Sport marketers have acknowledged the popularity of online social networks, but have struggled with transforming them into viable revenue generators. Using celebrity athletes to promote products via online social networks such as Twitter may represent one potential revenue opportunity. This study examined how Lance Armstrong and Serena Williams used Twitter for promotional purposes and utilised content analysis to analyse their combined 7,202 Twitter messages. The celebrity athletes wrote promotional messages 12% of the time, primarily to promote their corporate sponsors and products, charitable organisations and personal activities. Twitter represents a unique marketing resource and communication channel for celebrity athlete product endorsements.

The advanced technology of virtual reality (VR) has brought about significant changes in our society, and leisure sports are no exception. The purpose of this study was to assess how leisure satisfaction with leisure sports and degree of sustainable participation affect men and women in actual sports and virtual reality (VR) sports. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to confirm scale validity and reliability, and multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression were conducted for comparative analysis and linear relationships between variances. The results showed that while men typically participate in ‘masculine’ sports and women in ‘feminine’ sports, both genders equally enjoy the same types of VR sports. In terms of gender differences, female VR sport participants placed importance on educational leisure satisfaction and the intent of sustainable participation. Interestingly, there were no significant differences in the physical, psychological, or social leisure satisfaction factors, indicating no differences in satisfaction between performing actual sports and those in the VR environment. In addition, all factors except relaxation factor, had a positive impact on intent of sustainable participation. This study implied that VR sports offer an opportunity for people to be together, regardless of gender, and that it is becoming a part of healthy leisure sports culture.

Previous research suggests sport-for-development organizations strategically aim to engage people through social media in hopes of generating increased offline support (Thorpe & Rinehart, 2013). Using the framework set forth by Lovejoy and Saxton (2012), the purpose of this study was to explore how nonprofit organizations use Twitter to disseminate information, build engagement, and facilitate action. A content analysis of 3,233 tweets revealed a larger proportion of interactive communication, yet one-way communication was the most common function. Overall, the use of social media to facilitate action among stakeholders was scarce, but the way organizations used Twitter to provide information, interact with followers, and create a call for action varied considerably among them. Interestingly, these differences were not associated with annual revenue, organizational age, targeted social issues, or number of countries of operation. This study has important theoretical and practical implications, and provides a first look at how sport-for-development organizations use Twitter.

The eSport industry has seen rapid growth over the previous decade with additional opportunities for participants to compete in competitive and casual environments. As such, the sport industry has taken notice of this increase in popularity and exposure for eSport. A recent call to arms by sport management scholars suggests that the field of sport management needs to broaden research endeavors to include analyses of eSport and eSport spaces. To that end, this investigation serves as one of the first that investigates the playing experiences of eSport participants with a particular focus on the presence of discrimination and hostility in playing environments for men and women competitors. Previous events within the eSport industry, such as the now infamous harassment of female gamers known as Gamergate, suggests that female eSport players may experience discrimination and hostility at higher rates than their male counterparts. Guided by the frameworks of hegemonic masculinity and treatment discrimination, this investigation gauged the experiences of men and women eSport participants with discrimination and hostility in eSport playing environments. Results indicated that female eSport participants reported experiencing instances of treatment discrimination more frequently than their male counterparts, while male participants reported experiencing hostility more frequently. Results aim to assist the eSport industry as well as sport management scholars in guiding new policy to create inclusive spaces for eSport enthusiasts and career hopefuls.

Charitable nonprofits strive to meet their organization’s goals, address external demands, and secure resources to pursue their missions. Management scholars have recommended that nonprofits promote innovation and innovative practices to maximize profits and gain a competitive advantage. However, the voices of nonprofit practitioners who implement this strategy have not been heard. We used data from interviews and focus groups with 47 practitioners representing development and peace-building nonprofits across six continents to probe what innovation means to them. Five themes emerged: (a) experimentation and social transformation, (b) financial sustainability, (c) collective solutions, (d) new means for achieving missions, and (e) adaptations to local contexts. These findings reveal discrepancies in the meaning of innovation between theory and practice. The findings from this study suggests innovation and innovative practices can have different meanings in different sectors. Perspectives on nonprofit innovation are multifaceted, yet the overarching emphasis is finding transformative ways to attain organizational goal(s) for social change.