Top soccer teams in cyberspace: Online channels for services, communications, research, and sales

Abstract

For more than a decade, professional sports teams have mainly used their own websites as online vehicles in support of marketing efforts in services, communications, research and sales. Meanwhile, social media and mobile computing have been added to the mix of online as a response to raised service expectations and changing functional requirements for digital online presence and interaction, which has important implications for the marketing success of any professional team. We studied the cyberspace presence and appearance of four leading soccer teams in Europe and particularly looked at the mix of official team websites, social media and mobile applications. Following the methodology of previous studies on the subject, we used the TEDS framework for information artifact evaluation from a ‘human agent-centric’ perspective and extended this analytical approach to also include social media and mobile channels. Our results suggest that the new channels of social and mobile media have seemingly gained in importance putting the traditional websites to the backseat in the mix. However, in all four cases the integration of cyberspace channels appears to be in its infancy leaving much room for improvement from both a marketing perspective and an information artifact standpoint.