Market trends indicate the distance running event industry is facing a running recession. Since 2013, consumer demand has declined annually while supply increased. The current research provides insight into why running as a recreational activity is declining and implications for organized events’ utility. Based on seven years of participants’ postevent surveys from a long-distance running event, the value placed on hedonic, symbolic, and lifestyle features of running (i.e., running involvement) is gradually declining, which corresponds to a decline in annual event participation. Results are based on analyses of both a time series of cross-sections (N = 23,790) and a panel of multiyear respondents (n = 461). Also, there are gender differences in the rates at which running involvement declined. These results shed light onto a sociopsychographic explanation for the declining levels of running event participation and general interest in running.

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While there has been research into what teams, leagues, and athletes post on social media and the impact of post content on social media engagement, there is limited understanding and empirical research on the impact of broadcasting media on social sport consumption. There are an increasing number of new media through which sport leagues can distribute their content to fans. This research examines the impact of different broadcast platforms on game day engagement with WNBA team Twitter accounts. Using data for the 2016–2018 seasons, results indicate athlete/team quality and performance were positively associated with post engagement, underscoring the importance of the core sport product and potentially indicating that the WNBA is developing a star-driven culture similar to the NBA. In addition, broadcasting on League Pass or local TV (for home teams) and Twitter were associated with lower post engagement suggesting we have more to learn about maximizing online engagement.

To combat the declining number of finishers plaguing the distance-running industry, it is increasingly important for organizers to optimize event satisfaction levels. Participants’ survey responses from two distance-running events (n1 = 2,324 and n2 = 2,526) were analyzed to challenge the traditional managerial scope and theoretical lens through which event satisfaction is conventionally examined. Results revealed five event benefits that capture key motivational antecedents of event satisfaction. Collectively, these benefits, including euphoric, fitness, competition, social, and entertainment benefits, influenced event satisfaction levels (R2 = 43%) and repeat consumption intentions (R2 = 23%). For event organizers to foster event satisfaction, it is central to encourage event preparation and participation that promotes the enjoyment of physical activity, fitness and appearance enhancement, socialization, competition, and excitement among registrants. Academics should also extend their scope of event satisfaction to fully capture the entirety of event experience lifecycles (e.g., from registration through event participation).

As social media becomes an increasingly dominant and important component of sport organizations’ marketing and communication strategies, effective marketing measurement techniques are required. Using social media data of a Division I football team, this research demonstrates how predictive analytics can be used as a marketing measurement tool. A support vector machine model was compared to a standard linear regression with respect to accurately predicting Facebook posts’ total interactions. The predictive model was used as (i) a planning tool to forecast future post engagement based on a variety of post characteristics and (ii) an evaluation tool of a marketing campaign by providing accurate benchmarks to compare against achieved engagement metrics. Results indicated the support vector machine model outperformed the standard linear regression and the marketing campaign was unsuccessful in achieving its goals. This research provides a foundation for future use of predictive analytics in social media and sport management scholarship