The McClatchy Company Sports Pass: Effects of Game Outcome on Digital Sport Subscription

Victoria Price,* Kathryn Donnelly*, Reed College of Media, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Field (Broad Category): Communications/Journalism (Behavioral & Social Sciences) 

Student’s Major: ADPR 

In 2018, The McClatchy Company launched an experimental sports-only news subscription product, called Sports Pass. McClatchy wanted to build their digital-only subscribers while still catering to a niche audience (Kozankywyza, 2019). The purpose of this study is to determine if sports fans will be more willing to purchase a Sports Pass subscription if their favorite local college or professional teams are winning. The focus will be on the Kansas City Star, who have already introduced the Sports Pass. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be used by conducting a focus group of sports fans at West Virginia University and an online questionnaire for sports fans at University of Missouri to determine what motivates sports fans to consume local sports news, and how they prefer to obtain that news. Digital marketing, especially social media, has been shown to have the most effect on consumers (Gadiraju, 2016), so a social network analysis will also be used to analyze consumers’ Twitter engagement with Kansas City Star sports journalists who are tweeting about the Sports Pass. Game outcomes have a significant impact on sports fans’ attitude and brand identity (Phua, 2017), including higher purchase intention (Phua, 2018). Higher fan identification also leads to an increased tendency to bask in reflected glory (BIRG) and a decreased tendency to cut off reflected failure (CORF) (Wann & Branscombe, 1990). We anticipate our findings will conclude that if their favorite local teams are winning, sports fans will be more willing to buy a Sports Pass subscription. 

Funding: 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: Other