An Exploratory Study on Ecuadorian Fan Motivation for Interacting with Professional Soccer Teams through Social Media

Abstract

An Exploratory Study on Ecuadorian Fan Motivation for Interacting with Professional Soccer Teams through Social Media

Nahik Xavier Solano Murillo Global Sport Management, Department of Physical Education The Graduate School Seoul National University

What better place to be an absolute fan where you are allowed to express yourself as most as you can than Social Media? Nowadays, sports organizations do not just have traditional media to engage fans. The advances on technology has opened the opportunity for innovation and strategies to engage fans through new media. Social media, one type of new media, is an excellent tool for fans to be in touch with their teams

accordingly, it is an important source for sports organizations to better understand fan motivations and develop a powerful fan relationship (Stavros, Meng, Westberg, & Farrelly, 2014). This study extends prior research on fan motivation and contributes to the arising research on social media by exploring what motives sport fans for interacting on the Facebook Pages of the three most popular Professional Ecuadorian Soccer Teams. The findings showed that fans employ five motives when they interact through this social networking service, these are: passion, hope, self-esteem, camaraderie, and gratitude. Moreover, this study indicates the importance of interaction between consumers (sport fans) and sports organizations, which is the beginning of the engagement process to reach and maintain successful relational exchanges, better called relationship marketing.

Keywords : Fan Motivation, Sport Marketing, Social Media, Interaction, Relationship Marketing, Professional Soccer Student Number : 2015-22350