Celebration of Scholars
The Effect of Social Media on Ticket Sales in Sports
Name:
Jennifer Campbell
Major: Marketing
Hometown: Bettendorf, IA
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis
Abstract
This paper showcases the correlation and causation between social media followers and posts and the amount of game day attendees. Collegiate sports teams saw an increase in attendance by a good percentage with the creation and use of accounts on the popular media platforms of twitter, facebook, and instagram. Since college sports games overall have less game day attendees than professional sports, the use of social media has shown to increase the attendance by percentage of stadium capacity, that number allows the teams to compare with professional sports as opposed to just attendance numbers. All three professional sports bigwigs being The National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and Major League Baseball (MLB) have followings in the millions for their own accounts as well as the teams in each division. The NBA shares a correlation between top five most attended teams and the top five most followed on instagram, twitter, and facebook with two teams, the MLB shares a whopping four, and the NFL shares two. However, the NBA still does the best job of using social media to engage fans and entice them to come to games and spend their money on tickets looking at the percentage of stadium capacity filled, number of people attending, and social media follower count on each platform. The NBA is the best example of how twitter, facebook, and instagram engagement are vital to the continuation and increase of business for each sports brand.Submit date: March 20, 2019, 8:10 a.m.