Sport marketing and social media strategies

Abstract

This study reviews sport marketing studies focusing on social media to identify research gaps and provides future research directions. The authors critically evaluate 37 papers that have appeared in the Scopus database. The findings of this study are threefold: (1) current studies regarding sport marketing and social media focus on three main research themes: sport marketing practices of sport providers, sport fans and social media engagement, and athlete brand identity; (2) the majority of studies were conducted using a quantitative approach; there are very few studies that use in-depth interviews, however; and (3) sport marketing and social media research mostly focus on Facebook and Twitter, while less (almost no) attention has been paid to other social media websites such as Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. This research contributes to the literature by analyzing the current state of sport marketing studies that focus on social media and offers suggestions for future research from theoretical, methodological, and contextual perspectives.