How to manage your sports fan's engagement during a season shutdown. : A case study of the Swedish basketball sector and its highest league non-profit clubs.

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How to manage your sports fan’s

engagement during a season shutdown

- A case study of the Swedish basketball sector and its highest league non-profit clubs.

THESIS WITHIN: Business administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15 hp

PROGRAM OF STUDY: International Management AUTHOR: Helena Johansson (900717)

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Bachelor Thesis Project in Business Administration

Title: How to manage your sports fan’s engagement during a season shutdown. Author: Helena Johansson.

Tutor: Ryan Rumble. Date: 2020-05-18

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Abstract

Background At the beginning of 2020, there was a global pandemic outburst leading to social distancing and the Swedish basketball season to be shutdown. The Swedish basketball league consists of non-profit organizations which are mission-driven organizations, thus, they cannot change their product and adapt to the market demands and their main offering are the basketball game events. The organizations financial incomes are mainly from the ticket sales connected to their basketball game events, therefore the organization’s most important stakeholder is their spectators.

Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to explore how the Swedish non-profit professional basketball sector clubs use marketing as a means to keep their fans engaged during an event shutdown. This will be done by specifically exploring what actions the sports clubs are taking, why those actions were chosen, what the fan's reactions are to those actions and how those actions can create

engagement between the club and the fans.

Method: This will be done by collecting qualitative data from semi-structured

interviews with eight different individuals working at different clubs as either sports manager, club manager or communication manager. Supplemented by archive analysis of the club’s online presence, mainly their own website and social network pages Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Conclusion: The results show that the clubs are taking different actions depending on their opinion of already established crowd size. Larger crowd clubs are taking inspiration from other sport sectors and with the motivation to procure revenues they are creating Facebook events where the fans can connect and engage in multiple ways. If the clubs just open up a community platform then the club-fan engagement relationship is right now mainly driven by the fan’s longing to belong.

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3.1 Research philosophy ... 32 3.2 Research approach ... 32 3.3 Research method ... 33 3.4 Research strategy ... 34 3.5 Data collection ... 35 3.5.1 Archival analysis ... 35 3.5.2 Interviews ... 36 3.6 Sampling ... 37 3.6.1 Participants: ... 37 3.6.2 Sample limitations ... 38 3.7 Data analysis ... 38 3.8 Trustworthiness ... 39 3.8.1 Credibility ... 39

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5 3.8.2 Transferability ... 40 3.8.3 Dependability ... 40 3.8.4 Confirmability ... 40 3.9 Ethical considerations ... 40 4 Empirical findings ... 42

4.1 New actions taken by the clubs ... 42

4.2 Motivation behind the actions ... 44

4.3 The fan’s feedback ... 44

4.4 Engagement creation ... 45

5 Analysis and interpretation of results ... 46

5.1 Relationship marketing ... 46

5.2 Engagement marketing ... 48

5.3 Motivation behind actions ... 50

5.4 Innovation ... 51 5.5 Club-fan relationship ... 53 6 Conclusion ... 56 7 Discussion ... 58 7.1 Contributions ... 58 7.2 Implications ... 58 7.3 Limitations ... 59 7.4 Future research ... 60 8 References ... 61

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Figures

Figure 1: Simplified model of the consumer-supplier relationship in the sports industry. ... 8

Figure 2: Sport Ecosystem ... 11

Figure 3: Classification of sport supporters ... 17

Figure 4: The relationship-marketing process. ... 24

Figure 5: The key constructs of engagement marketing. ... 26

Figure 6: Gamification model ... 29

Figure 7: Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies ... 34

Figure 8: Research participants (created by the author) ... 37

Appendix Appendix 1: Interview questions ... 71

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1 Introduction

This chapter will introduce the reader to the background of the subject of matter in the thesis, namely, the sports sector, non-profit organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic. Thereafter followed by an introduction of the problem discussion and how the pandemic caused season shutdown has affected the Swedish basketball non-profit organizations then going into the research purpose and there the research question is presented. Lastly, the perspective and delamination of this thesis are shortly given.

1.1 Background

Sport is by Shank and Lyberger (2014) defined as a source of distraction or a physical action engaged in for gratifications, but how can one reach sports fans without being able to arrange sports?

Sport being used as a distraction means that it takes us away from our regular life and daily routines which gives us pleasure, hence, we are being entertained (Shank and Lyberger, 2014). Nevertheless, Wakefield (2007) declares that sport differs from other sources of entertainment because it is spontaneous and uncontrolled by those participating in the event. Furthermore, Dobson, Goddard and Dobson (2001) describe that the fundamental appeal and distinction of sports is the uncertainty of outcome factor. Shank and Lyberger (2014) also continue with stating that this is a factor why people attend sports events, nobody certainly knowing how the game will end creates a sense of expectation and excitement amongst everyone involved. Hence, the exact emotional spectrum that spectators will feel during a sports event is hard to determine.

With time the sports section has become one of the most important and universal institutions of our society. The sports industry is estimated to generate between 480-620 billion dollars per year globally, according to A.T. Kearney’s (2011) recent study. From a consumer perspective, the sports industry consists of three major players: The consumers of sport, the sport products being consumed and the suppliers of the sport product. The core product of the sports industry is sporting events (Smith & Stewart, 2014). Even more directly put by Shank

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and Lyberger (2014) “if the sporting event is the heart of the sports industry, then the spectator is the blood that keeps it pumping” (p. 18) making it clear that the sports industry would not exist without events or spectators. Historically, the focus of the sports industry and sports marketing was on the spectator attending the event. Currently, the spectator can engage in the event via attending the live event or experience the event via a chosen media (Shank & Lyberger 2014). Looking from the sports organization’s perspective, another particularly important consumer in the sports marketing area is the organizations and businesses who wish to sponsor sports. The meaning of sport sponsorship is that the consumer (more often a

business) exchanges money or products for the rights to associate its product, service, or name in connection to the sporting event. Thus, creating a commercial competitive advantage for both stakeholders engaged (Copeland, Frisby & McCarville, 1996). In figure 1 below it is clearly visible that the events connect the sports clubs with their main relationships to spectators and sponsors.

Figure 1: Simplified model of the consumer-supplier relationship in the sports industry. Source: Adapted from Shank and Lyberger (2014).

The industry of sports organizations is comprised of three interconnected, yet nevertheless, very distinct sectors. These being namely the public, non-profit and commercial sectors (Hoye, Smith, Nicholson & Stewart, 2015; Stewart, 2017). All three sports sectors have the common main goal consisting of the provision of sports products to the public (Shank & Lyberger 2014). However, the vast majority of sports organizations throughout the world are categorized as non-profit, meaning, those organizations are more focused on developing the sport, members and of course improving their performances on-field (Stewart & Smith, 2007). Furthermore, the non-profit organizations are differentiated by that all the endowments in the organizations are used to advance activities that are beneficial for the organization’s members and/or the communities where they are active (Slack & Parent, 2006). Hence, the

organization’s focus is mainly on its members, not the business aspect. The non-profit

organizations are also unique as they are mostly managed and staffed by volunteers (Smith & Stewart, 2014; Breuer, Hoekman, Nagel & van der Werff, 2015). The Swedish non-profit

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sector has the generally comparable size to the sectors in other developed countries, yet an entirely dissimilar structure. In Sweden, the mass of the sectors operating outflows is as said put into developing activities directly aimed at their members, however, in other developed countries, non-profit organizations are less concerned in activities aimed at their members. Moreover, non-profit organization’s financial capital is mainly invested in larger human service or welfare fields (Saxon-Harrold & Kendall, 1995).

All the clubs in the Swedish basketball league (SBBF) are non-profit organizations

("Organization", 2020), financially meaning that the organization operates non-profit making activities or has a non-profit organizational motive. However, all Swedish non-profit

organizations must be registered with the Swedish tax agency. Furthermore, in a non-profit organization, everyone who shares the organization’s interest is welcome as a member and the organization is ultimately run by a board. The mission of a non-profit organization

functioning in the sports industry is to through sports promote the interests of both their members and the public. Hence, a non-profit organization does not have a financial goal as the main mission just like most of the for-profit organizations, however, a non-profit

organization may still be run much like a for-profit business and make profits as long as those profits go back into their members use cycle, in perhaps the shape of sports activities

available for public use. Keeping in mind that even non-profit organizations active in the sports sector need successful financial management to have sport achievement success (Perechuda & Bolesław, 2015). Additionally, it is quite common, although more appropriate in elite sports, that the non-profit organizations divide their money-making activities from the organization’s activities and operate those as a side company. Furthermore, the organizations, called clubs in the sports industry, main sources of revenues are subsidies, sponsoring,

donations, operation incomes and member fees (Skatteverket, arbetsförmedlingen & bolagsverket, 2020).

In late 2019 a new virus surfaced in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus disease called COVID-19. The disease was by the world health organization (WHO) on March the 12th, 2020 declared a world pandemic (World health organization, 2020). WHO stated that the COVID-19 virus spreads between humans through mainly body fluids such as saliva or nasal discharge that are spread when an infected human sneezes or coughs (World health organization, 2020). At the time of this dissertation, there is no vaccine or treatment for this disease and the global number of deaths amount to 74 304 out of 1 317 130 confirmed cases and the COVID-19

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virus has had the hardest effect in Europe with 686 338 confirmed cases (World health organization, 2020).

A pandemic is a world spread outburst of a disease. According to Last, Harris, Thuriaux and Spasoff (2001) a pandemic differs from other virus outbursts for a number of reasons such as 1) it spreads worldwide 2) it infects a greater number of humans 3) it is caused by a new virus 4) has an abundant higher risk of fatal outcomes. Moreover, the combined characteristics of a pandemic often have the outcome effect of economic loss, social disruption and general society hardship. Affecting the society as a whole and for this dissertation more specifically the industry of sport.

1.2 The Problem

The pandemic continuing to spread globally during the beginning of 2020 with Europe being affected the hardest (World health organization, 2020). Leading the Swedish government to ban group gatherings of over 500 participants ("Förordning om förbud mot att hålla allmänna sammankomster och offentliga tillställningar", 2020). A decision affecting the whole nation and as discussed in this dissertation, specifically the sports industry of basketball. With a group gathering ban, there could not be any audience at the events arranged by the Swedish basketball clubs. Taken into account was how the virus is spread, as in the physical contact sport of basketball there is a large amount of body fluid exchange which was deemed a major health risk during this pandemic, however, the costs of arranging events and not getting any incomes were also considered. Hence, on the 12th of mars 2020, the Swedish basketball association, SBBF, took the decision to shut the league down and not play any of the remaining games without spectators as it was deemed to not be safe and additionally too costly for the clubs (Hellgren, 2020; Spelprogram säsongen 2019/2020, 2020).

As stated by Mason (1999), the sports club’s product of game events is a creation through the professional sports league, the league is the economic entity. Therefore, during a league shutdown, there will be no matches played and no events hosted by the clubs. Without events, the club won’t have a product to offer the fan’s and the purpose of a business is to supply a product and/or service, Drucker (1958) goes on to states in his journal about business survival that selling a product is the only reason why a business exists. The sports club’s main product

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is the game events (Mullin, Hardy & Sutton, 2014), therefore there cannot exist a sports club without events, in sports, the event is all (Inglis, 1996).

The sports ecosystem developed by Collignon and Sultan (2014), see figure 2 below, clearly displays the flow of money and that the league, game events, is the core factor connecting all the main stakeholders in a sports clubs’ environment.

Figure 2: Sport Ecosystem

Source: Adapted from Collignon and Sultan (2014).

In a situation such as this, it is crucial to maintain relationships with fans and customers (Da Silva & Las Casas 2017). To further address the importance of fan’s, Chadwick, Chanavat and Desbordes (2015) state that “Without fan’s, there would be no live audience in the stadia, no recipients for the media, no target group for sponsors and therefore no income for

professional sporting organizations“ (p. 112). Henceforth, fans are the sports organizations most important consumer and needed for the cub to survive both as an organization and in financial terms (Mullin et al., 2014).

Additionally, a non-profit organization holds its economy floating by government subsidies, sponsors and main sales related to the events, where ticket sales are the main income

(Perechuda & Bolesław, 2015). Thus, the importance of keeping the engagement with their crowds for the next season is of utter financial importance for the club’s survival. Moreover, sports clubs need spectators to create the tension and excitement that so many associates with watching sport. Without this, fans will not gather to watch and support the club (Raney, 2006).

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Henceforth, without a league, there are many problems arising for the Swedish non-profit sports clubs. Firstly, there will not be any events the fans can attend and therefore no ticket sales for the clubs arranging the events, this affecting the club’s economy negatively. When securing revenues, the fans are crucial for sports clubs, especially since non-profit

organizations possess economical assets but are incapable of effortlessly liquidating them (Smith & Stewart, 2014). Secondly, besides the financial issue, the clubs are also faced with a conflict of sponsor interest. Sponsors sign agreements with clubs, wanting to deliver their advertising message to the public and since the Swedish basketball games are not aired on television, the events are the main marketing source. In order to receive money from the sponsors, clubs must connect them with a large target fan group to which they can advertise (ROŞCA, 2013). As a sponsor agreement is a strategic marketing investment, no sponsors want to invest in an event not occurring or without people, since there will be no benefits of visibility for the sponsors (Amis, Slack & Berrett, 1999). Thirdly, with the combination of no league and the group gathering ban, the sports clubs will not have any possibility to interact physically with their fans to maintain the relationship with them (Mullin et al., 2014). Furthermore, for a club to keep their fans engaged becomes even more critical when it is a non-profit club, given that, stated by Best (2000), in general, it costs approximately ﬁve times more to replace a customer than to keep a customer.

As the core of the Swedish sports sector relies on a voluntary staff (Broberg, 2004), they will not have the resources as a regular business to start over next season and attract new sports fans to their events. Therefore, this thesis will be of importance for other team sports clubs, giving them insights on what it is that the spectators want and how to create more fan engagement with their clubs. The results in this thesis will be applicable to other non-profit clubs engaged in team sports but not for clubs engaged in individual sports as the customer motivations differ too much to be successful in those areas.

There is no sufficient research already conducted on the topic of a sports club keeping their fans engaged during a season shutdown. The closest research is regarding the male hockey lockdown season 2004-2005, but as the club wasn’t a non-profit organization and it was only the professional male team that was on hold and not the whole organization, thus, the sports club still had the opportunity to arrange all other events in their arenas and therefore still have physical fan-club interactions (Staudohar, 2005). Therefore, this research was deemed non-sufficient to this topic. There are not any studies on how to keep your fans engaged during regular season breaks either, as the clubs arrange summer camps, basketball tournaments and

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other physical events during this period to maintain their relationships with the fans.

Therefore, the phenomenon of all sports events being shut down and the clubs engaging their fan’s when not having the ability to arrange any physical activities, which is their main activity and not having the opportunity to redirect their fan’s to any other sport has not been studied before. Hence, this thesis will contribute to filling that knowledge gap.

This thesis aims to explore how the non-profit clubs keep their fans engaged without having the opportunity to offer their main service of events during a season shutdown. This study will focus on the sports sector of basketball, as it was the first sport in Sweden to announce a season shutdown. To limit the scope of the thesis in order to get more in-depth knowledge the author chose to only look at the Swedish basketball sector, as this is the geographically closest sector for the author. The scope will also be further limited to the clubs present in the highest league as these clubs have an established organization and were most affected by the season shutdown. Additionally, this was decided due to that the highest league clubs are competing at the international basketball level of the international basketball federation (FIBA) “the

distinction between amateurs and professionals” (Eschker* et al., 2004, p. 1) and are therefore deemed to be professional clubs. Thus, consequently, international literature and theories concerning non-profit sports clubs are applicable to this thesis. The sport basketball was also chosen due to the author’s personal interest in the sport and therefore also having already established networks in the basketball sector which is of importance for the research to establish a deepness.

1.3 Purpose

Since all clubs that are a part of the Swedish basketball league are mission-driven non-profit organizations, Dolnicar and Lazarevski (2009) state in their research that a non-profit organization’s product is delineated by the organization’s existence and cannot be caused to change in relations to changing market needs. Meaning that the clubs cannot adapt and change their product offering related to the season shutdown caused by the pandemic.

The combination of the Swedish non-profit club's limited resources, their need to keep the fans engaged until next season and physical events being banned create a situation where the clubs need to redirect their connection strategies with their fans. The matching of business and customer interest requires the parties to communicate, an exchange relationship is needed. This sort of communication can be spontaneous and impulsive, but experiences have shown

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that careful management of the communications can add great value to all those involved (Varey, 2002). Therefore, the concept of marketing communication emerged. The unanimous objective of marketing communication which also applies to sports event marketing is to create engagement in order to stay active in your consumer's mind. However, what kind of engagement can differ between industries and organizations (Ashley & Tuten, 2015).

During the season, live game action is the most important content that teams can offer fans to engage in. However, with a season shutdown, the teams need to be creative with the actions they produce for fans. Hence the clubs are aiming at the same fans who attended their events, so the customer needs will be the same while the club's offering will have to differ due to the shutdown of events, thus, this thesis will analyze the club's actions to fill their customer’s needs.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the Swedish non-profit professional clubs in the basketball sector use marketing as a means to engage the fans during an event shutdown. This will be done by specifically exploring what actions the clubs are taking, why those actions were chosen, what the fan's reactions are to those actions and how those actions can create engagement between the club and the fans from the producer’s perspective.

The thesis research question is:

1. How do non-profit sports clubs manage their sports fan’s engagement during a season shutdown?

Supported by these sub-questions used to provide answers to the main research question: 1.1. What actions are the non-profit basketball organizations taking to engage their fans? 1.2. Why were those actions chosen by the clubs?

1.3. What feedback from the fans have the clubs received and/or noticed regarding their actions?

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1.4 Perspective

This thesis is exploring the producer’s actions, the producer being the non-profit

organizations, focusing on the producer's perspective and how the actions affect the consumer from a producer perspective.

1.5 Delimitation

This thesis is not looking into how to retain customers as that would mean a deeper exploration into loyalty and not specifically engagement. The concept of loyalty and engagement are very closely related, and both can be considered a part of relationship marketing. However, due to the time limitations of this course being a 15 hp course and the purpose of developing a deeper understanding, only engagement and relationship marketing will be further explored by this thesis.

Additionally, this thesis will not explore any other connections the club has to other stakeholders, such as players, media, or sponsors. This thesis will only explore the club’s connection to its fans.

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2 Theoretical framework

In this chapter, relevant literature and theories that can be used for interpretation of the empirical findings are covered. Previous research regarding fan’s, sport marketing,

engagement marketing, relationship marketing, user and gratification model and non-profit organizations innovation are presented, in order to understand why and how clubs marketing actions are affecting their fan’s engagement. The section also has a deeper description of an engagement marketing model and a relationship marketing model which will later be used to analyze the findings.

2.1 The collection of frameworks

There was a structured process of identifying and collecting academic articles used for this dissertation’s theoretical framework. The relevant literature was retrieved from the two

databases of Primo JU and Google Scholar. To start off, the thesis topic was broken down into keywords used to limit the database searches, keywords such as non-profit organizations, marketing, engagement, season shutdown, sports marketing, relationship, fan’s and sports clubs were used in different combinations. To get more case-specific relevant literature the references of the larger and well-established sport marketing studies encountered were studied. When reading through literature the number of times each article had been cited was taken into account, although also in consideration to how new the article was as some of the marketing perspectives used in this literature are fairly new concepts. This in order to increase the relevance of the article and its content. Relevant data were extracted from the literature and further analyzed, searching for if multiple studies pointed to the same conclusions, before being deemed trustworthy and used in this dissertation’s framework. The following are the results of the literature reviewed.

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2.2 Sports fan’s

By Norris, Wann and Zapalac (2014) a fan is plainly defined as an individual who is oriented towards sport meaning they think and talk about sport, hence, leaving a very broad inclusion. The term fans were limited down by Lenhard (2002) as people identifying with a specific sports club on intellectual, emotional and interactive levels. However, he also conflictingly persists to state that there cannot be any recognizable thresher hold between a fan and a not-fan as every sports supporter shows a certain amount of recognition. Stewart, Smith and Nicholson (2003) propose that a fan is an individual who is on some level of dedication to the club. Continuing, this dedication is verified by money and time expenses plus lasting

association with a sports club in the absence of team accomplishments.

Stewart et al. (2003) continue by stating in their research that it is impossible to define a description of a sports consumer, hence there is a mass of impartial attitudes, values and behavior to consider. In the mid-1950s researchers began to realize that the sport audience members are not a homogeneous group but more active members of a diverse heterogeneous subset (Raney, 2006). Lenhard (2002) has visualized a classification of the term sports fan’s seen in figure 3, which is seen as one of the most common interpretations.

Figure 3: Classification of sport supporters

Source: Adapted from Bühler, Chadwick and Nufer (2010).

As seen in multiple pieces of literature, it is exceedingly difficult to define what and who a fan is. However, throughout this thesis, a fan is defined by Lenhards (2002) classification, as all spectators of sport in the stadium/arena, as the Swedish basketball is not broadcasted on television yet, thus, the clubs researched in this paper do not have television audience.

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From a marketing perspective, Shank and Lyberger (2014), state that sport consumers differ tremendously from regular consumers. Naming the greatest difference of sports fans is the increased levels of passion and loyalty towards the product at hand and the irrationality regarding consumption behaviours. Sports consumers show a puzzling collection of attitudes, values and actions (Meir, 2000). This is why sport customers are referred to as sports fans since the sports marketing relationship emotionally differs from a regular marketing

relationship. In sports marketing, it is all about the relationship with your fans and referring to them as customers is distancing that relationship (Da Silva & Las Casas, 2017).

2.2.1 Sports fan’s motivation factors

Although, just as in a regular marketing relationship, for fans to want to consume sports, they need to be motivated by a beneficial exchange where their needs and wants will be satisfied. Tomlinson, Buttle and Moores (1995) stated that individuals coming to the game events are connected to the entertainment value of the event, meaning the interactions, general

atmosphere and service experience in the arena. They do not necessarily go to events to watch a good match or to see their local team win, even though this would be a plus.

Stated research by both Raney (2006) and Lenhard (2002) clearly shows that sport event spectators are not a homogeneous group and the most deviations are between the regular and irregular spectators. The regular spectator’s value team performance and live-action sport whereas the irregular spectator values the customer service higher. Customer’s motivation is unpredictably depending on many external and internal factors and as the sports audience is not a homogenous group there is a high probability that different customers respond

differently to some aspects of an event. Hence, sport event customers’ reasoning could be one of the toughest features to define and therefore affect (Der Wagen. 2001).

Much literature suggests that humans’ actions are often pushed by their basic needs and in sports consumption, their specific need to form social bonds. As it is stated and claimed that

humans cannot live in isolation, socialization helps them survive (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981). Furthermore, socialization is a basic human need that is clearly visible in the group of sports fans, who easily form communities due to their need to share their common passion of sport between each other and thus, socialize. All motives presented in this section for fans to consume sports are highly relevant from the club’s perspective as these are the defined needs and wants that their actions should target to be successful and not disconnected whit the fan’s.

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However, as socialization is a basic motivation for sport consumption, can actions from the clubs fill these basic fan needs without the possibility to interact in real life?

Newer marketing research has shown a shift in sports fan’s consumption motivations

presented here. In 2018 GMR marketing conducted a large research with 2000 participants at sports events in the U.S on why they attended live sports events. The results from their research showed that the main factors motivating attendance at sporting events were the feelings of belonging, identity, enrichment and release. Trail, Fink and Anderson’s (2003) model called the motivation scale for sport consumption, also distinguishes release, belonging and identity as drivers for sports fans to consume live sports. This goes along lines with Raney (2006), Gantz (1981), Wann (1995), plus Wenner and Gantz (1998) who also stated that the psychological motivations for sport consumption are release (escape), entertainment, companionship, group affiliation but lastly in those studies came also family. The leading emotion participants at sports events searched after in the research was release and/or escape, in this case meaning an escape from daily life (Wann, 1995) or even more precisely “the use of experiences to help manage societal demands, pressure and stressors” (Future proofing the sports fan experience, 2018, p. 14). Forms of release are simple fun, attraction to the lifestyle or other fans, being presents and in the moment (Jackson, 2000; Mueller, Agamanolis & Picard, 2003). When the participants were asked what makes them the most excited about attending live events they ranked the unique atmosphere highest, which Uhrich and Benkenstein (2010) also noted as the most vital part of sports events. Second came

excitement, also known as the uncertainty factor, mentioned in the introduction (Funk, Filo, Beaton & Pritchard, 2009). Those two factors ranked far above all the other options such as being a fan of the team and spending time with friends and family. The GMR study proceeds even deeper to distinguish four important factors determining fun at sports events, those being competition, play, just now and relate (Future proofing the sports fan experience, 2018). In this newer research, the basic need for socialization is not brought up as the main motivation, but more attention is now aimed at feeling a release. Perhaps with the globalization we have started socializing more and do not need for sports events to fill that specific need as we get if from somewhere else now which would be beneficial for the non-profit sports clubs in this shutdown situation.

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2.3 Sports marketing

The sports industry is as said by Shank and Lyberger (2014), experiencing exceptional growth and sports marketing plays a significant role in the dynamic industry sector. Schlossberg (1996) describes sports marketing as the way a sports organization uses the band the fan has to the team and role models to situate themselves positively to increase sales of their products and services toward the average fan. Fullerton and Merz (2008) suggest sports marketing is concerned with the procedure to strategically plan and apply processes of promotion, pricing, production and distribution to sports products in order to appeal to the customer’s wants in order for them to consume the product and contribute to business profits. According to Mullin, et al., (2000), Shank and Lyberger (2014), Schwarz and Hunter (2010), sports marketing is a combination of activities intended to meet the requests of sport consumers, with use of a communication process. This is also the perspective applied in this thesis.

Blakey (2011), states that communication is the essence of sports marketing, the matching of the sports supply and demand, in other terms sports club and sport consumer. To be successful in sports marketing one has to understand the sports industry and be able to specifically apply marketing principles and processes to different sport contexts.

Sports marketers are now faced with the challenge to uphold the sports consumers attention while also their presence at those sports events. A multitude of research states a strong positive connection between consumer satisfaction and a clubs revenues, profits and market share, hence, it is of utter importance for a sports marketer to communicate and understand the sport consumer and their drivers for their satisfaction (Bernhardt, Donthu & Kennett, 2000).

2.3.1 The sports organization marketing mix

McCarthy (1964), stated that the elements of the original marketing mix, the 4P’s, consist of price, promotion, product and place (distribution). Over time, the 4P approach received much criticism and development suggestions have been made to expand the mix. Additionally, in this thesis when concerning a non-profit organizations sports marketing, the basic marketing mix root of the 4P’s can be seen as trying to manipulate your customer, this not harmonizing with the organization’s mission (Blery, Katseli & Tsara, 2010). Nevertheless, the constant criticism of the classic 4P’s and changes in business practice led Lauterborn (1990) to propose

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a different perspective of an alternative marketing mix consisting of 4C’s. However, the shift towards the 4C’s does not discredit the original 4P’s, instead, the merge of the two

components can be fully embraced by sports organizations to build relationships and ties with their fans (Gentile, 2019).

The 4C’s model consists of customer needs and wants, customer cost to satisfy that want or need, convenience to buy and communication. But seemingly that this thesis is exploring a non-profit organization, meaning a mission-driven organization that cannot adapt their prices or change the main product to market changes, only the concepts of convenience to buy and communication is relevant in this context.

Convenience to buy is concerning the customers' availability to the products and services offered to them. The focus of convenience should be on being flexible and adapting to emerging changes such as e-commerce in order to ease distribution.

Whereas for communication, while the original P of promotion mostly relies on messages aimed at the consumer and creates a one-way communication, in the C model the emphasis is on having an open dialogue with the customers, more of a conversation. Or as put by Gentile (2019) a two-way communication through multiple transaction models of communication between the sports organization and the customer.

2.3.2 Marketing for non-profit organizations

Marketing is equally important for the non-profit organization as for the for-profit

organizations. While the non-profit organization may have limitations in marketing options suiting their organization. As non-profit organizations are mainly staffed by volunteers, only a very small fraction of staff members in the non-profit organizations that work with marketing are actually trained in marketing (Akchin, 2001). In addition, it is possible that non-profit organizations have been reluctant to adopt marketing strategies because marketing can be perceived as a bad thing that aims at manipulating people and therefore it is not compatible with the mission work they are conducting (Blery et al., 2010). However, recent research by Bernritter, Verlegh and Smit (2016) showed that non-profit organizations have an advantage over for-profit organizations in marketing on social media, even though not having the perceived marketing knowledge and competences in their organization. Hence, consumers tended to endorse non-profit organizations more on social media due to perceived warmth and

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symbolic of the brand, customers are more likely and even wants to publicly affiliate themselves more with non-profit organizations than for-profit organizations.

As suggested by Anthony and Young (1990) the core traits of a non- profit organizations comprise having dual bottom lines of financial survival and mission-driven actions, and a cooperative-competitive connection with their sector competitors.

In many settings, some traditional marketing approaches have been successfully used by non-profit organizations to promote their missions, raise public awareness and interest. However, Dolnicar and Lazarevskis (2009) presented that numerous non-profit organizations lack understanding surrounding what the strategical moves of marketing are and mainly

concentrates on promotional and sales incentives, disregarding the large span of the marketing mix. However as mentioned before and by Yorke (2007), due to the organization being a non-profit it cannot changes its offered product as it is the reason for the organization’s existence additionally pricing cannot be changed according to the market changes as in a for-profit organization. It is recognized in marketing that the marketing mix could be re-assessed for the purposes of being used in a non-profit organization limited marketing. Nevertheless, in

Dolnicar and Lazarevski’s (2009) publication regarding marketing in non-profit organizations they acknowledge that the organizations have limitations to their marketing, however they go on to recommend strategies suited for non- profit organizations such as 1)market

segmentation, identifying customers that are in line with their mission 2)Product positioning, creating an image that attracts those customers 3) Advertising, creating communication that would be appealing for those customers 4) Place, using the communication channels where those customers are perceived to be active 5) Repeat your communication in different forms in order to increase chances of memorability.

Kotler (1979) states in their research that it is usual for non-profit organizations to rush into their marketing with generally more excitement than understanding, pointing at the big difference between for-profit and non-profit organizations. As a non-profit organization is more mission-driven Kotler’s (1979) advice to non-profit organizations was to adopt more strategic marketing with a marketing mindset. The mindset more towards customer-focused than the current organization-focused mindset. Meaning that the organization should put their customer in focus and as the reason for doing what they do.

Furthermore, Lake (2008) wrote an article concerning non-profit organizations marketing, recommending them to set up a personalized web site in order to have a digital social platform

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where they can communicate with their customers through information, news, events, etc. Wang and Zhou (2015) additionally found that specifically in sports, the fans want a common platform because they feel the need and want to share their common passion for sport. Lake (2008) also suggests that the non-profit organization makes use of the option to form beneficial relationships with other stakeholders.

2.4 Relationship marketing

In current marketing literature, there is not yet a stated agreement on a deﬁnition of relationship marketing (Grönroos, 2006). However, relationship marketing is defined by Morgan and Hunt (1994) as “all marketing activities directed towards establishing,

developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges” (p. 22). Relationship marketing differs from regular marketing as while regular marketing creates one-way messages towards the customers, relationship marketing uses a two way or even multi-way communication instead. Multi-way meaning that the customers are able to communicate with other customers as well as with the company. Further developed by Grönroos (2004), the goal of using

relationship marketing is to develop a long-term relationship with the customers that will yield loyalty, develop the organization’s business and have beneficial effects on the

organization’s financial goals. This is done firstly by the organization establishing a platform for multiple source communication. Then the organization goes on to have interactions in the form of conversations over time with its customers, retrieving data that is further analyzed in order to find the customer needs and wants. Lastly, by the organization satisfying these needs and wants there is a value creation between the two stakeholders and thus a relationship bond is founded. Cooperrider, Whitney and Stavros (2008) point out additional benefits with the application of relationship marketing such as more brand awareness, increased customer understanding and the opportunity to provide additional value for the customers. Copulsky and Wolf (1990) agree and stress the mutual benefits arising out of an organization applying relationship marketing.

The platform used by the clubs in order to create this value of relationships has been the live events where their fans could interact with other fans as well as the club. Here they also had the opportunity to satisfy the fan’s needs and wants. Thus, without the events the clubs need

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to change their platform in order to keep those conversations, interactions and relationships going.

Grönroos (2004) goes on to address that in order to create these meaningful interactions and get the value-adding outcomes, effective organizing is needed in order to ensure that all the combined effects of planned communication are executed properly. Hence, this could form a hinder for non-profit organizations now, as with the events they had them planed out and developed over years but as with these new actions and volunteers as the main staff, there could be a lack of planning before execution.

In more recent research regarding relationship-marketing, Williams and Chinn (2010) felt that in Grönroos’s (2004) model covering the relationship-marketing process, there was a lack of expecting communication via social media channels back to the organization. Therefore, they developed an enhanced model visible in figure 4 overseeing the interaction of the key

elements in relationship marketing and recognizing consumers as increasingly knowledgeable partners (prosumers) and collaborators in the process of relationship marketing.

Figure 4: The relationship-marketing process. Source: Adapted from Williams & Chinn (2010).

As for relationship marketing in sport, numerous sports organizations have both easily and successfully implemented different relationship-marketing approaches (Harris & Ogbonna, 2009; Lapio & Speter, 2000; Cooperrider et al., 2008) and recognized their consumers being highly involved "with a desire for long-term association with a team sport" (Shani, 1997, p.

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9). Sports organizations have realized as they rely on repeated purchases, they seek to retain consumers by implementing strategic relationship-marketing practices that will strengthen these behaviours amongst their customers and may have the potential to provide a substantial competitive advantage.

2.5 Engagement marketing

The behavioural term of engagement is defined as the psychological state of delight in response to an object or action presentation (Laurel, 1993). Engagement in marketing is defined by Mollen and Wilson (2010) as the emotional, mental and physical investment consumers have in the brand as a result of repeated communications. In marketing literature, customer engagement is a relatively new phenomenon. Dick and Basu (1994) go on to define customer engagement as behaviours outside the core financial transaction, such as customer referral and recommendations thus influencing the organization and its brand. Customer engagement is as said a psychological state but can be manifested into actions by engagement marketing (Van Doorn, Lemon, Mittal, Nass, Pick, Pirner & Verhoef, 2010). Vivek, Beatty and Morgan (2012) describe engagement marketing as “activities engaged in by the consumer that are not directly related to search, alternative evaluation and decision-making involving brand choice” (Vivek et al., 2012, p. 128) Therefore, Schmitt (1999), suggests that

engagement marketing is when an organization purposefully strategize attempts in activities that will inspire, stimulate and measure a customer’s charitable donations to the organizations marketing processes past the core of financial activities. Although both academics and

professional marketing communities evidently share an interest in the research of consumer engagement there is an equally strong lack of hard knowledge of the construct (Calder, Malthouse & Schaedel, 2009).

The current key constructs of the engagement marketing theory are visible in a model by Harmeling, Moffett, Arnold and Carlson (2017) seen in figure 5 below. In step one, the organization plans strategic initiatives aiming to evoke the customer's motivation to voluntary contribute to the organizations marketing actions. Followed by the customer reacting with engagement and contributing their resources in the forms of network assets, persuasions capital, knowledge stores and creativity. Hence, the contribution of the customer's

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engagement, by accessing their resources, will affect the firm’s performance positively in the form of increased profits or cost savings.

Figure 5: The key constructs of engagement marketing.

Source: Adapted from Harmeling, Moffett, Arnold and Carlson (2017).

Thus, engagement marketing consists of three key components: motivating, empowering and measuring customer resource donations to the organization’s marketing. However, in which ways organizations enact these three aspects can vary. Harmeling et al. (2017) classified two primary forms of engagement marketing initiatives, task-based and experiential.

2.5.1 Task-based engagement initiatives:

Task-based initiatives mostly focus on externally motivating a specific request for customer engagement. The different tasks a produced can try to induce the customer to fulfil can be writing a product review, rating the company, refer a customer or provide backing to fellow customers. The customers contribute their resources to complete the structured task that involves some sort of effort, mental or physical, then usually accompanied by some form of reward in the end. Task-based engagement initiatives endorse a single instance of customer engagement and are, therefore, more effective when aiming at short-term customer

engagement creation (Harmeling et al., 2017).

2.5.2 Experiential engagement initiatives:

Experiential initiatives focus on intrinsically motivating customer contributions by using experiential events to stimulate heightened psychological and emotional connections, built on a complex set of behaviour, tactile, sentimental, intellectual and relational responses (Schmitt,

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1999), to the organization, brand or other consumers. Accordingly, experiential engagement initiatives frequently produce long-lasting memories and changes in beliefs and approaches than task-based initiatives do. Hence, developing emotional affection towards the marketing producer and reinforcing a more long-lasting customer engagement (Schouten, McAlexander & Koenig, 2007).

2.5.3 Engagement marketing theory critique

In their research, Gambetti and Graffigna (2010) indicate that the academic world being theoretical and has therefore not yet focused on the practical, managerial issues of engagement marketing neither engagement issues relating to internal marketing and/or communication practices. This created gap between the theory of academics and the business world in terms of knowledge priorities and research agendas is recognized in the marketing world, thus, it has been established and discussed in the literature. Academic researchers often aim to produce general nomothetic theories whereas business professionals are more

interested in ideographic and context-specific explanations (Hartley & Benington, 2006).

2.5.4 Online engagement

Online networks provide new channels with wider spread where producers can beneficially use engagement marketing to engage their customers, additionally by using multifaceted media (Thackeray, Neiger, Hanson & McKenzie, 2008). The online networks give

organizations easy access to their customers but also allowing the customers to connect with each other. Additionally, organizations marketing can develop tremendously by going online, since easy enrichments are available through media such as videos, pictures, hashtags, etc. Furthermore, the use of online networks has low costs which are very beneficial. With online networks the organization has an opportunity to create communities where people can connect to each other and yield massive data for the organizations about their customers' needs and wants, giving them the opportunity to understand them and find solutions to their problems. These channels have changed the connection between producers and consumers (Sashi, 2012). Furthermore, the online networks give the customers more power to influence the

organization but also influence the consumption behavior of other customers to become more positive towards the producer. However, Harmeling et al. (2017) continuingly also discusses that with the staggering progression of the internet and social networks, it has become riskier

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for the organizations to use online engagement marketing as when the internet opens up for yielding benefits there is an equal chance that the responses from customers may be negative. And in the global setting, the negative responses will spread just as rapidly as the positive ones.

On social networks, customer engagement is often measured in the responses of likes, comments and shares. Jayasingh and Venkatesh (2015), research in online engagement showed that the key determinants for creating consumer engagement were related to the content and posting frequency of the organization. Furthermore, Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Cañabate and Lebherz’s (2014) research results indicated that the richness of the content, including images and videos, raised the post-impact in terms of likes received. Whilst the inclusion of images and choosing a proper publication time considerably increases the number of comments. However, the usage of links will negatively affect this correlation.

Additionally, Lei, Pratt and Wang’s (2017) research indicated that taking the incentive in your promotion to urge your customers to act, rather than asking them questions, positively yielded higher customer engagement on all dimensions of likes, comments and shares. Regarding what content to provide, Cvijikj and Michahelles, (2013) research showed that entertaining and informative content substantially increased the levels of engagement. Adding that photos are the most appealing post of media and that the most engaging time to post is during workdays, encouraging moderators of organization pages to prepare and strategically trigger the activity of users in order to drive long-run results.

2.5.4.1 Gamification

The conditions for an action to be called a game is firstly that it has rules, uncertain outcome and voluntary involvement. Secondly, that it generates hedonic pleasures, suspense and game fullness (Huotari & Hamari, 2012). Hence, the action of gamification means that these game elements are used in the design of non-games actions to evoke the sense of a game in the user (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled & Nacke, 2011). Gamification does not have to incorporate all the game design factors, just some and is therefore further distinguished from regular games. Gamification is a trending topic, touted as a next-generation method for marketing and customer engagement, used as a means of reinforcing user engagement. Shneiderman (2004), Terlutter and Capella (2013) states that marketing mostly uses gamification systems by focusing on play and adding the game like tools such as points, levels, leader boards,

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achievements, or badges to a real-life setting in order to entice people to engage. The use of points can also be a way to create a contest between users by creating an overall scoreboard (Nicholson, 2015).

Gamification can be defined as a process of enhancing services with features to call on gameful experiences and further behavioural outcomes. In defining gamification, Huotari and Hamari (2012) highlight the role of gamification in invoking the same psychological

experiences as games do.

According to this conceptualization, gamification can be seen as having three main parts, the implemented motivational affordances, the resulting psychological outcomes and the further behavioural outcomes (see figure 6 below).

Figure 6: Gamification model

Source: Adapted from Huotari and Hamari, (2012).

The variables used in the first step of motivational affordance can be the use of game elements such as points, scoreboards, story/themes, clear goals, feedback, progress and challenges. Between these variables, there can be any combinations or just one variable that could be necessary to motivate psychological outcomes. The motivational variables are used to invoke internal psychological outcomes in the user such as motivation, approach and pleasure. These psychological aspects will show externally in the form of the user’s behavior towards the action, the expected behaviours in this model are an increase in user activity, socialization and productivity of actions. In other words, the use of gamification actions in marketing will lead to increased customer engagement towards the brand.

However, Hamari, Koivisto and Sarsa’s (2014) more resent research indicated that for gamification to yield all of these positive effects, it is are highly dependent on in which context the gamification is being implemented. As gamification and sports customer have many outcomes in common, today’s marketers have started to show an increased interest in the active use of gamification in sports marketing.

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2.6 User and gratification model

The user and gratification model was presented by Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch in 1973, it is an approach towards understanding how and why individuals seek out specific media. Katz et al. (1973) state that the model explores media use in terms of the persons satisfaction or psychological needs. Furthermore, the model assumes that people systematically pick the media that can ﬁll their needs, assumes that people are not inactive but active users of media and also that people have the ability to recognize their reasoning for those media choices (Katz et al., 1973). The model is an audience-focused approach for understanding mass communication. Unique from other media use models it does not consider what the media does to the person, on the contrary, it asked what the person does with the media, to gratify their needs. With the massive progress in online media, LaRose, Mastro and Eastin (2001) state that the user and gratification model is the most relevant perspective when it comes to investigating and understanding why people choose different media channels and is also applicable to all media channels.

2.7 The resistance towards innovation amongst non-profit organizations

As the non-profit organization is mission-driven and cannot change its product according to market changes or change the choice of market therefore they are less flexible than a for-profit organization (Hull and Lio, 2006). Damanpour (1996) also talks about the non-for-profit organizations being less flexible in their decision makings due to the organization being subjected to higher external and internal accountability for their choices than for-profit organizations. This is because the non-profit organization is made up of its members and the organization is a subject for political and regulatory institutions. This formal pressure of transparency in combination whit the clubs being centralized and run by a bord will decline the possibilities for organizational innovation or at least make it harder to innovate

(Damanpour, 1996). Nevertheless, this is not the structure of all non-profit organizations, for example, smaller sports clubs are deemed to have the ability to be more informal. However, the ability for risk-taking has been positively linked to innovation and assessing the structure of the non-profit organization, there might not be any room for the risk-taking incentive

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(Ekvall, 1996). Furthermore, in their research, Hull and Lio (2006) proposed that employees in non-profit organizations usually see no use of innovation in the organization which is leading to them having a higher opposition towards organizational changes and innovation then for-profit organizations has. In addition to this, Fuglsang and Sundbo (2005) suggested that non-profit organizations are not seeing the need for organization innovation will also cause the organization to not attract competencies that can drive innovation.

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3 Methodology and Method

In this chapter, the research approach, as well as research philosophy and research method are discussed. Further, a detailed clarification of the data collection and sampling methods chosen are presented. The way the interviews were structured is explained. The chapter is concluded by discussions about trustworthiness and ethical considerations regarding this study.

3.1 Research philosophy

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) state that “the term research philosophy refers to a system of beliefs and assumptions about the development of knowledge” (p. 124). In other words, research philosophy places a base for how data surrounding a phenomenon ought to be gathered, studied and lastly presented (Bajpai, 2011), acting as a guide for the author to help choose appropriate methods applicable to the research. As stated by Saunders and Lewis (2012) there are five main research philosophies: positivism, interpretivism, critical realism, pragmatism and postmodernism.

This thesis purpose is to explore behavioural qualities of the relationship between sports clubs and sports fans, making it part of social science, the philosophical framework deemed suitable to guide how the scientific research in this thesis will be conducted is therefore interpretivism. As it is believed throughout this thesis that the individuals change society and individuals are complex as different people will experience and understand the same objective reality in different ways (Saunders et al., 2007). Furthermore, a graphical presentation of this research methodology and method is presented in the appendix (see appendix 2).

3.2 Research approach

The research approach explains the relationship between theory and research in a dissertation. There are three common approaches to be used when writing a thesis, deductive, abductive

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and inductive (Saunders et al., 2007). A deductive approach is mainly aimed at testing theory with hypotheses whilst an inductive approach generalizes existing ideas. An abductive

approach is a combo approach, starting with a set of observations and looking for a cause and effect relationship as an explanation for those observations. Moreover, an inductive approach is close to the interpretive research approach whilst a deductive approach is closer to a positivism research approach.

The objective of this thesis is not to evaluate propositions or hypotheses nor test framework but to explore the phenomenon of physical sport events creators being forced to shut down events and create new actions. Exploring these observations in order to draw a general conclusion. Additionally, this thesis has an interpretivism research philosophy hence the inductive approach was deemed most suitable for this research.

3.3 Research method

When conducting research for a dissertation there are two main research methods, qualitative and quantitative (Yin, 2003). Qualitative research is used for understanding the nature or qualities of a phenomenon while qualitative is moreover used to understand the magnitude of an occurrence or an association with numerical data.

The thesis purpose is to understand the qualities of the phenomenon of sports clubs not being able to offer their main product and how they will now manage their fan’s engagement. This will be done by exploring what actions do the organizations take to engage the fans, how are they perceived and why were those actions chosen. As qualitative research ties into

interpretivism, understanding and exploring the actions, opinions and values of individuals (Thornhill, Saunders & Lewis, 2009), qualitative research will consequently be the most suitable in describing the complexity surrounding this thesis purpose. If the purpose would have been to find out how much actions the clubs were taking the researcher would have deemed a qualitative approach more suitable, but as the goal is to collect information about different people’s perceptions, experiences, feelings and opinions about this phenomenon a qualitative method will yield more in-depth findings than a quantitative method would in this case. This thesis is interested in exploring what actions and the motivation is behind the actions, therefore, the author selected a qualitative research method.

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3.4 Research strategy

For conducting qualitative research there are several strategies including, experiment, survey, action research and case study. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the Swedish basketball industry club’s decision on what marketing actions to take and why those actions were chosen during the shutdown, this is also the common purpose of a case study, to dissect why and how decisions were taken (Schramm, 1971). A case study is a complex

documentation aiming to add knowledge of a particular situation, certain setting or event in detail (Leavy, 2014; Slack & Parent, 2006; Yin, 2003).

This dissertation is investigating the Swedish basketball industry sports clubs and the

phenomenon of them not being able to offer their main product, meaning events and how they managed the fan engagement during this situation. Motivations for deeming case study as the most suitable research strategy are that the researcher has little control over events and the focus of the research is on a contemporary phenomenon within a real-life context. Based on those two criteria’s, surveys or archival analysis could also be suitable strategies. However, as this thesis main research question being a how question and seemingly that case study is the preferred strategy when posing a how or why question the case study strategy seemed the most suitable for this research. To further justify the author’s strategy selection, a summary by Yin (1989) on the potential different strategies to adopt is provided, see figure 8 below.

Strategy Form of research question Requires control of behavioural events? Focuses on contemporary events?

Experiment How, why? Yes Yes

Survey Who, what, where, how many, how much?

No Yes

Archival analysis Who, what, where, how many, how much?

No Yes/No

History How, why? No No

Case study How, why? No Yes

Figure 7: Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies Source: Adapted from Yin (2003).

A case study can comprise of single or multiple cases (Yin, 2003). Although this dissertation encompasses several basketball clubs, it is not to be considered a multiple case study. Instead,

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the case is limited to the geographical area of Sweden and to the industry of basketball. Therefore, it is rather to be described as an industry case study.

3.5 Data collection

One of the overall purposes of research is to create and develop new knowledge, thus, data collection has an important role in the process of a research project. To conduct this study, the author will collect both primary and secondary data. The secondary data will be gathered from journal articles and government publications. Whereas for the primary data when using a case study strategy Yin (1989) suggest that due to the lack of separation between the context and phenomenon it is advisable to use multiple sources of evidence. Eisenhardt (1989) further suggests to “combine data collection methods such as archive searching, interviews, questionnaires and observations” (p. 534) in order to gain more insight into the complexity while also establishing trustworthiness. In this research interviews and supplementing archival research, have been employed to support the creation of explorative work. However, the author would have preferred to also include observations, but this was not possible due to the social distancing incentive.

3.5.1 Archival analysis

For research sub-questions one and three, which are what questions, surveys or archival analysis collection are usually most suitable (Yin, 2013). However, in this research archive analysis was deemed more suitable as the incentive is to find out what kind of actions are being used and not to measure the actions being used. Archival analysis is the investigation of hard data from public files that the organization has published or that are published about the organization (Ventresca, & Mohr, 2017). Such as public surveys, records and media.

The author will have to conduct a non-historical investigation of documents and text, including electronic databases, web pages and emails, produced about and by the organizations included in this research (Ventresca & Mohr, 2017). With the purpose of identifying and specifying actions that are deployed by the clubs, the sources for the archival analysis were limited to social networks and the club’s own webpages. This to limit the scope, keep it more in-depth and relevant to the thesis purpose. The social network platforms chosen

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for analysis were Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Those were selected as they are the most used social media platforms generally by the society and also the three platforms that all the sixteen sports clubs are active on (Greenwood, Perrin & Duggan, 2016). The collection will be done during the time period of the season shutdown 2020-03-12 until 2020-04-28, so the author will have time left for analyzing the collected data.

3.5.2 Interviews

The data collection through interviews were conducted to get a perspective on all the research questions and specifically research sub-questions two and four, how and why questions. Interviews will be able to yield more in-depth information regarding the decision processes in the clubs which the archive analysis may not be able to answer with equal complexity.

The interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions, asking key respondents about facts of the matter furthermore their opinions of the events.

When listing the interview questions the author took inspiration from DiCicco-Bloom and Crabtree’s (2006) guidelines by opening with broader questions to make the interviewee more relaxed and comfortable, easing into the interview. Throughout the interview, the author asked the same questions but with different formulations minimize the risk of bias due to chosen words. The author additionally asked unplanned questions that came up during the conversation (see appendix 6).

The interviews were conducted live through skype, thus, the author was able to ask follow up questions and get more in-depth information. Using the medium skype for the interviews was chosen due to social distancing and travel restrictions set by the Swedish government and prohibiting the researcher to have face to face interviews. The disadvantage of skype interviews is that the author may have a tougher time to interpret the interviewee’s body language and surroundings. All of the interviews were conducted around the same time, in the middle of the week and in the afternoon. Each of the interviews lasted for 32-50 minutes, they were conducted in Swedish to make the interviewee more comfortable and the interviews were also recorded.

Interviewee Job position Interview duration Recipient 1 Communication manager 35 min

How to manage your sports fan&apos;s engagement during a season shutdown. : A case study of the Swedish basketball sector and its highest league non-profit clubs.