Massey University staff to dissect sports management in the digital age

Two teaching staff from Massey University have been selected to present research at the European Association of Sport Management conference in Dublin, Ireland, focused on sport management in the digital age.

Lecturer Ashleigh Thompson and associate professor Andy Martin will be presenting at the conference.

Thompson lectures in sport management and coaching at Massey University, and wrote a thesis after studying the use of social media at Wimbledon as part of a case study on all four tennis Grand Slams.

Her research is one of the first studies to explore the use of social media by sport event brands, incorporating fans' perspectives. It garnered feedback from international scholars as a very unique and interesting contribution to current sport management research.

"Social media has facilitated the break-down of traditional consumer-brand barriers, allowing fans to develop an emotional connection with these sport events," Thompson says.

Thompson's presentation, 'You forget they're actually a brand: Fans' perceptions of event social media usage', is based on her PhD findings. She says she is hoping to publish her research in the European Journal of Sport Management later this year.

Martin, an associate professor for the School of Sport and Exercise, supervised Thompson's thesis, says Thompson's work and expertise has increasingly attracted international interest.

He will also present his own study at the presentation. His research, Graduate experiences of experiential learning in sport management, focuses on enhancing best practice in cooperative and work-integrated education.