Institute of Sports Science

"Same, same – but different!" – PR media use in sports

01.10.2015 – Nowadays, organizations around the globe have numerous avenues to share information with their target groups and communicate directly without any intermediaries such as journalists. Particularly, sports organizations like professional sports teams make frequent use of email newsletters, (online) club TV channels, stadium magazines, and internet platforms. In addition, they frequently share information using social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Surprisingly, however, very little is known about the factors influencing consumers’ use of these different communication channels.

Researcher of the department were the first to analyze simultaneously the factors associated with consumers’ use of different PR media by using representative data from club members of one of the biggest professional soccer clubs in Germany and employing a multivariate ordered probit model. The findings offer important managerial implications and were recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Sport Management.

Burk, V., Grimmer, C. G. & Pawlowski, T. (2015). Same, same – but different! On consumers’ use of corporate PR media in sports, Journal of Sport Management, doi: 10.1123/JSM.2015-0180