Sport fans who have formed strong connections to their favorite team may be termed loyal fans. One popular communication tool for such fans is Twitter, which has been found to be an important medium for sharing news and events, yet few studies have examined the moderating of Twitter use in a sport context. Adopting the relational approach examining the determinants of sport-fan loyalty, this study examined how Twitter use moderates the building of fan loyalty. Findings revealed that team attraction, team trust, and team involvement are positively related to team attachment. While team attachment was found to positively influence fan loyalty, sport fans’ Twitter use was found to significantly reinforce their loyalty. Specific implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Not surprisingly, a large majority of recent sport teams and organizations have adopted social media as part of their marketing and public relations strategies (Newman, Peck, & Wilhide, 2017). They particularly rely on social media to facilitate fan behaviors such as purchasing tickets and/or team merchandise (C. Warren, 2016). Social media have generally served as a powerful marketing communication tool (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016) that allows athletic departments to take a step toward effective relationship marketing to forge a long-term connection directly with fans (O’Hallarn, Morehead, & Pribesh, 2016).
Managerial Implications
In addition to contributions for sport scholars, this study provides meaningful implications for practitioners. First, the findings of this study could be useful for leaders or marketers in many sport teams and organizations to develop the role of Twitter and its implementation in marketing strategies. In particular, the results present some strategic insights for team marketers to employ an online brand community on Twitter as a channel to strengthen relationships with their existing fans or make connections with potential fans. In relationship marketing, partner selection has been found to be a critical component in competitive strategy (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). In a sense, the more sport marketers strengthen the relationships with their fans through Twitter, the more likely those fans will be committed and attached. Moreover, with social media’s rapid dissemination of information (Lovejoy, Waters, & Saxton, 2012), team marketers or managers are recommended to encourage their fans with a higher awareness of or more interactions with a team by posting interesting content related to team news or inside stories of athletes, such as realtime images, videos, promotional events, or economic incentives (e.g., coupons, free gifts, and free access to resources) on their team Twitter page(s).
