Put the Fan on the Top of the Pyramid. A Netnographic Analysis of an Online Basketball Fan Community

In the light of the new global context, sport organizations need to reconfigure roles and relationships among a network of actors - partners, suppliers, fans, media, institutions, etc. - in order to create value. Activate this constellation of relationships (Norman, Ramirez, 1995) should be one of the main goal for a sport organization. Nevertheless, many sport clubs still have a pyramidal structure: on the top of the pyramid there are owners and Presidents, below the management, often poorly qualified, and the fan base is on the lowest level. The prevailing managerial logic is “top-down”. Nevertheless, considering the importance of the fan base for a sport club, it should be necessary an overturning of the pyramid: identifying new ways to make fans central in the life of their “favorite team”, implementing initiatives based on the knowledge of supporters and their needs, in order to generate higher revenues, to develop and to enhance the business of a sport organization. This paper is aimed at identifying complementary tools of knowledge about fans and a better management of relationships with customers/fans. This study is an attempt to apply a netnographic methodology to an online basketball fan community. Netnography (Kozinets, 1998; 2002) is a qualitative and exploratory research approach to analyze the consumers dialogue in online communities in order to gain their insights. For this specific research, an online communication between the members of a group of supporters of a First Division basketball club in Italy has been studied. the empathic and non-obtrusive online observation and listening should allow to enlighten needs, attitudes, perceptions, and feelings of fans about the sport club.