Motivations and Mediated Consumption Habits of Users of Mixed-Martial-Arts Online Message Boards

Abstract

As online business models have evolved, learning what drives users’ consumptive behaviors has gained increasing interest to sport researchers and sport properties. An increasing number of sport properties are expanding, and deriving revenues from, their presence on digital-media platforms (e.g., MLB, NBA, NFL, UFC, WWE, etc.). Of the sport properties mentioned, none are more reliant on digital-media activity than the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the motivations and related consumption habits of users of non-subscription-based (i.e., free-to-use) online message boards. Findings suggest that message-board users find value in the opportunities for interactivity and that heavy online mixed-martial-arts users watch more events and purchase more merchandise than those who spend less time online.

Fight the biopower! Mixed martial arts as resistance

“…The sport also germinated with the help of fragmented online coverage and discourse, through small websites and message boards, partially due to the initial rejection of MMA by mainstream culture and media. Yet when the prime time came such consumption habits stayed (see: Eddy et al, 2016), and became fertile ground for para-normal ideas, giving rise to various conspiracy theories such as QAnon in the US particularly (Zidan, 2020).…”

(Dis)Innovative digital strategy in professional sport: examining sponsor leveraging through social media

“…In an examination of fans following a retired golfer on Twitter, organic fandom, functional fandom and interaction were identified as the three main uses from followers. In addition to uses varying depending on the context, the uses and gratifications of social media users can depend on many other factors, including demographics (Clavio, 2008; Naraine, 2019) and the frequency or degree of online activity (Eddy et al , 2016; Naraine et al , 2019). These studies show that UGT is multifaceted and has many aspects that need to be considered.…”

“…When considering sport management research utilizing UGT, there is a gap in the literature in three areas. First, most previous research has been conducted examining social media in the context of Twitter and message boards (Clavio and Kian, 2010;Eddy et al, 2016;Gibbs et al, 2014), which are text-based platforms and more research needs to be done in understanding UGT on visual platforms, such as Instagram (Kim and Hull, 2017). Second, previous studies have examined social content during "normative" periods where planned content pertaining to the core sport product is delivered to consumers (Geurin and Gee, 2014;Osokin, 2019).…”