Technological advances in the sport industry have allowed high school, collegiate and professional sports teams to offer digital ticketing, livestreams for fans to connect to and hyper-specific data on players’ game performances.
But how do sport organization leaders decide whether or not to adopt and implement these digital advancements?
College of Education & Human Development alum Armin Marquez (M.S. ’16, Ph.D. ’20), Professor Beth Cianfrone and Associate Professor Tim Kellison published a study in the Sports Innovation Journal to better understand high school athletic directors’ decision-making processes – more specifically, whether they decide to adopt or reject a digital ticketing system for their teams.
For this study, the research team developed a 35-question survey and distributed it to high school athletic directors from across the country. The survey was designed to measure how specific variables – such as the costs associated with implementing it and their experiences with digital ticketing systems at other sporting events – affected their decision about adopting the new technology.
Even though about three-quarters of study participants had been given the option to use digital ticketing for their sporting events and personally used digital tickets for professional sports they’d attended, only 17.2 percent had implemented it at their schools.
Those who considered the digital ticketing technology to be complicated or confusing, who hadn’t seen it used firsthand at other high schools or who were concerned about possible added costs were less likely to adopt it, according to the research team.
“Like many nonprofit sport organization professionals, high school athletic directors have plenty to do with limited resources,” they wrote. “Therefore, these technological innovations must be intuitive to use and provide the least resistance from the user experience standpoint.”
About the Researchers
Armin Marquez (M.S. ’16, Ph.D. ’20)
CEHD alumnus
Armin Marquez earned his master’s in sport administration and his doctorate in kinesiology from the College of Education & Human Development (CEHD) in 2016 and 2020, respectively. He serves as a lecturer at Indiana University Bloomington and his research interests – inspired by sport industry experiences as a former professional athlete, coach, marketing researcher and consultant – include sport consumer behavior, marketing and sport-for-development. He was a 2020 recipient of the CEHD’s Graduate Student Award for Commitment to the Discipline.
Beth Cianfrone
Department of Kinesiology and Health
Professor Beth Cianfrone joined Georgia State University in 2007 and specializes in the areas of sport marketing communications and consumer behavior. Her research focuses on how organizations leverage their brands and the consumer response to marketing communications, such as advertising, corporate sponsorships, social media, gaming, and e-commerce. Cianfrone is the program coordinator of the sport administration M.S. program and co-director of the college’s Center for Sport and Urban Policy. She is North American Society for Sport Management Research Fellow and recipient of the Sport Marketing Association’s Stotlar Award. This year, she was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology.
Tim Kellison
Department of Kinesiology and Health
Associate Professor Tim Kellison’s research is primarily focused on sport in the urban environment, with special emphasis in sport ecology, urban and regional planning, public policy and politics. He has explored multiple questions related to the real and perceived benefits and harms sport and its industry bring to urban communities. He is director of the college’s Center for Sport and Urban Policy and holds affiliate faculty status in the Urban Studies Institute. He has received multiple recognitions for his work, including being designated a North American Society for Sport Management Research Fellow and being named a Fulbright Specialist in Urban Planning. Additionally, Kellison served on an international working group convened by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and served as a co-author of the U.N.’s Sports for Climate Action Framework.
Citation
Marquez, A., Cianfrone, B. A., and Kellison, T. “Factors Affecting Leaders’ Adoption of Innovation: The Case of Digital Ticketing in the High School Athletic Space.” Sports Innovation Journal, 2022, 1, 152-171. https://doi.org/10.18060/24342.