Seok Kang, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), is researching how professional sports teams build loyalty by engaging their fans through their mobile devices.
Seok Kang, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), is researching how professional sports teams build loyalty by engaging their fans through their mobile devices.
Kang published “Mobile communication and pro sports: motivation and fan loyalty,” a study in the International Journal of Mobile Communications that describes the findings of a national panel survey of 405 respondents.
Kang’s survey asked fans about their mobile phone habits and their reasons for using the technology to follow pro sports. The motives fans provided in the survey were classified into either instrumental or ritualistic use. Instrumental use is goal-directed use, where individuals use media to gather information, learn new things or just be social. Ritualistic use is a fan’s habitual use of media for relaxation or time consumption.
Findings from Kang’s research suggest that instrumental motives predict behavioral loyalty. These motives were related to actions taken to show support for a team or players such as purchasing tickets to games, attending games, watching games on television or buying products. Meanwhile ritualistic motives were associated with fans’ attitudes toward teams or players.
Read more at University of Texas at San Antonio
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