Typology and Crisis Response Strategies of Sports Games Online Crises

Keywords: sports games risk, online crisis, situational crisis communication theory, Sina Weibo
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 6

Abstract

Sports games face various risks, such as injured athletes, accidents, and disasters, further cause schedule changes, personal and property losses. In the era of epidemic and social media, sport games risks are more likely to spread explosively and cause online firestorms. Some studies detect the dynamics of sport games crises case by case, but the absence of clear definition and classification has prevented integrated understanding. This study aims to present a typology that outlines subjects, crisis types, and crisis responses systematically. It collected 724,618 micro-blogs related to sport game risks, as well as 160,342 comments towards the top 2,068 micro-blogs on Sina Weibo. Results identified the main subjects involved in online crises, as well as eight crisis types, including schedule change, external incidents, athlete malpractice, injury and death, organizational problems, non-athlete malpractice, justice issues, and site management. Among them, malpractices of audiences, volunteers, staff, and media led to more comments, as well as more intensive and extreme public responses, while external incidents led to more likes. This study also compared public responses towards three crisis response strategies. The accommodative strategies tended to calm down the public, while strategies of reticence were more likely to arouse intensive and extreme emotions. This study assists stakeholders in understanding sports games online crises and tailoring effective response strategies.