posts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article examines how geographic location (i.e. local or nonlocal) influences fans' communicative convergence or distinctiveness in the context of an informal online fan community (i.e. Twitter [X]). Nonlocal fans, who live geographically distant from the team they support, derive distinctiveness and belonging from supporting a team from afar. This study considers how these needs materialize in online communication. Design/methodology/approach: Text mining and textual analysis were employed to collect and evaluate tweets (N = 12,865) in terms of expressed emotion. Tweets were evaluated using the NRC VAD sentiment lexicon (i.e. valence, arousal, dominance) and then categorized based on geographic location and in-group/out-group status. The resulting groups were then analyzed with a two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine how geographic location relates to the expressed emotion of tweets. Findings: The findings indicate nonlocal fans expressed statistically greater arousal compared to local online community members, reflecting their distinctiveness as nonlocal fans. Nonlocal and local fans expressed similar degrees of valence and dominance in their language, suggesting nonlocal fans converge communication behavior, seeking social approval from the salient online fan community. Originality/value: This study suggests that geographic location influences communication behavior in online fan communities. Moreover, nonlocal fans may be valuable, and underutilized, advocates for sports teams in online community settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Athlete brands exist within a network of brand relationships. Thus, considering the joint influences of related brands at different levels (league, team, and athlete) is essential for understanding how athlete brands are built. We focus on growth factors impacting athletes' social media followings (Twitter and Instagram) around the critical juncture of team transfer periods. We use data from the NFL Draft, because this moment in time provides a key opportunity to capture combined influences from league-, team-, athlete-, and platform-related factors on athlete brand development. Through comparing a large sample of athlete social media followings before and after the draft, we identify immediate changes as athletes start their professional careers. Results indicate examining multiple factors in the same model is essential for understanding the role each plays in building athlete brands. The league and team represent master brands into which an athlete brand is integrated, and consequently athlete brands are provided with benefits from these new brand relationships. Results further demonstrate network effects, highlighting the importance of possessing a strong brand before a high-profile event. Keywords: athlete branding, social media, network effect, brand relationship, nonparametric regression, Introduction An athlete's personal brand is one of their most valuable assets. A strong athlete brand is associated with greater earnings from salary, transfer fees, and endorsement deals (Parmentier & [...]

Despite consistent interest in sport brands and the multitude of brands in the sport ecosystem, extant knowledge remains fragmented and unstructured. The purpose of this study is to integrate and synthesize extant sport brand research, appraise the current state of knowledge, and suggest future research directions. Following structured literature review guidelines, we coded 179 peer-reviewed articles published in four leading sport management journals between 2000 and 2020. Results reveal increased publications in sport brand research within the four examined journals, as well as opportunities to increase theoretical and methodological rigor. Based on the mapping and critical review of extant literature, we introduce the Sport Brand Ecosystem and Environment and discuss two distinct and complementary areas related to theory and research designs and topical domains to address existent concerns and guide future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Esports, or competitive video gaming competitions, bring together aspects of sports, business, leisure, technology, and digital media, appealing to academics across multiple disciplines. Yet, esports scholarship remains highly fragmented, with scholars operating within traditional academic silos and forgoing opportunities to build on esports' interdisciplinary nature. The purpose of this integrative review is to synthesize esports scholarship from across disciplines, identify critical scholarly issues, and develop a pragmatic, interdisciplinary research agenda. We find that extant esports scholarship is categorized by literature seeking to conceptualize and legitimize esports via sport parallels, with a focus on the consumers and culture of esports. Scholarly issues include researchers examining esports in their respective academic silos, omitting opportunities to connect conceptually similar streams of literature. Overall, we synthesize esports scholarship, bridge chasms between disjointed streams of literature, and outline a pragmatic research agenda which could benefit from interdisciplinary inquiries based on a shared understanding of esports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case explores the complex process of developing a national calendar of marquee events for the Olympic sport of fencing. USA Fencing, the national governing body, must meet diverse stakeholders' needs while balancing competing priorities. Chief among the tensions is maximizing organizational revenues to fund operations versus minimizing costs and barriers to event access for participants. Suitable venues are scarce and clustered in major metropolitan areas with restrictive calendars. The limited number of potential locations impedes USA Fencing's ability to extract concessions from host cities and negotiate hotel room rebates and venue rental fees. This also limits USA Fencing's ability to accommodate other stakeholder preferences, such as attractive locations and adhering to a recently adopted policy to give preference to locations in states with inclusive laws regulating women's reproductive health and LGBTQIA+ issues. With no perfect solutions, navigating these constraints requires judicious analysis of alternatives and artful negotiation between attendee demands and organizational imperatives to develop event schedules aligning with USA Fencing's mission. By wrestling with this multidimensional resource allocation dilemma, students sharpen analytic skills and strategic decision-making competencies, grappling with the same complex questions event directors face in real-world scheduling environments marked by inadequacy and compromise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

eSports-organized video game competitions-are growing in popularity, with top tournaments drawing crowds of spectators rivaling traditional sporting events. Understanding the extent to which eSport operates similarly to traditional sport is vital to developing marketing strategies for the eSport industry and informing academic research on eSport. Prior research has examined eSports in isolation from traditional sports, overlooking direct comparisons to understand the degree to which eSport spectators are motivated similarly to traditional sport spectators. The current study measures widely-used sport consumption motives to examine their influence on eSport spectatorship and game attendance frequency. In South Korea, spectator motives across one traditional sport (soccer) and two eSport contexts (FIFA Online 3 and StarCraft II) were measured. MANOVA results identify similar patterns for 11 out of 15 motives across the three. Significant differences between contexts include vicarious achievement, excitement, physical attractiveness, and family bonding. Multiple regression analysis results show that spectators across contexts have distinct sets of motives influencing game attendance. The current study demonstrates that traditional sport and eSports are similarly consumed, suggesting that sport industry professionals can manage and market eSport events similarly to traditional sport events. Keywords: eSport, consumer behavior, spectator sport, marketing, spectator motives, eSports, organized video game competitions, are increasingly receiving mainstream media recognition as sport (Funk, Pizzo, & Baker, 2018). Yet, considering eSport as a form of sport is still perceived by [...]

Volunteers provide essential services to community sport organizations; thus, it is important to understand the underlying factors in successful volunteer–organization relationships. Organizational identification, an integral component of relationship building for members in an organization, is a useful yet underutilized concept to understand how and why volunteers create lasting, deep relationships with sport organizations. This research utilizes a sequential mixed-method design to examine the evolution of organizational identification among volunteers in a community sport organization. The survey results indicate that new volunteers formed their organizational identification over the course of a single program season, such that, by the end of the season, they were similar to returners. Subsequent qualitative analysis of focus group data indicated that the content and evolution of organizational identities varied for newcomers and returners. These results provide important contributions related to the ongoing nature of identity work of volunteers and offer practical implications for volunteer management within community sport organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging technologies not only pose challenges for how sport organizations are managed but also create opportunities for sport organizations to become more competitive by enhancing consumers' service experience. The integration of wearable fitness technology (WFT) by health and fitness clubs provides an opportunity to examine the influence of WFT on the service experience. Although existing research on technology innovations typically examines either the individual or the organizational perspective in isolation, we use the sport experience design framework to comprehensively examine the influence of WFT on the management and perceptions of service experiences. Participants (N = 37) who took part in the qualitative study included fitness club owners (n = 13), fitness club instructors (n = 7), and fitness club members (n = 17). Findings indicate that integrating WFT enhances the service experience via increased social interaction, gamification, and accountability. However, findings also suggest that technology innovations must be integrated carefully to avoid misalignment between providers' and users' perceptions. Despite the potential for misalignment, emerging technologies can enhance and expand the service experience beyond the physical environment, presenting sport organizations with technology-mediated opportunities to engage consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing importance of customer knowledge management (CKM) as a strategic resource for sport service organizations, little sport management research has examined the link between CKM and consumers' intention to use sport services. Using the psychological continuum model as the theoretical framework, this study examines whether CKM predicts consumers' intention to use sport services. Participants (N = 686) were recruited from nonprofit sports clubs in Urmia, Iran. Structural equation modeling results revealed positive relationships between CKM, psychological involvement, perceived value, commitment, and intention to use. Furthermore, both CKM and psychological involvement had positive indirect effects on intention to use through perceived value and commitment. Findings from this study highlight the importance of psychological involvement and perceived value in promoting intention to use sport services at nonprofit sports clubs and CKM's role as a key antecedent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As COVID-19 lockdowns force most sport leagues into hiatus, engaging fans has emerged as a key challenge confronting the sport industry. While navigating social distancing protocols, athletes are experimenting with new ways to connect with their fans. Alongside established social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), TikTok, a short-form video-sharing platform, has gained prominence in terms of registered users and shared content. Yet, little is known about the utility of TikTok as an athlete branding tool. This study uses a netnographic approach to explore the use of TikTok among athletes (N = 10) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings reveal that athlete-generated TikTok videos are characterized as playful and authentic. While athletes are recent adopters of TikTok, this emerging social media platform can be profitably integrated into their online branding strategies. Communicating via TikTok presents opportunities for athletes to foster existing fan relationships, promote branded content, and appeal to new fan segments. Overall, athletes and sport practitioners can leverage these findings to create content for an audience that is attracted to novelty and the activities of athletes extending beyond game highlights or interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]