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THE EFFECT OF TWITTER UPON ENGLISH FOOTBALL PREMIER LEAGUE

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTHERN DENMARK

HOW TWITTER CAN IMPACT THE MARKETING OF

THE ENGLISH FOOTBALL PREMIER LEAGUE?

A Research Paper On Effects Of Twitter Upon English Football Premier

League

Research Methods

Professor: Kristy Crowley

By

Simona-Andreea Luca

Omar Wennink

Aalborg, Denmark

January, 2013

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Introduction.....................................................................................................................4

Chapter 2

2.1. Problem formulation...................................................................................................5

Chapter 3

3.1. Methodology and Theory of Science..........................................................................6

Chapter 4: Twitter

4.1. English Premier League Clubs.................................................................................9

4.2. Definition of Twitter..................................................................................................9

4.3. Advantages and disadvantages of Twitter for English Football Premier League..10

4.4. Twitter as a marketing tool.....................................................................................12

Chapter 5

5.1. External analysis (PESTEL)................................................................................15

5.2. Porter‟s Five Forces analysis..............................................................................23

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5.2.1. Analysis of Twitter using the Five Forces Model..... .........................................24

5.3. Internal analysis (SWOT)......................................................................................27

5.4. Strategic analysis...................................................................................................31

5.5. Content analysis....................................................................................................35

5.5.1. How Premier League can attract more followers on Twitter?..........................39

Chapter 6

6.1. Results.................................................................................................................. .41

6.2. Discussion............................................................................................................44

Chapter 7

Conclusion...................................................................................................................45

Chapter 8

References...................................................................................................................47

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Abstract

The objective of this report was to identify the impact of Twitter upon English Football

Premier League Clubs and furthermore to examine how the relationship between Twitter and

Premier League can benefit the organizational activity of the clubs. It was hypothesized that

Twitter can bring several advantages for the Clubs from Premier League; therefore it can be

used as a marketing tool. The sample for the study encompassed all the Clubs from the

English Football Premier League.

Data was collected using a range of sources including: academic articles, homepages,

presentations and books. As hypothesized, according to the ―Advantages and disadvantages

of Twitter”, “Twitter as a marketing tool”, SWOT and PESTEL analysis, Twitter can benefit

the English Football Premier League in various ways: it can be used as a marketing tool, to

lure more fans and to keep the connection between players and fans but also to increase the

profitability of the clubs and improve their organizational activity. The results of this

examination are imperative for Premier League in order to keep a healthy balance between the

advantages of online media and the negative effects of it.

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Chapter 1:

Introduction

Over the last few years, social media platforms become part of daily life for millions of

people around the world; moreover, in order to connect with their global fan bases the number

of sporting clubs and stars who discovered how to utilize the power of social media is

increasing considerable. On the other hand, social networking platforms can be defined as

“online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in

exploring the interests and activities of others”.1

Therefore, for the majority of the athletes, teams and leagues social media it is seen as an

important weapon in the process of attracting sponsors and simultaneously through social

media they can design a deeper connection with their fans while luring a new generation of

sports fans and new revenue opportunities.2 For example, FC Barcelona have over 35 million

Facebook fans and over 12 million followers on Twitter (the club tweets encounters

information about its players, fixtures, results and statistics or training session photographs).In

consequence, one of the most important aspects of social media might be that provides the

clubs with the perfect opportunity to deliver directly to the fans various information in an

interactive and personal way and furthermore empowers the sportsmen and women to present

a personal perspective on all aspects of the competition .3

On the contrary, social media can have a negative effect upon sports industry; unfortunately

there are several cases when Facebook, Twitter, etc can affect the carrier of professional

players. For example, at Summer Olympics from London (2012) the greek athlete, Paraskevi

Papahristou was expelled after she sent a racist tweet.4 Likewise, Babel is not the only one

who experienced the negative impact of social media, the former Liverpool winger, Ryan

1 http://www.slideshare.net/marobella/social-media-in-sports-the-athlete-1151579 [Accessed: 20 October 2012] 2http://www.slideshare.net/T3CONNECT/smbyeg-presentation-t3-connect-sports-marketing [Accessed: 20

October 2012] 3 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1365810-social-media-in-sport-fantastic-future-or-tweeting-twits [Accessed:

20 October 2012] 4http://www.sbnation.com/london-olympics-2012/2012/7/25/3186140/greek-athlete-racist-tweet-Paraskevi-

Papahristou [Accessed: 20 October 2012]

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Babel was fined £ 10,000 after uploading on Twitter “a mocked-up picture of Webb in a

Manchester United shirt following his side‟s defeat in the FA Cup”; also the NFL star

Rashard Mendenhall “lost his sponsorship deal with Champion after tweeting a controversial

theory about 9/11 attacks”5.

In conclusion, despite the negative effect that can occur, in our opinion social media it is a

great tool it is a great tool for fans to interact with their favourite sports club and athletes;

moreover, social media is an effective tool to boost fan interaction, build connections between

teams and leagues and their fans, sell tickets and merchandise, and aid drive TV viewership.

In the following part of our project we attempted to focus on how Twitter can affect (positive

or negative) the marketing image of English Football Premier League and how it can benefit

the organizational activity of the clubs.

Chapter 2:

2.1. Problem formulation

Nowadays, the popularity of social media within the sports industry is increasing significantly

and as a result lately Facebook, Twitter or other online platforms are seen as crucial elements

in the sports marketing world. Therefore, taking into consideration the fact that social media

is gaining more power in this field, in this project we attempted to focus on how Twitter can

affect the sports marketing industry. Moreover, in order to be more précised, we chose as a

main subject the English Football Premier League due the fact that is the most supported

league in the world, followed LIGA BBVA.

5 http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/855463-fa-warns-premier-league-stars-over-twitter-use [Accessed: 24

October 2012]

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For instance, due to all the factors mentioned above we have decided to focus on the

following research problem:

How Twitter can impact (positive/negative) the marketing of the English Football Premier

League?

Chapter 3:

3.1. Theory of Science and Methodology

The main purpose of the project is to provide the reader with relevant and realistic solutions in

order to answer the problem question by offering all the essential and appropriate research

and analysis. To facilitate the reader to understand and read the project in an easier manner,

the project is divided into chapters and furthermore each chapter is separated into small

sections.

In addition, in order to elucidate and to familiarize the reader with the research question that

guides the entire research project we used the exploratory research. To be more précised, the

exploratory research has been conducted due to various purposes such as: to develop a list of

possible causes regarding why Twitter might have a positive or negative impact upon Premier

League Clubs, designing a list of realistic available strategies options that the clubs might

implement by using Twitter and to gain a sense of how best to reach the football fans on

Twitter. Furthermore, the exploratory research can help the Premier League Clubs to save

money in the long run taking into consideration that exploratory research techniques cost

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significantly less in comparison with a large scale formal research such as surveys or

experiments.6

On the other hand, during the project we decided to focus on secondary research or qualitative

approaches such as reviewing available literature or data (e.g. case studies or pilot studies)

with the aim of achieving a significant insight into Premier League Clubs/Twitter.

The inductive research has been used as well in our project with the goal of moving from

precise observations to broader generalizations and theories. For example, once a substantial

amount of data concerning Premier League Clubs and Twitter has been collected and after a

set of observations we move forward from those particular data to theory or from the specific

to general.7 (Figure 1 outlines the steps involved in the inductive research from our project)

Fig 1

The main part of the project encompasses three key analyses: PESTEL, Porter‘s five forces

and SWOT analysis. We focused on the external analysis, PESTEL with the aim of gaining an

overview of the different macro-environmental factors that the clubs from Premier League has

to take into consideration in the process of improving their marketing imagine or

organizational activities via Twitter. The Porter‘s five forces analysis was used to provide the

reader with a simple perspective for assessing and analyzing the competitive strength and the

current position of Twitter and the SWOT analysis was useful in order to evaluate the

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of Twitter in relation with the clubs from

Premier League.

From another point of view, the empirical research has been used to facilitate integrating

research and practice which means that the information provided by our project is based on

6 http://campus.udayton.edu/~jrs/tools/notes/exploratory%20research.pdf pg1-2 [Accessed: 3 January 2013] 7 http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/3585?e=blackstone_1.0-ch02_s03 [Accessed: 3

January 2013]

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observations, experience or experiments. The main objectives of using the empirical research

are: to go further than basically reporting observations, promote environment for enhanced

understanding, mingle extensive research with detailed case study, demonstrate relevancy of

theory by functioning in a real world environment. 8An example of empirical research in our

project is the Content analysis chapter when we used tables and charts for a logical and valid

conclusion. Moreover, the content analysis of Twitter helped us to create suggestions in

relation to how the clubs from Premier League can attract more followers on Twitter.

For gaining inspiration and in order to gather relevant and trustful information‘s we utilized

books and internet sources such as homepages, brochures, articles and presentations. The

main basic books that we used are: “Introduction to Sport Marketing” (2008) by Aaron C. T.

Smith and “Strategische en operationele marketingplanning” by Gb.Rustenberg, T. de Gouw,

A.W. de Geus, R.H. Buurman, J.C.A. Smal (2007). With the purpose of providing the correct

and latest facts, figures and numbers the date of the articles has been taken into consideration

Chapter 4: Twitter

During this chapter, we attempted to provide the reader with a better overview concerning the

history of English Premier League Clubs, definition of Twitter and the advantages and

disadvantages of Twitter in order to find out the potential impact of Twitter upon the clubs

from Premier League.

8 http://explorable.com/empirical-research.html [Accessed: 29 December 2012]

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4.1. English Premier League Clubs

The Premier League is the most watched English professional league in the world, being as

well the most profitable league. Followed by around half a billion people in more than 200

countries, the Premier League is run as a corporation, owned by 20 member clubs who act as

shareholders. During the season (from August to May) the majority of the games are played

on Saturdays and Sundays (with the exception of a few games played during weekday

evenings) and each team is playing 38 matches which leads to a total of 380 matches in the

season. The Premier league it is sponsored by Barclays Bank and therefore officially

recognized as the Barclays Premier League. In 1992 the clubs in the Football League First

Division decided resigned from The Football League which was originally founded on 1888,

and take advantage of a beneficial television rights deal.9

4.2. Definition of Twitter

“Twitter, one of the most popular social networking and communication technologies,

provides the users with opportunities to create „micro-blogs‟ to form and distribute messages

to share with others”. Twitter facilitates create news associated to sports and in addition

intensify and enhance sports related content and public domain information. Howbeit, Twitter

9 http://www.themediabriefing.com/events/fa-premier-league [Accessed: 4 November 2012]

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makes available an environment for direct communication among fans, sportsmen, coaches

and sports journalists.10

4.3. Advantages and disadvantages of Twitter for English Football Premier

League

Nevertheless, even if Twitter might be an essential weapon for luring fans and for creating a

deeper connection with them, etc the English Football Premier League should not neglect the

both negative and positive benefits of Twitter:

Advantages:

Due to Twitter, Premier League can attain a strong connection between fans and

players. For example, from 20th of October 2012, the fans from all over the world can

benefit the live streaming of Barclays Premier League English language commentary

which will be accessible through talkSPORT Live‘s audio player, embedded in an

upgraded Twitter profile page. Furthermore, according to Scott Taunton, Chief

Executive, talkSPORT: “talkSPORT Live is a unique offering for football fans around

the globe and this integration with Twitter builds on the service‟s success by adding

an exciting way for listeners to keep up with their favourite team. Sport and social

media has proved to be a winning combination, with Twitter as the perfect tool for

fans to share their passion. This is the first of what I hope will be some great digital

partnerships for talkSPORT Live.”11

10 International Journal of Human Sciences,2012. Use of Twitter usage by club fans.[pdf] Selami Ozsoy 11 http://www.radioworks.co.uk/news/newsStory.php?story=1775 [Accessed: 6 November 2012]

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On the other hand, in order to emphasize the positive benefits of using Social Media

(Twitter) as a method to get closer to their clubs/players, the Premier League issued

guidelines in order to assist protect players and clubs. According to the Premier

League website, “The guidelines focus on a number of areas including the benefits of

using social media to engage with supporters, understanding the potential audience

of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and recognising that it is possible to

commit offences online via social media”.12

Disadvantages:

Ticket sales frequently drop in the situation when people have the opportunity to

watch the matches on TV;

Often the Premier League stars complained in relation with their private life which is

affected due to much attention on Twitter or other social media platforms;

In several cases Twitter can have a negative influence on the carrier of professional

players. For example, the Chelsea star, Ashley Cole “has been fined £90,000 (is the

largest fine given out by the FA in connection to social media) for using an expletive

on Twitter to describe the Football Association”.13

12 http://digital-football.com/featured/premier-league-issues-social-media-guidelines-to-clubs/ [Accessed: 7

November 2012] 13 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19916978 [Accessed: 9 November 2012]

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4.4. Twitter as a marketing tool

Nowadays, ‗marketing‘ is a term that leans to be utilized in numerous ways. For example,

immediate thoughts when thinking of marketing are the use of advertising and commercials.

Additionally, marketing is more than that; according to Smith (2008, p.2) in sports, marketing

means to be focused on satisfying the needs of the customers or consumers; furthermore,

Smith (2008, p.2) also states that a sport consumer is “someone who generally uses sports

products or services and who pays for the use of a specific product or service”. In the English

Premier League case, the attention will be concentrated on sport consumers which can be

defined as “an individual who purchases sporting goods, uses sport services, participates or

volunteers in sport and/or follows sport as a spectator or fan “(Smith, 2008).

From another point of view, sport marketing has two angles: the marketing of sports products

and services while the other is named the marketing trough sports (Smith, 2008, pg 4). The

marketing of sports contains products and services that are marketed directly to the consumers

while the marketing trough sports encompass non-sports products that are marketed through

sports; for example a shirt sponsor of a football club in the English Premier League.

On the other hand, concerning the English Premier League the actual product is considered a

sporting service, mainly in the form of live or televised football matches. The augmented

product can be similar to merchandise, DVDs or autograph signing opportunities; this product

can be derived from the need to watch football or the need to belong to a certain group.

Nevertheless, Twitter does not have a direct impact on the actual product taking into

consideration the fact that it cannot score goals but on the contrary Twitter can have an

influence on the need to watch football. Moreover, Twitter can act as a media that will

provoke the need, by giving information, results or schedules, so it will be likely that more

people are interested and aware of the product.

The price of a product represents what a consumer relinquishes in exchange for a sporting

good or service. A price should also reflect the value of the product (Smith, 2008, p.129).

Researchers Agnihotri, Kothandaraman, Kashyap and Singh, 2012 stated that Twitter can

have a positive effect on the relationship between salespersons and their customers. The

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information sharing, customer service and trust building have a pulling effect towards the

shared content which leads to increased perceived value of the customer. Regarding the

football clubs in the English Premier League this can apply; by sharing information, providing

customer service and building trust they can add value to their actual product, for example by

tweeting the score. By sharing information, providing services and building trust about the

augmented products the probability to increase the value is higher. For example, if more fans

are aware of a signature session the chance to have more fans that will show up is increasing.

Then there will be more demand for the product.

Nonetheless, in order to gain a better overview regarding how Twitter can be used as a

marketing tool, we attempted to analyse the Turkish League. The results of our research

revealed that Turkish League perceives Twitter as a method to communicate with their fans.

According to Özsoy, 2012 the fans who participated stated that they followed their club on

Twitter mostly to learn about the views of footballers and administrators. Therefore,

apparently in Turkish football Twitter is being used mainly as a news provider and moreover

it seems that Twitter has a great influence on providing news in the world of football and

communicating messages towards fans, sponsors and others involved (Özsoy, 2012).

All in all, taking into consideration the Turkish League case, English football clubs may use

Twitter as a promotion and communication tool. Promotion can be defined as the way that

sport marketers communicate with consumers, to inform persuade and remind them about the

features and benefits described by a sport product‘s positioning (Smith, 2008, p.170).In

advertisement, a promotion tool, organisations will need an intermediary to communicate

their message. It reaches a large number of people but it might be expensive (Smith, 2008).

Hence, Twitter can be used as a media to advertise. Furthermore, a potential disadvantage of

advertising might be the high costs while Twitter is free of charge- advantage which makes

advertising by using Twitter more attractive. Likewise, Twitter might encompass some

disadvantages such as the message only reach the followers, the people who already are aware

of your brand or product and as main consequence advertising will have not a wide reach as

intended; also, new consumers might not be reached using Twitter as a media for advertising.

On the other hand, in order to strengthen the personal relationship with consumers Twitter

might be a useful tool. Personal selling involves one on one communication between a

consumer and salesperson. Endorsements and sponsorships are two forms of personal selling

that are common in the sport industry (Smith, 2008, p. 172). Therefore, Twitter can be used as

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a personal selling tool where the major aim of personal selling is to build a relationship with

its consumers. For example, by using Twitter the worldwide fans of an English football club

can easily follow their club or the news and specials that the club offers.

Thus, it seems that personal selling by using Twitter has effects on the relationship between

football fans and their clubs. Personal selling involves one on one communication, Twitter

consumers can re-tweet the message of their club in order to provide feedback on the

message- feedback which might be useful in the future. For instance, one of the advantages

that can arise from situation might be the high control over the promotional message and

immediate feedback from consumers.

An endorsement occurs when a well-known celebrity or athlete uses their fame to help a

company or club sell its products (Smith, 2008, p.174). These endorsements, for example the

football players, can have a personal Twitter account to promote the clubs product. Because

sport fans have a strong psychological connection to celebrity sport stars, endorsements can

be an effective method of persuading fans to buy or consume particular products (Smith,

2008, p. 174). From another point of view, one of the negative effects that can arise from

using endorsements in football might be when various persons tweet a negative message due

the fact that this situation may lead to negative publicity and damage to the product or brand.

In addition, Twitter can be used to inform and remind fans of their products, for example by

posting the schedules. Generally speaking, if it used with a positive purpose, twitter can be a

useful and helpful tool in the promotion and communication process.

To conclude, in marketing it is all about satisfying the needs of customers or consumers and

to what extend can Twitter contribute to satisfaction of the customer or consumer. Basically,

on the sport product Twitter can influence the need to watch football and by providing

valuable information Twitter can have a positive influence on the value of the product; also it

can add value by increasing the demand. Moreover, as a marketing tool Twitter is most useful

in promotion but also it can endow with information and can aid in the personal relationship

between fans and clubs. Using endorsements might help but the control of their message is

low.

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Chapter 5: Analyses

In the following part of our project we attempted to provide the reader with a theoretical

perspective regarding how Twitter will influence (negative/positive) the marketing image of

the Premier League Clubs but also how it can benefit the organizational activities of the

Clubs. In order to have a general overview of the situation we focused on PESTEL analysis of

the clubs, for analyzing the competitive structure of Twitter we used the Porter‘s Five Forces

analysis and for a successful strategic planning process we utilized the SWOT analyze.

5.1. Macro environmental research of English Football Premier

League

The macro environment will be researched using the PESTEL framework. The PESTEL

framework categorises environmental influences into six main types: political, economic,

social, technological, environmental and legal (Fundamentals, 2012 pg. 21). For instance, the

PESTEL framework can provide a list of influences on the different strategies of clubs in the

English Football Premier League.

In the PESTEL framework the Politics describes the role of governments, Economics

describes macro-economic factors for example the economic growth, Social contains cultures

and demographic changes, Technological describes the influence of technological

innovations, Environmental is for ―green issues‖ and Legal refers to legislative constraints or

changes for example health restrictions(Fundamentals, 2012 pg. 21).

All in all, the mission of PESTEL analysis is to offer a general overview of the Premier

League Clubs in order to not neglect the external factors that may have an impact on how the

marketing image offered by Twitter can influence the organizational activity of the clubs.

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Political

The governing organization of the English Football Premier League is The Football

Association (FA) which was founded in 1863 and it is responsible for all regulatory aspects;

with their 150 years of existence they have a long experience inside football. The main

activities of The FA incorporates promoting and developing the game football to the greatest

number of people, regulating the game on and off the field through the ―Laws of the Game”

and “Rules of The Association” and overseeing the administration and disciplinary system of

all participants in the game in England14

.

The FA is a member of the Union des Associations Européennes de Football, the UEFA.

Currently UEFA encompasses 53 football associations members; moreover, UEFA is a part of

the six continental confederations of world football‘s governing body FIFA15

.

For instance, the FIFA‘s mission is to develop the game, touch the world and build a better

future. Basically, the main aim of FIFA is to improve and promote the game of football

constantly by taking football to every corner of the planet and building a better future by

exploiting the power of football as a tool for social and human development, health, social

integration, education and more16

. Directly, the clubs from English Premier League have to

deal with The FA, which is connected at UEFA who is a part of FIFA, the world football

organization. These organizations will have an influence on the rules and political factors of

the game.

On the other hand, in 2009 the UEFA approved a concept for an improvement of the game,

the financial fair play. The main objectives of this concept are focusing on introducing more

discipline and rationality in club football finances, decrease pressure on salaries and transfer

fees, encourage clubs to compete with their revenues, encourage long- term investments in the

youth sector and infrastructure, protect the long- term viability of the European club football

and ensuring that clubs settle their liabilities on a timely basis. For instance, these objectives

underline the responsibilities that UEFA has to accomplish such as to analyze the systemic

14http://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/strategy [Accessed: 20 December 2012] 15http://www.uefa.com/uefa/aboutuefa/organisation/history/index.html [Accessed: 19 December 2012] 16http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/mission.html [Accessed: 19 December 2012]

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environment of European club football, and in particular to control the clubs expenses

concerning the salaries and transfer fees.

Hence, over the last few years numerous clubs suffered financial losses especially due to the

critical economical situation which shaped difficult market conditions for clubs in Europe; as

a result, this unfavourable situation leads to less availability for everyone to compete or watch

football and moreover the salaries are extremely high for a difficult economic condition which

may lead to social differences.

All in all, various clubs experienced liquidity problems which caused further delayed

payments to other clubs, employees and social authorities. Therefore, in order to mend the

situation, UEFA designed several obligations for clubs; for example, it is mandatory for the

clubs to balance their books or break even after a period of time. For instance, due to this

concept clubs cannot repeatedly spend more money than they generate. To conclude, the clubs

cannot exceed the budget limit and additionally they are ―forced‖ to build a long-term

overview concerning their income or otherwise their license will be withdrawn. This concept

is approved in 2010, updated in 2012 and will be implemented over a period of three years,

meaning that in 2013 it is mandatory for the clubs to break-even17

.

Economic

The Gross Domestic Product per capita in the UK was 36510.78 US dollars, adjusted by

purchasing power parity, in 2011. Historically this is the highest number of GDP in the

history of UK. The GDP is obtained by dividing the country‘s gross domestic product,

adjusted by purchasing power parity, by the total population18

.

However, according to the BBC, the national income per head, the inflation decreased more

than 13% since the start of the economic crisis in 200819

. For example, the inflation in

17http://www.uefa.com/uefa/footballfirst/protectingthegame/financialfairplay/index.html [Accessed: 15

December 2012] 18http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita-ppp [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 19http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20048421 [Accessed: 15 December 2012]

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September 2012 was 2,2% , in comparison with October 2012 which was 2,7% 20

; therefore

the inflation registered a rise of 0,5% in one month.

In 2011 the income per person was still increasing and from another point of view, taking into

consideration the rising inflation figure it seems that the actual amount of money that the

inhabitants of UK have to spend is decreasing. Therefore, due to a ―strong‖ rising inflation all

the products will be more expensive, and this situation might have an influence on the

purchasing power of the consumers of the English Football Premier League. Basically, the

financial crisis will determinate the consumers to save their money for difficult periods which

means that the number of persons who will not spend their money on football will increase

considerable.

During the season 2011/2012, the revenue of the average Premier League club in England was

176 million US dollars --almost 15 times as high as the level of revenue 20 years ago. The

exposure and interest in the Premier League have driven the revenues to enormous heights. In

a time where the economic environment increases pressure for clubs to control costs, the

revenue in the English Football Premier League is still rising21

.

The European football market in the season 2010/2011 grew by 4% to 16.9 billion Euros; on

the other hand, the five biggest leagues in Europe (England, Spain, Germany, France and

Italy) grew by 2% to 8.6 billion Euro‘s. The main exponent of this growth was the increasing

broadcasting revenue and the increased commercial revenue. The broadcasting revenue grew

up to 3% and the commercial revenue up to 5%. The match day revenue (income of tickets

and daily merchandising) decreased by 2%, as clubs adapted pricing strategies to deal with the

difficult environment.

Taking into consideration all the big five leagues, the English Premier League is by distance

the highest revenue generating league with 2.5 billion Euros in 2010/2011. The Premier

League has the highest wage cost -- 1,771 million Euros in the total league and together with

the German Bundesliga, they were the only ‗big five‘ leagues that completed operating profits

in 2010/2011. The total revenues of the 92 top professional clubs in English football grew by

9% to £2.9 billion in 2010/2011. The total revenue of Premier League clubs increased with

12% to £2.3 billion. The growth in broadcast revenues in the Premier League was mainly due

20http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/09/inflation-economics [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 21http://www.economywatch.com/in-the-news/infographic-the-football-economy.01-06.html [Accessed: 17

December]

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to higher abroad distributions and the amount generated from the sale of overseas broadcast

rights doubled. The majority of the £83 million increase in the Premier League clubs due to

commercial revenues which was conducted by two clubs: Manchester and Liverpool. These

clubs illustrates a strong global profile and therefore their income is significantly higher in

comparison with the clubs who are UK or regionally focused. Furthermore, excluding the

match day revenue, the four clubs that competed in the Champions League in 2010/2011

generated almost 60% of the £548 million. The Champions League can be considered a higher

level that leads to higher demand and higher price for the tickets. The average capacity in the

Premier League increased to 93% in 2011/2012. The 15th season consecutively the average

capacity in the stadium is above 90%. The Premier League clubs net debt in the summer of

2011 is £2.4 billion; about £1 billion lower than in the summer of 2009. However, around half

of the clubs increased their net debt over the season 2010/2011 therefore the decrease can be

noticed only in some clubs22

.

All in all the English Premier League has a good economic situation. The general economic

situation is unstable but the revenues in the Premier League are still growing. A factor can be

the increasing inflation, but mainly the increasing TV rights and the increasing commercial

revenue ensure a growth in revenue. A weak point for the clubs from English Premier League

includes the high debts that a number of clubs enclose but a strong point for clubs in the

English Premier League might be the high level of capacity they encompass every year.

Social

In the middle of 2011, in England and Wales the population number reached approximately

56 million23

. The nation‘s cultural diversity has been increased due to the migration within the

British Isles and the immigration from Europe and overseas. In the 19th century, there was a

regular pattern of seasonal migration of farm workers from Ireland to England. Also Scottish

and Welsh people have settled in England and most British people have ancestries that are

mixtures of the four nationalities of the British Isles ( England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland).

Furthermore, other immigrants of Britain enclose political and religious refugees from

22http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/sportsbusinessgroup/sports/football/annual-review-of-

football-finance/index.htm [Accessed: 18 December] 23http://www.london.gov.uk/publication/2011-mid-year-population-estimates [Accessed: 15 December 2012]

20

eastern-European countries, immigrants of European ancestry who were born in Canada, New

Zealand, Australia and East Africa, along with Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

After the late 1940‘s numerous non-European overseas immigrants arrived to Great Britain,

mostly from the colonies like Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Chinese and from Singapore. The

1991 census, included three million Britons of non-European birth or ancestry24

.

From another point of view, even if in Great Britain the official language is English, in the

same time it can be can be noticed the presence of regional and cultural expressions; for

instance, it is simple to recognize or to determine people‘s geographical origins due to the

vocabulary used. Moreover, in Great Britain the languages that suffered an influence are:

Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and Irish. In Wales (where the Premier League club Swansea

City is located) 80% of the people speak English as their first language.

The United Kingdom is formed from four nations with various common institutions.

Moreover, support for the monarchy, political parties and soccer teams are the most obvious

expressions of localism. Furthermore, many non-European immigrants continue to be subject

to discriminatory practices in employment and in other spheres25

. For instance, football can

have a large impact on the expression of localism, and also in the integration of non-European

immigrants. In 1885 professional football in England started, with a wage of around a pound a

week. In the 20th century the football culture in England grew

26; therefore, it is likely that

football is deep inside the British culture.

Technological

Recently, a lot of time it is allocated to the dilemma concerning the existence or not of

technology in football. For example, in June 2012, the goal-line technology in football was

tested during the game between England and Belgium. Independent testers used Hawk-Eye, a

system familiar from tennis. Furthermore, the match officials did not have access to data and

moreover the tests had no impact on any goal-line decisions during the game. Additionally,

the requirements for utilizing goal-line technology in football are increasing steadily and the

FIFA and Hawk-Eye had long-term discussions regarding the goal-line technology.

24http://www.everyculture.com/To-Z/United-Kingdom.html [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 25http://www.everyculture.com/To-Z/United-Kingdom.html [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 26http://www.information-britain.co.uk/sporthistory/entry/Football/ [Accessed: 15 December 2012]

21

On the other hand, the FIFA stated that more tests are conducted after the friendly match

between England-Belgium. Hence, in March 2012, the International Football Association

Board approved two companies, Hawk-Eye and GoalRef to take part in the second phase of

goal line technology testing27

. According to the BBC, the two goal-line technology systems

have been licensed for worldwide use by FIFA which means that Hawkeye and GoalRef can

provide their products to leagues and competitions28

.

Hawk-Eye

Hawk-Eye is a system that functions by using six cameras, focusing on each goal to track the

ball on the pitch. If the ball crosses the goal-line a signal will be send to the referee‘s

wristwatch to indicate a goal that has been scored. This process takes less than one second to

complete. This system will be used for the first time in December 2012, at the FIFA Club

World Championship29

.

GoalRef

GoalRef utilize a microchip implanted in the ball and uses low magnetic waves around the

goal. Due to this system is capable to identify any change in the magnetic field on or behind

the goal-line to determine if a goal has been scored. Also this process takes less than one

second, with the result electronically transferred to the referee30

.

Environmental

The organisation Natural Habitat Adventure founded the campaign Kick Global warming.

Their main focus is concentrated on the idea that the game of the world can help protecting

the Earth planet. In addition, soccer is the most popular activity on the planet and therefore it

27http://zeenews.india.com/sports/football/footballs-new-goal-line-technology-to-be-tested-during-england-

belgium-friendly_742734.html [Accessed: 15 December 2012]

28http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20040048 [Accessed: 15 December 2012]

29http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20040048 [Accessed: 10 December]

30http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20040048 [Accessed: 10 December]

22

might have a great influence on human kind: “If we, as soccer enthusiast, offset our emissions

and we can encourage others to reduce energy use. We can protect the planet”31

.

Furthermore, sport teams can have a large social impact. Wharton University, 2011 explored

and observed some practices that have made substantial inroads into the sports social impact

area. Many teams possess the potential for impact in some form. Key themes in social impact

include a focused mission, a utilization of human assets and team resources, a set of strategic

partnerships and the use of the brand; also partners are critical to reach the goals (Wharton

University, 2011). For clubs in the English Football Premier League this can be an

opportunity to enlarge the impact on potential fans and to improve their corporate

responsibility. There are many methods of how a football club can aid society in a social way

and an individual view on each club can point out the best social activities.

Legal

The safety standards in the English Football Premier League are high. Together with the local

authorities, police, fire and ambulance officers the management will take measures to achieve

the safety standards.

The clubs are obliged to take precautions in order to safeguard spectators against accidents.

Therefore, it is mandatory for the clubs to make an assessment of how many spectators can be

safely accommodated within the stadium itself. The safety issues the club has to consider

includes: the entry capacity of the section, the holding capacity of the section, the exit

capacity of the section, the emergency evacuation capacity and the final capacity of the

stadium. The club or management also has to consider the safety issues in alternative events.

A range of football grounds are used for a variety of alternative events in order to provide

extra income but on the other hand more safety measures are needed32

. Also the pitch has to

comply several rules; for example the field must be green. These laws vary from the field

markings till the rules about the corner flag33

.

31http://kickglobalwarming.org/ [Accessed: 10 December] 32http://www.northgatearinsoemployerservices.com/essentialnews/3-health---safety-news/59-health-safety-in-

football-stadiums [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 33http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/laws/football-11-11/law-1---the-field-of-play [Accessed: 15

December 2012]

23

In conclusion, PESTEL analysis facilitate the clubs from Premier League to identify different

macro-environmental factors that may affect the clubs in the process of improving their

marketing image by using Twitter, but also aids them to assess how different environmental

factors may influence business performance at the present and in the future.

5.2. Porter’s five forces analysis

In this sub-section, we explore the Porter‘s Five Forces Model, and later apply the model to

the online social networking site, Twitter.

The Five Forces Analysis is a framework for business management developed by Michael

Porter (1979) and studies those particular forces close to company that influence its ability to

serve its customers and make a profit. A change in any of the forces normally requires a

company to re-assess the market

place.

The ―five forces‖ of a business are

illustrated in Fig. 2.

Buyer power is high in the situation

when buyers have various options

from whom to buy, and low when

their choices are reduced. As a

provider of products and services, an

organization aims to reduce buyer power. Fig.2 A graphical illustration of Porters

Supplier power is high in the case when buyers have a small number of choices from whom to

buy, and low when they have a wide range of choices. Supplier buyer is the opposite of buyer

power.

24

The threat of substitute products or services stands on buyer success to substitute, relative

price performance of substitutes, buyer switching cost, and the perceiver level of product

differentiation. The threat to substitute products or services is high when there are numerous

substitutes to a product or service, and low when there are a small amount of alternatives from

which to select.

The threat of new entrants is high when new competitors can penetrate effortlessly a market,

and low in the case when there are considerable entrance obstacles to entering a market. The

rivalry among existing competitors is high when ―competition is fierce in a market and low

when competition is more complacent”.34

5.2.1. Analysis of Twitter using the Five Forces Model

In this sub-section, we apply the Five Forces Model to the online social networking site,

Twitter.com, as an illustration of how the model can be used in analyzing the business model

of Twitter and how Twitter can benefit the clubs from Premier League in the process of

improving their marketing imagine or organizational activity. For instance, Porter‘s five

forces model will facilitate the clubs from Premier League to recognize the existing

competition of Twitter but also the prospects for new competitors; furthermore, Porters model

will provide the clubs with a strategic thinking and simultaneously will support them to think

beyond their existing competitors and to foresee competition from new entrants.

The power of buyers

Nowadays, the ‗power‘ is distributed differently if we take into consideration the times when

buyers had power only in B2B markets- in the situation when a few buyers bought significant

amounts of a company‘s products. Concerning social media, Twitter is daily empowering

thousands of individual consumers who have the opportunity to talk about the brand within

this social network. For instance, in order to be successful, through Twitter the clubs from

34 http://sce.uhcl.edu/yang/research/EM2I'07final.pdf [Accessed: 11 December 2012]

25

Premier League can improve their organizational activities by providing daily their users/fans

with original and upgraded information, offer feedback to their concerns or reward their

compliments.

To conclude, it appears that the power of the consumers should not by neglected by the clubs

from Premier League especially when it might have an tremendous impact , taking into

consideration that through Twitter their users/fans can post reviews of their product or share

information (both positive and negative).35

The supplier power

In Twitter‘s case the main suppliers are represented by the visitors. The supplier power is

high due to the visitor who has the opportunity to select from a broad variety of social

networking sites (e.g. Facebook). Therefore, in order to lure more users/fans it is mandatory

for the clubs from Premier League to provide through Twitter attractive services (e.g. news

about their famous players) to its users or to design attractive social networks in order to lure

more visitors- this may lead also to reduced supplier power; moreover, in the case when the

number of member grows, the supplier power will decrease because the majority of people

will have a tendency to join a social network site where his or her friends are already

members.36

Competitive rivalry

The competitive rivalry is high in this case; currently Facebook is one of the biggest social

networks in the world, with 1 billion monthly active users while Twitter was recently ranked

as the second social networking.37

Moreover, Facebook declared that aims to expand its global

user base, enlarge engagement by expanding new social tools, develop the mobile experience

and generate more value for advertisers and users.38

Therefore it might be challengeable for

Twitter to compete with Facebook and moreover there is a chance that clubs from Premier

35 http://www.business2community.com/social-media/porter%E2%80%99s-5-forces-in-the-age-of-social-media-

063198 [Accessed: 11 December 2012] 36 http://sce.uhcl.edu/yang/research/EM2I'07final.pdf [Accessed: 11 December 2012] 37 http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/world-map-of-social-media-june-2012_b23912[Accessed: 11

December 2012] 38 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook [Accessed: 11 December 2012]

26

League to prefer to advertise their product on another social network which means that

Twitter should upgrade and keep up with the trends in order to maintain its popularity among

customers.

The threat of substitute products or services

In our opinion, the threat of substitutes is medium; internet sites with large user bases may

create a social networking component (blockbuster, amazon)39

The threat of new entrants

Over the last few years, the threat of new entrants increased considerable especially due to the

low cost of advertising on internet which provides them with an easy access to the market.

For instance, the threat of new entrants in this situation is high taking into consideration that

the number of online social networking sites -that are being or have been launched, since the

Twitter was launched -is increasing every day. Therefore, due to the existence of numerous

similar online social networks sites, the rivalry among existing competitors is fierce and

moreover a strong entry barrier might be non-existent.

To conclude, the Five Forces analysis emphasize the concept that in order to remain

competitive, it is mandatory for Twitter to provide innovative and quality services with the

purpose of luring new users and retain the existing members. Moreover, the quality of

services and features that a service provider offers will have a significant impact whether

people would be hooked to the social networking site.

Regarding the clubs from Premier League, in our opinion the Five Forces analysis of Twitter

will facilitate them to identify and analyze the five competitive forces that shape the Twitter

Industry (the place where they chose to advertise their product) but also will help to determine

Twitter‘s weaknesses and strengths.

39 http://www.slideshare.net/akash47/facebook-competitive-advantage-social-networking#btnPrevious

[Accessed: 11 December 2012]

27

5.3. SWOT analysis

Due to PESTEL and Porter‘s Five Forces analysis which provided us with useful data

regarding the different macro-environmental factors that may affect the Premier League Clubs

and the fierce competition of Twitter, in order to be more précised regarding how Twitter can

benefit the Premier League Clubs we attempted to make a SWOT analysis of Twitter. The

SWOT analysis can help to uncover the opportunities that clubs can exploit but also aids to

understand the weaknesses of Twitter and eliminates threats that might be neglected.

Moreover, SWOT can be seen as framework that helps to distinguish your organisation from

the competitors and as a result you can compete successfully in your market.

Strengths:

Twitter has millions of user on daily bases-- 340 million Tweets a day and 140 million

active users40

-- therefore, Premier League can attain or penetrate a large market

fans,etc

Twitter has already a strong and famous name brand and moreover has no competitor

until now in micro blogging

The design of the page is simple, therefore it can be used by everyone

Twitter provides for its users free account (no monthly or yearly fee for the user)

Lately, businesses are seeing Twitter as a valuable tool, therefore is not only used for

social purposes41

; for instance the clubs from Premier League can utilize Twitter with

diverse reasons (e.g. advertisement, business, communication channel with the fans,

etc)

Provides the perfect environment for building a conversation and converse with

others; for instance, the clubs from Premier League can design close networking bonds

with their fans via Twitter

Quick information exchange

40 http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter-turns-six.html [Accessed: 12 December 2012] 41 http://www.freeswotanalysis.com/social-networking/341-swot-analysis-of-twitter.html [Accessed: 12

December 2012]

28

Due to Twitter Premier League has the opportunity to establish a direct contact with

audience

Twitter offers for its users the possibility to follow and connect with people/group that

interests them- which can be not necessarily their friends (as with Facebook)

Cost-effective

Media exposure42

English Premier League Strengths:

The Premier League has the highest revenue level in Europe 43

The average capacity in stadiums is high 44

High feeling of localism when supporting football45

Weaknesses

Unequal distribution of tweets. For example, 90% of tweets are coming from the top

10% of the users.

Currently, Twitter illustrates a low retention rate (only 40%)

The results of social media campaign cannot be followed due to lack of tools or

resources

Effort vs results: it might be challengeable (in particular for small business operations)

to harmonize the endeavour put on social media against the results achieved even if

Twitter is more measurable than other channels

Consistency: Twitter will provide the clubs from Premier League with the opportunity

to connect with their audience/ fans at a direct level which means that the clubs

should strive more in terms of maintaining a consistent message/corporate imagine46

42 http://anikocommunication.wordpress.com/swot-analysis-for-twitter/ [Accessed: 14 December 2012] 43 http://www.economywatch.com/in-the-news/infographic-the-football-economy.01-06.html[Accessed: 17

December] 44 http://www.economywatch.com/in-the-news/infographic-the-football-economy.01-06.html[Accessed: 17

December] 45 http://www.information-britain.co.uk/sporthistory/entry/Football/[Accessed: 15 December 2012] 46 http://anikocommunication.wordpress.com/swot-analysis-for-twitter/[Accessed: 14 December 2012]

29

English Premier League Weaknesses:

The Premier League Clubs encompass a high amount of debts 47

Critical economic situation and increasing inflation in England48

Opportunities

Twitter provides for individuals and organizations the chance to bond and exchange

information, therefore it is the perfect environment for Premier League clubs

Via Twitter Premier League can lure new target or niche markets that are unexploited;

e.g. students

The Clubs from Premier League can establish a direct connection with their fans due

to the news, events, etc that can be that can be posted on Twitter

access into a new geographical market rapidly; For example, Premier League can

attain worldwide fans due to Twitter

has the potential to become a dominant search engine

enhanced marketing prospects, branding opportunities, immediate delivery49

English Premier League Opportunities:

Twitter feeds cover a diverse background such as alerts to new blog posts, breaking

news or political messages.

Technological advancements in football like hawk-eye or goalref

Environmental projects to improve the club‘s image

47

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/sportsbusinessgroup/sports/football/annual-review-of-

football-finance/index.htm [Accessed: 18 December] 48

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita-ppp [Accessed: 15 December 2012] 49

http://anikocommunication.wordpress.com/swot-analysis-for-twitter/ [Accessed: 14 December 2012]

30

Threats

Micro-messaging may be just a current trend due the fact that in the future 140

characters might not be sufficient for communicating your opinion/sharing

information

Facebook may enhance and compete face-to-face with Twitter in microblogging field

There is big potential for other social networking sites (MySpace, Tagged, etc) to

develop and steal market share 50

English Premier League Threats:

There is a threat for the clubs to be excluded due to the new financial fair play rules

To conclude, the SWOT analysis emphasizes the fact that it would be beneficial for the clubs

from Premier to include Twitter as a tool to improve their image or furthermore their

organizational activities. In order to develop further the information gained from the internal

and external analysis, in the following part of the project we attempted to make a strategic

analysis of Twitter.

5.4. Strategic analysis

After we analysed the potential positive or negative impacts that Twitter might have upon the

marketing of the English Premier League clubs, we attempted to use the collected data with

the aim of creating a successful strategy concerning how the clubs can use the advantages or

disadvantages of Twitter in order to improve their organizational strategy.

50 http://anikocommunication.wordpress.com/swot-analysis-for-twitter/ [Accessed: 14 December 2012]

31

In order to come up with a fruitful strategy by using twitter, the clubs from English Premier

League have to analyse firstly their current situation. Therefore, the results of this analysis

will lead to a central problem or to multiple problems which will be the starting point for the

management to develop a policy in order to solve the problems occurred. Moreover, the

SWOT results will be translated into multiple problems or strategic issues by a situational

analysis and a confrontation matrix (Rustenberg, 2007,pg. 309)

Furthermore, in order to narrow the results of the SWOT analysis the four most important

results per section are set in a SWOT-table:

Strengths:

1 Twitter is free of charge and it can increase the number of fans in a short period of time

2 Twitter is the perfect environment for conversation with consumers

3 Fans have a high feeling of localism in football in England

4 The Premier League has a high revenue level

Weaknesses

1 Twitter has a low retention rate

2 The Premier League clubs encompass high debts

3 It is difficult to measure the results of Twitter

4 Premier League Clubs presents a bad economic situation

Opportunities

1 Due to Twitter the clubs can establish a direct connection with their fans

2 Twitter can be a dominant search engine

3 Twitter illustrates various marketing and branding possibilities

4 Due to Twitter the clubs have the opportunity to be recognized worldwide

32

Threats

1 Micro messaging might become a trend

2 Numerous competitors for Twitter

3 There is a threat for the clubs to be excluded due to the new financial fair play rules

4 Facebook may enhance and compete face-to-face with Twitter in microblogging field

Additionally, in the confrontation matrix the opportunities and threats will be combined with

the strong and weak points and as a result the interaction between the different points of the

SWOT analysis will become comprehensible. The strong and weak points will be crossed

with the opportunities and threats and that will lead to the confrontation matrix (Rustenberg,

2007,pg. 339)

Opportunities Threats

Strengths 1. Can a strong point utilize

an opportunity, in this case

attack

2. Can a strong point turn

down a threat, in this case

defend

Weaknesses 3. Does the weakness pretend

to seize the opportunity, in

this case improve

4. Does this weakness

prevent to parry the threat, in

this case retreat

It is beneficial for the clubs from English Premier League who are using Twitter to utilize the

confrontation matrix in order to define a flourishing strategy (attack, defend, improve, retreat)

regarding how Twitter can be approached. For instance, after analyzing the confrontation

matrix of the Premier League clubs the following data was revealed:

1. Twitter is the perfect environment for conversation with consumers vs. Twitter

illustrates various marketing and branding possibilities

2. Twitter is free of charge and it can increase the number of fans in a short period of

time vs. Premier League clubs present a bad economic situation

33

3. Twitter has a low retention rate vs Due to Twitter the clubs can establish a direct

connection with their fans

4. The Premier League clubs encompass high debts vs. micro messaging might become a

trend

Issue 1

Twitter is the perfect environment for conversation with consumers vs. Twitter illustrates

various marketing and branding possibilities

In this case, the strong point is represented by the direct conversation with consumers. If

this advantage can further enhance the opportunity to develop the club, the Premier

League Clubs might be a step ahead of his competitors and moreover they can create a

stronger brand by using the perfect environment. Also, the clubs in the Premier League

can use an attacking strategy to develop the opportunity.

Issue 2

Twitter is free of charge and it can increase the number of fans in a short period of time vs.

Premier League clubs present a bad economic situation

Numerous clubs from Premier League encompass debts; therefore it would be favourable for

them to save money. For instance, it would be recommended in this particular situation to use

Twitter as a method to reach their fans instead of an expensive promotion campaign; it can be

a cost saving strategy while simultaneously due to this strategy the clubs can attain a lot of

fans.

Issue 3.

Twitter has low retention rate vs due to Twitter the clubs can establish a direct connection

with their fans

Twitter has low retention rate; frequently numerous users of Twitter forget their password or

login name which means that it can be harmed the direct connection with the fans. If the clubs

34

from Premier League will focus their interest on establishing a good connection but the users

of Twitter cannot login in or check their account, it would be ineffective. Therefore a

―healthy‖ strategy for the clubs might be to repair and improve this situation but also to

discover a technique in order to increase the retention rate of Twitter.

Issue 4.

The Premier League clubs encompass high debts vs. micro messaging might become a

trend

In this case the clubs from Premier League do not have the necessary income that it can be

spend on campaigns. On the other hand, if micro messaging might become a trend, the effort

invested in Twitter will become a waste of time and money. A good method to approach this

situation might be to retreat, therefore no time or money will be spent.

All in all, each strategy should be adapted according to the internal situation of the particular

football club. Several clubs illustrate a healthy financial situation and for instance it is easier

to develop opportunities or to imagine the threats that might damage your club. Also, Twitter

is free of charge and therefore is a cost saving promotion tool compared to other tools;

overall, Twitter might be useful for designing strategies for Premier League Clubs.

Furthermore, with the aim of expanding the results of our Strategic analysis, we focused in

the following sub-chapter of the project on the Content analysis of Twitter.

5.5. Content analysis

The main purpose of our content analysis is to focus on the impact of Twitter on English

Premier League Clubs; likewise we attempted to investigate which is the mission of social

media webpage (www.twitter.com) and how it can benefit the clubs in the Premier league.

Moreover, the content analysis will provide us with data concerning how the clubs from

35

Premier League can attract more followers/fans on Twitter in order to improve their image

and furthermore their organizational activity.

Nowadays, social media is a powerful instrument which makes the sport industry such as

leagues, teams or players to fully embrace it due to the opportunity ―to talk directly about

their lives without having their messages filtered by any marketing or public relations figures;

perhaps the most-adopted social-media tool has been Twitter; the entire sports world is

obsessed with the microblogging platform”.51

A microblogging platform such as Twitter

allows the users to post their personal thoughts/share information in 140 characters or less. A

posted message is distributed to the users that subscribe to the information of the author – in

this particular circumstance this subscription is recognized as following. Furthermore, this

arrangement of followers constitutes the base for a large network among the users of Twitter.

The distinctive detail in this case is represented by the fact that the receiver of a message has

the alternative to convey it and forward it to his/her followers. This custom is named retweet

and generally users will forward a message if they believe that it is appealing and worth

sharing with others.52

To examine how the players from Premier League have engaged Twitter as a tool to connect

with their fans, we decided to analyze every tweet that ten clubs from Premier League are

receiving during one day (Sunday, after the game). The main purpose of this research was to

investigate the following research questions:

1. Which players are using Twitter the most and how Twitter can influence their carrier

(negative/positive)?

2. Do players respond directly to fans questions?

3. What is the main subject that players approach on Twitter? Are they talking about

their sport, products they endorse, or their everyday lives?

4. Are players aware of the potential of Twitter as a marketing tool?

The first step in the data-collection process was to identify the eight clubs that we are aiming

to analyse. Therefore we chose to focus on the following clubs: Man City, Liverpool, Everton,

Chelsea, Aston Villa, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur and Stoke City.

51 http://www.docstoc.com/docs/122461654/Look-Whos-Talking%E2%80%94Athletes-on-Twitter-A-Case-

Studypdf, pg. 501 [Accessed: 13 December 2012] 52 http://journal.webscience.org/435/1/50_paper.pdf [Accessed: 13 December 2012]

36

Regarding the process of analyzing the tweets we categorized the format of each tweet in

order to specify if the post was a direct message, retweet or if it enclosed a photo or link to

another Internet site. Once the tweets for each club were gathered and their format

categorized, in order to analyse and categorize the content of each tweet we focused on the

content analyze.

Furthermore, in the interest of finding the purpose of the tweets, we designed categories such

as: Business, Sports, Other Sports, Responding to Fans and Using twitter for personal tweets.

For example, the Business category encompasses all the tweets with a business reason such as

selling tickets, promoting a tournament and so on. The Sports category encloses all the tweets

that involve the club, for instance an update of the goals or summaries of the performed

games. The Other sports category includes the tweets on other football activities or activities

in other sports. The Responding to fans category contains all the tweets that are responding to

fans or furthermore the opinion of the fans is requested occasionally. The last category, Using

twitter for personal tweets encompasses the personal tweets of the players or staff members in

the specific football club.

The content of each tweet was coded according to the category definitions from above and

moreover and there is a possibility for certain tweets to be allocated to two categories based

on the content (e,g, personal life and sports).

Results

Analysis of Tweets

Frequency Percent

Personal Life 7 7

Business 12 12

Football Related 52 52

Other Sport/

Players

26 26

Responding Fans 3 3

Total 100 100

Fig.3 Analysis of Tweets

37

As it can be noticed in the Figure 4, we analyzed 100 tweets. In order to find out how often a

particular tweet corresponded to one of the purposes from the Figure 3 we calculated the

frequency. For instance, according to the Figure 3 and Figure 5 the theme of the majority of

the tweets was „Football related‟ (52 %) which was followed by „Other Sport/ Players‟

(26%) and „Business‟(12%). On the other hand, the category with less tweets was represented

by „Personal life‟ (7%) and „Responding fans‟ (3%).

Statistics

Analysis of Tweets

N Valid 100

Missing 0

Mode 3

Fig.4 Statistics

According to the Figure 4, the most occurring category is the Football related teams.

Fig. 5 Analysis of Tweets

38

To conclude, Figure 3 and Figure 5 outline the fact that the clubs from English Premier

League perceive Twitter as an important weapon which can be used first of all with the

purpose of providing the fans with the latest news and information their club; promoting their

businesses but also through Twitter the players can design a deeper connection with their fans

luring a new generation of sports fans and new revenue opportunities.

It is important to mention that in our opinion during the tweet analysis it was not possible to

perform a complete T-test due the fact that on the research a nominal scale is being used and

the tweets are divided in categories. In a T-test averages of groups are compared in order to

notice if there are significant differences between groups. Taking into consideration the fact

that in our research the comparison between groups does not provide us with relevant

information due the fact that our tweets have a label of 1 till 5 the T-test cannot be performed.

Due to the content analysis which provided us with useful data regarding the potential effects

that Twitter might have upon Premier League Clubs, in the following subchapter we

attempted to adapt the information from above in order to provide the clubs with practical

ideas regarding how they can lure more followers on Twitter.

5.5.1. How Premier League can attract more followers on Twitter?

Twitter ―is a free micro-blogging service that allows users to communicate with one another

using short text-based messaged, or „tweets‟, that can be a maximum of 140 characters in

length”53

. According to Twitter official page, the micro-blogging service has 175 million

registered users from all over the world and moreover 56 million accounts on Twitter are

following 8 or more accounts while 38 million following 16, and only 12 million following

53 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/just-how-many-active-twitter-users-are-there-124121pg 503

[Accessed: 23 December 2012]

39

64.54

Regarding the relationship between Football and Social Media is developing daily; for

example, this year, the game between Barcelona vs. Chelsea Champions League semi-final set

a new Twitter record of 13,684 tweets per second. Moreover, according to the Football Social

Media metric site- folos.im, “there are currently a total of 28,707,607 Twitter followers

across 1197 teams worldwide”.55

Therefore, taking into consideration the information from above, more and more players from

Premier League are using Twitter as a method to increase the positive exposure to lure fans,

achieve publicity and attract sponsorship and profitable contracts. On the other hand, even if

Twitter offers the possibility to gain positive exposure, engage fans and increase players

visibility56

, unfortunately there is a downside of this situation— it can affect the career of the

professional players.

On the other hand, due to our content analysis, we find out that clubs from Premier League

should focus on the following items in order to increase their followers and improve their

organizational activity:

Post more news about famous players – fans adore to know what their favourite player

is doing besides his professional career, therefore this can be a way to gain the

attention of the fans and keep them happy and eager to return for more

Respond to the fans questions regarding the players, team, etc ( not answering to the

fans may not encourage them to follow your team in the future)

The players should tweet about their passions or take pictures in order to establish a

deeper connection with their fans,

Promoting giveaway prices via Twitter-- create a contest with different themes

concerning the players, a particular football game, etc. in order to lure more fans and

increase their interest

Follow the top twitter users/fans and observe what they tweet; it is essential for the

clubs from Premier League to pay attention to the type of content they sent out

The attention of the fans can be also maintained via postgame quotes from players and

coaches

54 http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/just-how-many-active-twitter-users-are-there-124121

[Accessed: 23 December 2012] 55 http://digital-football.com/featured/football-social-media-is-growing-28-7-million-follow-football-teams-on-

twitter/ [Accessed: 23 December 2012] 56 http://www.docstoc.com/docs/122461654/Look-Whos-Talking%E2%80%94Athletes-on-Twitter-A-Case-

Studypdf, p.512 [Accessed: 23 December 2012]

40

Replace the player names from shirt with Twitter handles; e.g. with the purpose of

luring more followers, the Mexican football team, Jaguares encouraged the players to

paste the club‘s Twitter account on the front of the shirt and their personal profiles

instead of their names on the back of their shirts.57

To conclude, Twitter has rapidly become a main channel for football fans which are eager to

find out the latest news about their favourite club, the transfer market and live game

commentary. It has also provided the occasion for the fans to ―taste‖ the lifestyle and daily

routine of a professional footballer – which type of food they prefer, what is their favourite

music or their political ideology.

Concerning the clubs from Premier League, Twitter represents a new entryway to bond with

their fans at a national or international level; moreover, as a marketing tool and engagement

channel, Twitter is always active which means that clubs can use this benefit for a market

research, product testing, sentiment analysis, etc. Therefore, it seems that Twitter may bring

several advantages for the clubs such us more site traffic, new revenues for merchandise and a

healthier relationship between club and customer.

From another point of view, it is noticeable that fans want more from social media, which

signifies that the clubs should be aware of the fact that creating a Twitter account without

establishing a clear objective or any real investment, it might unsuccessful due to the

opportunities that can be missed. For instance, in our opinion, in order to guarantee the

success, the clubs from Premier League ―should embrace Twitter with a strategic and long-

term approach”.58

57 http://digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/blog/mexican-football-team-replaces-player-names-with-twitter-

handles#.UNDAvOTAc2c [ Accessed: 23 December 2012] 58 http://digital-football.com/featured/football-social-media-is-growing-28-7-million-follow-football-teams-on-

twitter/ [Accessed: 23 December 2012]

41

Chapter 6:

6.1. Results

Analysing the impact of Twitter on the English Football Premier League research revealed

that Twitter is: “an online community of people who share interests and/or activities, or who

are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others”.59

Through sharing the

interest and activities, players and clubs in the English Football Premier League are capable of

creating a strong connection between their fans and therefore fans will feel more attracted to

their club. As a consequence, this situation will lead to a better relationship between clubs and

fans and will have a positive effect on the pulling effect towards the perceived value of the

consumer.

Moreover, personal relationship adds value to the product. Twitter is a media that suits well

for communicating with fans; therefore it is effective as a promotion tool. Also, Twitter can

be utilized as a valuable weapon for advertising, personal selling and using endorsements; it is

free media and there is an opportunity for instant feedback.

Besides, occasionally there are particular situations when Twitter has a negative effect upon

the sports industry. For instance, in the Premier League there were certain tweets that had a

negative impact on the club, player or association -which in fact caused damage to the actual

product of football or the branding of football clubs. For example, players with a Twitter

account are able to tweet about their personal life which sometimes may lead to difficulties

regarding the way of how to handle Twitter as a professional football player.

On the other hand, concerning the English Premier League macro environment, there are

several factors which might have an influence upon the policies performed by different

football clubs. Additionally, England is famous due to the experienced football association -

The FA, and furthermore the clubs from Premier League illustrates the highest level of

59http://www.slideshare.net/marobella/social-media-in-sports-the-athlete-1151579 [Accessed: 13 November

2012]

42

revenue in Europe. Also the level of TV-income and the level of capacity during the games

are higher than other clubs and competitions in Europe. Besides, the inhabitants of England

encompass a strong culture in football together with a high feeling of localism when

supporting a football club.

From another point of view, the financial situation in England is unfavourable. The economic

situation is decreasing while the inflation is increasing and as a result various clubs in the

Premier League accumulated high amounts of debts. Likewise, it is mandatory for the clubs

from Premier League to be aware of the new rules regarding Financial Fair Play, especially in

the case when some clubs present a to high wage budget compared to their income; if the

clubs will not pay attention to this problem there is a risk for them to be excluded from

European football or their competition.

Regarding the technological advancements in football, the latest technologies are specialized

in assisting referees like hawk-eye or goalref. Furthermore, a good occasion for the clubs to

support and aid the community or environment can be represented by the different ―green‖

projects taking into consideration that the clubs from Premier League can achieve and build a

good image through these projects.

Thus, the Five Forces Model of Porter illustrates how Twitter can be beneficial for the clubs.

Concerning social media, Twitter is daily empowering thousands of individual consumers

who have the opportunity to talk about the brand within this social network. It appears that the

power of the consumers should not be neglected because through Twitter their users/fans can

post reviews of their product or share information (both positive and negative). In Twitter‘s

case the supplier power is high due to the visitor who has the opportunity to select from a

broad variety of social networking sites. If due to attractive services, more visitors visit

Twitter, the number of member grows and in that case the supplier power will decrease

because the majority of people will have a tendency to join a social network site where his or

her friends are already members. For Twitter the competitive rivalry is high. There are many

different social network sites like Facebook. It might be challengeable for Twitter to compete

with Facebook. The threat of substitute products regarding Twitter is medium. There are

internet sites with large user bases that may create a social networking component. Over the

last few years the threat of new entrants increased considerable mainly due to the low cost of

advertising on the internet. Social networking sites like Twitter are still growing and that

43

makes it attractive to enter this market. Regarding the clubs from the Premier League, the

Five Forces analysis of Twitter will facilitate them to identify and analyse the five

competitive forces that shape the Twitter Industry and will also help to determine Twitter‘s

weaknesses and strengths.

In order to find out how the clubs from Premier League can gain several advantages by using

Twitter, all the results of previous analyses are being set in a SWOT analyse in order to sum

up the key points and to prepare the results for translating them into different strategies. Some

strong points are: Twitter is for free, The Premier League has a high revenue level and Fans

have a high feeling of localism. A number of weaknesses are represented by: Twitter has a

low retention rate and that the results of Twitter are hard to measure. Opportunities

encompass: due to Twitter clubs can establish a direct connection with their fans and clubs

have more geographic possibilities. Threats may be detectable in: micro messaging might be

a trend and Twitter has a lot of competition.

After translating these SWOT factors into a confrontation matrix different issues and

strategies became noticeable. For example, if clubs opt for an attacking strategy, than they

should use a strong point vs. an opportunity; a strength and a threat point combined will

create a defending strategy. If a weakness seems to seize an opportunity most likely the clubs

need an improving strategy in order to improve their weakness. Hence, if a weakness is

combined with a threat it is preferable to use a retreating strategy.

6.2. Discussion

Our research on the impact of Twitter on the English Football Premier League revealed that

Twitter is a media where fans, clubs and players can share their interests and/or activities.

Therefore Twitter can be used as a method to improve the connection/relationship between

fans and players; it can add value to the product football and moreover is an effective tool for

communication. On the other hand, Twitter can have a negative effect on the image or

44

branding of players, clubs and associations; furthermore various players encounter difficulties

in using Twitter.

Further, if Premier League gains knowledge of how to use Twitter in an appropriate manner,

the benefits of it can be numerous such as a powerful bond can be designed between the fans

and their favourite football club, bond which will lead later to fruitful relationships and to a

higher perceived value for the consumer. Therefore, the only key requirement in order to

achieve the success is the correct usage of Twitter; otherwise, the damage to the image of a

club, player or association can be massive. Thus, even if Twitter tends to be an effective

media for promotion in the same time Twitter can be a powerful tool but also a difficult media

to use.

Twitter can be as well used by the Premier League for advertising in order to attain a higher

attendance, more fans and additional potential fans or consumers. Moreover, nowadays

advertising might be expensive but due the fact that is free of charge, Twitter is more

attractive. The negative consequence in this situation might be that advertising is aimed to

attract new consumer and as a result Twitter might fail sometimes the process of attracting

new consumers --in the case when some of them are already following their own club which

means that they are already a consumer and therefore new consumers might not be reached.

The powerful face of Twitter as a promotion tool incorporates personal selling. Personal

selling involves one on one communication and compared to old communication (for example

making phone calls), Twitter is a modern way of one on one communication. For instance,

fans can easily follow their favourite player or club and respond to their tweets -- which will

lead to direct feedback, a given that can be valuable in order to understand the fans and to

make the product as profitable as possible.

Basically by using Twitter the players act as endorsements frequently when posting a tweet.

These endorsements can be a precious promotion weapon for a football club due the fact that

they have a strong connection with their fans and are seen as a role model. Also, if it is used

properly it can lead to a lot of positive publicity and it can be an effective method of

persuading fans to buy or consume particular products.

45

However, if the players from Premier League post a tweet about their sport, or personal life

which is negative, the impact will be tremendous and the negative publicity and damage to the

product or brand can be disastrous. Therefore, for players and clubs at this juncture lays a

great challenge. Due to Twitter, the privacy of the players is minimized and the line between

privacy and professionalism is thin, hence the football players from Premier League needs to

pay attention all the time regarding the subject they tweet about because it can easily harm

them in different levels.

All in all, generally Premier League can use Twitter in order to inform and remind fans of

their products in an effective way, but the discussion point is to what extend the promotion

tools reach the target groups the football clubs have.

Chapter 7:

Conclusion

In our opinion, Twitter can have a positive and simultaneously a negative influence upon the

English Football Premier League taking into consideration that it can add value to the

product, improves the relationship between fans and clubs or players, and it is an excellent

technique to promote the product football. On the other hand, Premier League should not

neglect the fact that Twitter can cause negative effects on branding or image which also it

may lead to difficulties among the football players in using Twitter.

In addition, Twitter can encounter numerous positive impacts on the marketing of English

Football Premier League, by adding value to the product and by being used as a tool for

personal selling or advertising. Likewise, the bond between fans can grow due the fact that

Twitter is a media that has the power to inform and remind to the fans or consumers about the

product. On the contrary, the negative impacts may encompass the difficulties of players to

46

use Twitter correctly. Moreover, in order to avoid the chance of ruining their image, it is

mandatory for football clubs from Premier League to use Twitter properly.

All in all, the impact of Twitter on the English Football Premier League is large. The media is

being used for different marketing and promotion tools and can therefore be a good and cost-

effective marketing tool.

Further research on this topic can be in researching how to use twitter properly as a particular

football club or marketing department. Also it is interesting in what rate Twitter is effective

and to what degree the followers of specific football clubs are already consumers and who or

how many are not. Answering these questions may lead to more understanding how to use

Twitter and how to use Twitter more effective as a marketing or promotion tool.

47

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