If you build it, will they log on? Wi–Fi usage and behavior while attending National Basketball Association games

Abstract

Purpose Although sports fans have increased their use of digital media to consume sport, especially at professional sport venues, it is unknown the extent to which patrons of said venues are utilizing venue services for these activities. As such, this study asks: (1) How much data do patrons at a sports venue consume via the provided Wi–Fi? and (2) What types of online activity behaviors do Wi–Fi users at sports venues exhibit? Design/methodology/approach This empirical study reports stadia Wi–Fi data usage and consumer behavior from three National Basketball Association venues in the United States: Amway Center in Orlando, FL, Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY and Target Center in Minneapolis, MN, over a course of 7 games per venue. Findings The findings suggest that Wi–Fi usage is more limited than anticipated. Users who do utilize the venue Wi–Fi do so for very short periods, with the vast majority of user duration lasting between 1 and 10 min. Additionally, the halftime period of games experiences the peak of Wi–Fi usage. Originality/value By increasing our understanding of Wi–Fi usage in venues, this study informs relationship marketing theory research and contributes to the sport management literature. Practically, a better knowledge of Wi–Fi usage is critical, as it constitutes a critical antecedent to develop online marketing strategies.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 11 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.