An exploratory comparative study into the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool for ice hockey games in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Abstract

This dissertation will explore the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool within the ice hockey industry in the United States and United Kingdom. There has been very little research done into this topic as ice hockey is still a growing and emerging sport within the United Kingdom while being a more established sport in the United States. There is an abundance of literature on sport event marketing in general but the literature on ice hockey especially that based within the United Kingdom is scarce. The National Hockey League and that which is based within the United States is much better represented in academic literature. Social media is an ever changing form of marketing for any description of event although reoccurring sporting events tend to utilise it more effectively that one off events as they have the time to build up a following year on year. In order to be able to generate a new theory on the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool for ice hockey games within the United Kingdom market a mixed methods approach was used to enable both the perspective of the organisations who are marketing themselves and their teams and the spectators who are being marketed at. The results revealed that social media is an effective marketing tool for ice hockey games within the United States and the United Kingdom providing that the time and effort is spent on it and that the organisations are able to keep their fans engaged.