Social Media and Fans: Fans Motivation of Sports Club with Different Type of Ownership and League Position

Abstract

Social Media and Fans: Fans Motivation of Sports Club with Different Type of Ownership and League Position

Kamarul Ikram bin Abdul Halim Global Sport Management, Department of Physical Education The Graduate School Seoul National University

This study examines how sport fans are using social media to interact with sports organizations. Professional sports club are important entity with large communities of followers which gives an ideal context to better understand the potential that social media have to help build strong bonds with fans. The research questions were produced by recognizing a gap in sports communication literature, which reveal a lack of framework to assess fans communication with professional sports club on social media. Based on existing key motives from previous literature, content analysis and netnographic methodology was carried out on official Facebook pages of three Malaysian Super League (MSL) clubs which are different in ownership type and league position. Online comments by fans of three football clubs were explored in ten days period during MSL season. Inductive category development approach was used to extract new emerging motives of the fans. Results showed that fans from different club ownership type and league position have different key motives to interact with sports club. The results were discussed in light of the research questions and concluded with recommendation to conduct further research in the area of fans communicating on social media.

Keywords: Fans motivation, interaction, social media Student Number: 2015-22365