IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2020i1p5-d470088.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sports under Quarantine: A Case Study of Major League Baseball in 2020

Author

Listed:
  • Kari L. J. Goold

    (Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 455003, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA)

  • Reynafe N. Aniga

    (Department of Psychology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 455003, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA)

  • Peter B. Gray

    (Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 455003, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA)

Abstract

This case study entailed a Twitter content analysis to address the pandemic-delayed start to Major League Baseball (MLB) in the shortened 2020 season. This case study helps address the overarching objective to investigate how the sports world, especially fans, responded to MLB played during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The methods investigated the common themes and determined who used predetermined Twitter hashtags. We recorded how many times external links, photos, emojis, and the 30 MLB teams were mentioned in the 779 tweets obtained during 39 days of data retrieval. Results showed that the most common category of tweeted content concerned news reports. Comparable numbers of positive and negative responses to the start of the MLB season were recognized, with a fraction of tweets highlighting COVID-19 impacts on health and modification of play (e.g., cardboard fans). The majority of Twitter users were from media and layperson categories. More inferred males tweeted using the selected hashtags. In exploratory analyses, results indicated that 50.2% of the sample included a link or a photo, and 2.2% of the sample used an emoji. The three most mentioned teams were the Cardinals ( N = 51), Marlins ( N = 49), and the Yankees ( N = 48). The results confirmed the value of social media analysis as a research approach and revealed patterns emerging during a unique pandemic sports and media era.

Suggested Citation

  • Kari L. J. Goold & Reynafe N. Aniga & Peter B. Gray, 2020. "Sports under Quarantine: A Case Study of Major League Baseball in 2020," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:5-:d:470088
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/1/5/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/1/5/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Constantino Stavros & Matthew D. Meng & Kate Westberg & Francis Farrelly, 2014. "Understanding fan motivation for interacting on social media," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 455-469, October.
    2. Levi Pérez, 2013. "What drives the number of new Twitter followers? An economic note and a case study of professional soccer teams," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 1941-1947.
    3. Filo, Kevin & Lock, Daniel & Karg, Adam, 2015. "Sport and social media research: A review," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 166-181.
    4. Sandra Baez & Daniel Flichtentrei & María Prats & Ricardo Mastandueno & Adolfo M García & Marcelo Cetkovich & Agustín Ibáñez, 2017. "Men, women…who cares? A population-based study on sex differences and gender roles in empathy and moral cognition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-21, June.
    5. Kevin Filo & Daniel Lock & Adam Karg, 2015. "Sport and social media research: A review," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 166-181, April.
    6. Stavros, Constantino & Meng, Matthew D. & Westberg, Kate & Farrelly, Francis, 2014. "Understanding fan motivation for interacting on social media," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 455-469.
    7. José María Lamirán-Palomares & Tomás Baviera & Amparo Baviera-Puig, 2020. "Sports Influencers on Twitter. Analysis and Comparative Study of Track Cycling World Cups 2016 and 2018," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-23, September.
    8. Lisa Schweitzer, 2014. "Planning and Social Media: A Case Study of Public Transit and Stigma on Twitter," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 80(3), pages 218-238, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolas Scelles & Boris Helleu & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Stephen Morrow, 2017. "Explaining the Number of Social Media Fans for North American and European Professional Sports Clubs with Determinants of Their Financial Value," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Nicolas Scelles & Boris Helleu & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Stephen Morrow, 2017. "Explaining the Number of Social Media Fans for North American and European Professional Sports Clubs with Determinants of Their Financial Value," Post-Print halshs-02110645, HAL.
    3. Næss, Hans Erik, 2017. "Authenticity matters: A digital ethnography of FIA World Rally Championship fan forums," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 105-113.
    4. Kharouf, Husni & Biscaia, Rui & Garcia-Perez, Alexeis & Hickman, Ellie, 2020. "Understanding online event experience: The importance of communication, engagement and interaction," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 735-746.
    5. Annamalai, Balamurugan & Yoshida, Masayuki & Varshney, Sanjeev & Pathak, Atul Arun & Venugopal, Pingali, 2021. "Social media content strategy for sport clubs to drive fan engagement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Popp, Bastian & Woratschek, Herbert, 2016. "Introducing branded communities in sport for building strong brand relations in social media," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 183-197.
    7. Giovanni Bernardo & Massimo Ruberti & Roberto Verona, 2022. "Image is everything! Professional football players' visibility and wages: evidence from the Italian Serie A," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(5), pages 595-614, January.
    8. Camie Heleski & C. Jill Stowe & Julie Fiedler & Michael L. Peterson & Colleen Brady & Carissa Wickens & James N. MacLeod, 2020. "Thoroughbred Racehorse Welfare through the Lens of ‘Social License to Operate—With an Emphasis on a U.S. Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-23, February.
    9. Hayes, Michelle & Filo, Kevin & Geurin, Andrea & Riot, Caroline, 2020. "An exploration of the distractions inherent to social media use among athletes," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 852-868.
    10. Karol Król & Dariusz Zdonek, 2021. "Most Often Motivated by Social Media: The Who, the What, and the How Much—Experience from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Adam C. Merkle & Catherine Hessick & Britton R. Leggett & Larry Goehrig & Kenneth O’Connor, 2020. "Exploring the components of brand equity amid declining ticket sales in Major League Baseball," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(3), pages 149-164, September.
    12. Boris Helleu, 2016. "Un état de la recherche en management du #Digisport : enjeux et perspectives," Post-Print hal-01715966, HAL.
    13. Željka Marčinko Trkulja & Jasmina Dlačić & Dinko Primorac, 2022. "Social Identity Dimensions as Drivers of Consumer Engagement in Social Media Sports Club," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-15, October.
    14. Matthias Bogaert & Michel Ballings & Martijn Hosten & Dirk Van den Poel, 2017. "Identifying Soccer Players on Facebook Through Predictive Analytics," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 274-297, December.
    15. Wakefield, Lane T. & Bennett, Gregg, 2018. "Sports fan experience: Electronic word-of-mouth in ephemeral social media," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 147-159.
    16. Yesim Tonga Uriarte & Marinella Petrocchi & Maria Luisa Catoni & Stefano Cresci & Rocco De Nicola & Maurizio Tesconi & Rafael Brundo Uriarte, 0. "Exploring the relation between festivals and host cities on Twitter: a study on the impacts of Lucca Comics & Games," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-24.
    17. Mohsen Behnam & Geoff Dickson & Vahid Delshab & Anna Gerke & Parvaneh Savari Nikou, 2023. "The moderating effect of fan engagement on the relationship between fan knowledge and fan co-creation in social media," Post-Print hal-03969039, HAL.
    18. Yesim Tonga Uriarte & Marinella Petrocchi & Maria Luisa Catoni & Stefano Cresci & Rocco De Nicola & Maurizio Tesconi & Rafael Brundo Uriarte, 2020. "Exploring the relation between festivals and host cities on Twitter: a study on the impacts of Lucca Comics & Games," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 625-648, December.
    19. Xinghua Wang & James J. Zhang & Guandong Song & Xia Wan, 2020. "Push and Pull Factors Influencing the Winter Sport Tourists in China: The Case of Leisure Skiers," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    20. Attila Soti, 2019. "Understanding Micro and Macro Interactions in Social Neurobiological Systems," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 17(4), pages 698-706.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:5-:d:470088. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.