1. IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SPORTS
Purpose:-
This paper seeks to describe how social media can help sports industry to grow up and indirect
impact of which is to increase the sale of sports product.
Design/Methodology /Approach:
A review of how effectively usage of social media sites increases many pathways towards the
improvement of sports industry.
Findings:
Social media’s impact on sports has changed the rules of the game. Although professional athletic
teams, players, and games have been common subjects for both small talk and in-depth online
conversations, what happens when news and opinion become up-to-the-minute fodder during
sporting events? With updates on social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, and posts on
official and amateur blogs, reactions to games and the games themselves are seemingly
simultaneous. This social media movement has presented new opportunities for marketers and
fans, as well as new challenges for maintaining sporting integrity
More than 80% of sports fans monitor social media sites while watching games on TV, and more
than 60% do so while watching live events. Players have capitalized on social media and fueled
massive buzz as well. More than 9,000 people per second tweeted about Tim Tebow after he
threw an unexpected touchdown pass in last season’s NFL Playoffs. Jeremy Lin gained more than
550,000 followers in a single month while taking the NBA by storm earlier this year. And soccer
stars Kaka and Ronaldo have leveraged their sport’s global reach to become Twitter’s two most-
followed athletes.
A more recent example of social media impact is when a picture, taken the night where an off-
the-court incident resulted in disciplinary action handed down to two Boiler men's basketball
players, including the dismissal of Kelsey Barlow, surfaced on Twitter within hours after the
incident.

2. Originality:
This paper provides a summary of Social media concepts as applied on sports industry and
describes how it is useful in inviting more sales leads.
Keywords: Social media, Social media marketing, Sports management, Fan traffic,
1. INTRODUCTION:
It may not be wrong if we say that social media and sports are two most often used words. The best way
to define social media is to break it down. Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or
a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication. Social media often feeds into the
discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also
help build links.
In today’s scenario social media is getting more popular day by day. As a result social marketing also
increase its horizon. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that
attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. Generally social media
marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social
media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with Internet access. A corporate
message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted,
third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by
word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media. Increased communication for
organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media
serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.
While we discuss about the need for Sports Management, here are some perspectives on what sports
management is. Sports management is defined by two terms sports and management. Sports refer to a
subject for entertainment, exercise and dignity for us as well as our nation. (Stevens, et.al, 2010)If any
sport is organized internationally then it becomes a platform for the participants. How systematically it is
being organized, its management is that much successful. So sports management has a great power to
influence the world.
1.1. Need of Sports Management:
Some of the problems and issues in Sports Environment identified.

3. (a) Lack of a sports culture and consciousness in the country;
(b) Non-integration of sports with education;
(c) Lack of proper co-ordination amongst the Centre, States, Federations/Associations and various private
and public sector undertakings;
(d) Lack of infrastructure in the rural areas and its concentration in urban/metropolitan Centers;
(e) Under-utilization of available infrastructure and its poor maintenance and upkeep;
(f) Lack of good quality and affordable sports equipments;
(g) Absence of adequate incentives for the youth to take up sports as a career;
(h) Lack of a system for proper identification of talent;
(i) Unfair selection procedure and last minute finalization of teams;
(j) Lack of adequate exposure and specialized training/coaching of international standards;
(k) Non-availability of nutritious diet for sports-persons;
(l) Inadequate participation of women in sports;
(m) Lack of committed administrators with love and knowledge about sports;
(n) Lack of modern facilities for sports science, sports medicine, psychology, etc.; and
(o) Inadequate allocation for sports in the budget.
Sport management existed for quite a long period of time and it always accompanied sport as its essential
part. Naturally, it had different forms and differed from the notion of sport management as it is defined
nowadays but such activity is known from ancient times. At least ancient Greeks practiced such an
activity and probably they may be called one of the founders of sport management. This fact proves the
importance of sport and sport management for people of all times. It was and it remains to be as important
for people as their health sine sport provides health for people and sport management provides
effectiveness of sport for all its participants. Nowadays sport management becomes more and more
important because as many other things in the modern world sport is business and consequently it needs
effective management that, in its turn, demands the preparation of well-qualified specialists in this
domain. At the same time sport management is not only business. As sport so sport management are

4. social phenomena for it involves not only professionals, for whom sport is their main source of earnings
and actually it is their life, but also there is a huge category of amateurs, for whom sport is just a hobby
but they still need sport management to practice sport as effectively as possible. So, taking into
consideration the role of sport and sport management in the modern world, I would like to discuss this
phenomenon in my article and focus my attention on the notion of sport management itself, its history,
and prospects for all those who either on their way or already work in this field.
Getting traffic is one of the most important things in social media. For a fan page to continue business
getting fans and make them active are the main goals. Keeping the record of flow of fan is all about fan
traffic. It is always important to track the fans to catch the response and return on investment.
2. Literature review:-
Social media has a great impact on daily life of human beings who are being involved with the social
media. So as a part of society it is quite obvious that sports persons also be influenced by the social
media.
Sales can’t depend on marketing either, as they no longer have complete control of the brand. Customers
have become engaged buyers, going beyond the company website to read blogs, follow Twitter handles,
and spin up LinkedIn conversations to gain outside perspectives for purchase decisions. Information is so
prevalent that Forrester now estimates anywhere between 50 to 70% of the buying process happens before
a rep even gets involved.(Duffy,2012)
Now we realized there is a need for a good Sports Management for every sports related event. So it
creates not only a position of responsibility for arranging events but a large number of job opportunities
also. But we do not have sufficient scope of learning it theoretically from educational institution. So it is
beyond obvious that we have need for sports management institutions in our country for various reasons.
Robert Griffin III is the consummate Heisman Trophy winner for the 21st Century. His style of play is
transcendent, combining the rushing elements of an option quarterback but with the arm strength and
accuracy of a first round NFL draft pick. He and preceding Heisman winner Cam Newton are indicative
of a mold breaking for what constitutes a quarterback.
He spent nearly the season's first month with more touchdowns than incompletions. He finished the
season with better passing statistics than a Heisman finalist counterpart widely considered the most can't-
miss prospect in 30 years. He led a program that has long languished in the doldrums of football to the
upper echelon. Indeed, RG3 earned the most coveted individual prize in the sport with historically

5. significant play, but it's not unrealistic to suggest his presence got an assist from a medium as
revolutionary as Griffin's quarterbacking style.
In the mid-1990s, when the Internet began becoming the generation-defining entity that it is, the very core
principle behind it was connecting the world in a manner never before conceivable.
Heisman candidacies are about presence as much as they are performance. It's the old "tree falls in the
woods" cliché: if a player is invaluable to his team and registering historic statistics, does it matter if fans
and media miss it?
But Griffin's "Heisman Moment" was experienced by the masses. Such outstanding plays as his
Oklahoma-slaying touchdown pass lose significant when seen after the fact. The Internet made sure his
Moment was seen live by thousands more than may have witnessed it otherwise. A transcendent
movement helped a transcendent player. (Kyle Kensing, 2010)
Players have capitalized on social media and fueled massive buzz as well. More than 9,000 people per
second tweeted about Tim Tebow after he threw an unexpected touchdown pass in last season’s NFL
Playoffs. Jeremy Lin gained more than 550,000 followers in a single month while taking the NBA by
storm earlier this year. And soccer stars Kaka and Ronaldo have leveraged their sport’s global reach to
become Twitter’s two most-followed athletes. (Larid, 2012)
In the last year, the buzzword on the tongues and minds of marketers, public relations professionals,
business owners, celebrities, and the public is social media. The first wave of the social media boom was
the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook, which connected people from across the globe.
Facebook originated as a social network for college students, but has taken over as the most popular
social networking site since opening up to the wider public. There are now niche social network sites that
allow members to connect through similar interests or purposes. The second social media wave was
YouTube where anyone could watch numerous free videos as well as post their own homemade pieces.
The most recent social medium is Twitter, which unlike the previous social media was most popular
among public personalities and business people. Twitter has ushered in a true instant and intimate view
into people’s use of social media. At any given time a Twitter user is posting what they are doing at that
very second be it eating a Cucumber sandwich or going to a business meeting. Twitter actually played off
the popularity of blogging by creating micro-blogging of 140 characters or less, allowing people to post
thoughts, pictures, videos, and links throughout the day without having to log into a blog service and
write a long post.

6. Here are some of the most interesting facts about social media from:
1. Social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the Web.
2. Facebook signed up 100,000,000 users in less than nine months it took radio, television, and the
Internet 38, 13, and 4 years, respectively, to reach 50,000,000 users.
3. If social media were countries, Facebook would be the fourth largest in the world.
4. Studies show that Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica.
5. Daily there are more than 1,500,000 pieces of content shared on Facebook.
Though many of these facts are consumer focused, social media has gone corporate from CEO’s who
have Twitter accounts to full social media communication campaigns. To fully explore the intricacies of
social media use this paper looks into the business of sports, where a sports entity must create and
maintain relationships with media, sponsors, athletes, teams, sanctioning bodies, business partners, and
fans.
The emphasis of relationship building in the sports industry places a heavy burden on a sports entity’s
public relations department. As a society we are in the midst of a transition where social media is
becoming the main source of all communication and information that we receive daily.
(Erik Qualman et. al, Social Media Revolution. 2009.)
Social media’s impact on sports has changed the rules of the game. Although professional athletic teams,
players, and games have been common subjects for both small talk and in-depth online conversations,
what happens when news and opinion become up-to-the-minute fodder during sporting events? With
updates on social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, and posts on official and amateur blogs,
reactions to games and the games themselves are seemingly simultaneous. This social media movement
has presented new opportunities for marketers and fans, as well as new challenges for maintaining
sporting integrity.
Almost all teams and sports entities are trying to figure out the social media landscape. What tools are
out there? What are people using? Where do we need to participate, and how do we do it? No one has
all of the answers yet, and if you’re just entering this arena, it can be very overwhelming.

7. This is where the folks at Sports Media Challenge have stepped in to help. They created a great resource
called “Winning Fans with Social Media: A Dynamic Glossary for Tackling the Language of Social
Media”.(Russell Scibetti)
Twitter is causing controversy among athletes with every passing day. In a time where two major
American sporting leagues are in Lockouts, the teams really have no authority over the players and what
they can say on the web.
In fact, thanks to the first amendment to the United States Constitution, they really have no right to
monitor what players want to say at all and yet we see hefty fines given all the time. Are these penalties
fair? Should teams have control over what their players can and cannot say on their own time? We may
see a change in how these situations are approached in the near future.
Twitter is a great way for athletes to connect with their fans on a personal basis, which is something many
generations of sports lovers were unable to achieve until now.
Unfortunately, these sports stars are not held to the same social standards as the everyday tweeter. It
seems to be the price to pay that if you want to be famous, you also have to accept the fact that you will
be scrutinized in every public aspect of your life. The keyword there is public.
Some athletes don’t seem to understand where to draw the line between public and private thoughts, and
thus some of their more infamous tweets have landed them in hot water.
Let’s take it back to the beginning. Charlie Villanueva was one of the first NBA stars to join twitter. It
soon spiraled into an obsession. Players tweeting during games are going way too far. .Later that year,
Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith was questioned for having association with the famous Bloods street
gang for using some controversial language in his tweets.
In May, while much of the world was debating over the death of Osama Bin Laden, some athletes decided
it would be wise for them to chime in. Not the best idea. Without throwing these guys under the bus
(although their twitter names are easy enough to find) guys like Rashard Mendenhall and Chris Douglas-
Roberts decided to speak out on the matter, leading to a ton of flak from the sports community.
Mendenhall lost a multi-million dollar endorsement deal with Champion thanks to his brutal honesty.
Lately, rumors have been that teams will soon put some kind of general rules into place regarding social
media. This would probably be a wise idea if not for the fact that the leagues will be walking a fine line
between saving their organization from embarrassment, and taking away the constitutional rights of their
players. (Szego, 2011)

8. Marketing around good causes has been one of the fastest growing sponsorship sectors in the past 2-3
years. Despite the effects of the recession, consumer attitudes to good causes have remained very positive
and they are increasingly willing to reward brands that they perceive help them to do well.
Facebook is a social networking Web site that connects over 250 million people worldwide.40 When
Facebook launched in 2004 it was exclusive to college students with proper e-mail addresses and some
corporations, but the site is now open to the public. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the
35-54 year age bracket, which boasts 276.4% from June 2008 to January 2009.41 According to a study
done by Russell Herder & Ethos Business Law 80% of the 400 corporate executives surveyed replied that
they used Facebook. Chakraborty et al, (2003)
2.1 Definitions of Important Attributes of Social Media:
Status Update – Member posts a message stating their current state: either physical, emotional, or mental.
The update can be seen by friends or the entirety of Facebook based on the member’s security settings.
Friends can then comment on that member’s status.
Wall – Main page of a member’s site viewable by friends or others depending on security settings. The
wall holds messages from other friends, the member’s status updates, and other information on what the
member has been doing on Facebook.
Wall Post – Comment from a friend that appears on the member’s wall for all allowed viewers to see.
Many of these comments are simply there to spark further communication. Some members do carry on
public conversations with other friends via wall posts.
Message – Private message sent directly to a friend’s Facebook inbox, similar to an e-mail.
Comments – Area at the bottom of status updates, wall posts, photos, notes, videos, and quiz results that
allow friends to give feedback to the member about the content on their Facebook site.
Notes – Allows a member to write a document of any length and post it to their Facebook page. It can be
used as an informal blog post.
Friend – A connection on Facebook. Also used as a verb to describe the act of requesting to be a part of
another member’s friend list.

9. Network – Large groups of members based mainly by school, location, or workplace. It connects a
member to other peers. When searching for a Facebook member the search engine will place those who
are in a member’s network at the top of the list.
Twitter
Twitter is a social network that allows members to micro-blog thoughts, actions, links, pictures, videos,
and locations. Members have a page that lists their entries and can be personalized. Twitter is the second
most popular social medium for corporate executives behind Facebook.47 Twitter was not a well-known
service until many celebrities started using it, providing their fans with instant connection and a look into
a celebrity’s life.
Social media exposure is directly linked with increases in sales. Integrated social media (social content +
one or more channels) exposure is linked with significant increases in spend and consumption – for
example, social media + PR exposure was associated with a 17% spend increase compared to the prior
time period without these.
• People who were exposed to social media + PR increased their spending by 17% over the
previous time period
• People who were exposed to social media + TV were twice as likely to buy
• People who were exposed to social media were 7 times more likely to spend more
• Social media + OOH exposure was linked to 1.5X higher likelihood of increase in spend
• Exposure to multiple channels was most often associated with sales impact
The study found that in addition to building loyalty among customers, social media outreach has
influenced marketing operations. Of those marketers surveyed, 55% said social media improved customer
listening, engagement and conversations, and another 55% said it opened new avenues to gather and
further market insights. 5% said it helped lower the cost of customer service.
(Walter, 2012), Edgerank Checker: Facebook Statistics
One result: A promotion at college-oriented stores that sold 8,000 $99 mini-refrigerators last fall, each
stuffed with $99 worth of coupons to bring the customers back for food. Another discussion led to
college-town "beer pong" displays packaging ping-pong balls, red Solo cups and brew skis to fill them up.
Both ideas were floated last spring and ready by August, he said.
"You've got to let the conversations happen, even if you might not like all of that conversation," Shurts
said. "It's going to happen around the water cooler anyway." (Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY, 2012)

10. Importance of sports in India
A, B, C: Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket are the most influential factors in India. And among them
Cricket is one of the biggest factor. After winning of 2011 World Cup craziness increases a lot. Not only
Cricket other games also have great fan clubs. It can be verified if we consider the budgets of different
events.
Budgeting of different events:
Event Associated sports Year Total Budget
Asian Games Multiple 1982 84 crore INR
World Cup Cricket 1987 $ 2.2 mn
World Cup Cricket 1996 $59.4 mn
World Cup Tennis 2009 $202.1mn
Commonwealth Multiple 2010 22000 crore
Game:
World Cup Hockey 2010 $23mn
World Cup Badminton 2009 $ 254.3
World Cup Cricket 2011 $1.372bn
These data tell us about the importance of sports in India, Which shows that importance increased as
years go on. From these data we can clearly conclude that there is a great effect on the sports on Indian
economy.
Role of Ministry:
There is a great role of Ministry on the sports Budget in India. The Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry has
been allocated Rs.1121 crores in the annual budget for 2011-12, which is nearly one-third of last year's
Rs.3, 315.67 crores. While Rs............................................................... 121 crores will be non-plan.
Expectedly this year's budget allocation has seen a sharp reduction as the last two year's outlay was high
due to Commonwealth Games. Last year, the budget allocation was Rs 3315.67 crores while in 2009-10,
it was Rs. 3,670.13 crores. Out of the total outlay, Rs 688.67 crores has been allocated for sports and
games while Rs. 311.39 crores has been earmarked for Youth Welfare Scheme.
Impact on general people: Media report

11. IPL which is the focus light in recent time is the one of the most successful events in the world.
Year wise Budget of IPL:
IPL 1 $2.3mn
IPL 2 $5.9mn
IPL 3 $5.9mn
IPL 4 $13.6mn
It shows that interests of people in sports have increased.
Total visitors of Sunfeast Open:
Year Audiences
2008 13590
2009 11578
2010 20953
Plan allocations for sports from VIth to Xth Five Year Plan are indicated in the
Following table:-
VIth Plan Rs............................................................... 26.54 Crore
VIIth Plan Rs............................................................... 207.45 Crore
VIIIth Plan Rs............................................................... 210.00 Crore
IXth Plan Rs............................................................... 472.61 Crore
Xth Plan Rs............................................................... 1145.36 Crore
Courtesy: indiabudget.nic.in
Reference:-
Stevens, C.A., Murphy, J. F., Allen, L., Sheffield, E. A. (2010), A Career with Meaning; Recreation,
Parks, Sport Management, Hospitality, and Tourism, Sagamore Publishing, L.L.C.
Chakraborty, P., Srivastava,D,K., Rao,C,B., Rangamannar,T,S. (2003), Budgetary Subsidies in
IndiaSubsidising ,Social and Economic Services, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,(2003)
( Social Media Revolution. Dir. Erik Qualman. Perf. Erik Qualman. 2009.)

12. Kensing, K(2012), the Impact of Social Media on the RG3 Heisman
Scibetti, R., (2010) Mobile and Social Olympic Consumption,
(Chakraborty. P, Srivastava.D.K, Rao.C.B, Rangamannar.T.S),2003
(Walter, 2012), Edgerank Checker: Facebook Statistics
Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY, Social media is reinventing how business is done, (2012)