Previous research exploring the role of belief dynamics for consumers in the entertainment industry has largely ignored the fact that emotional reactions are a function of the conntent and a consumer’s disposition towards certain protagonists. By analyzing 19m tweets in combination with in-play information for 380 football matches played in the English Premier League we contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we present a setting for testing how belief dynamics drive behavior which is characterized by several desirable features for empirical research. Second, we present an approach for detecting fans and haters of a club as well as neutrals via sentiment revealed in Tweets. Third, by looking at behavioral responses to the temporal resolution of uncertainty during a game, we offer a fine-grained empirical test for the popular uncertainty-of-outcome hypothesis in sports.

Research Line: Sports Consumer Behavior.

Funding / Support:  #DataGrantsscheme by Twitter, Research Grant by the School of Business, Economics and Informatics (Birbeck University of London).

Principal Investigators: Dooruj Rambaccussing (University of Dundee), James Reade (University of Reading), Giambattista Rossi (Birkbeck University of London), Tim Pawlowski (University of Tübingen)

Publication:

• Exploring entertainment utility from football games. Available at SSRN.