Scoring through the net: Website establishment intentions among sport organisations in the Gauteng province, South Africa

Abstract

The application of technology is widely acknowledged as an effective marketing tool in the sport industry and seen by sport marketers as a valuable communication medium. However, the use of the Internet as a marketing communications tool in the sport industry in South Africa has not received extensive research attention, despite an increase in the adoption of technology by sport organisations. The purpose of this study was to examine website establishment intentions by sport organisations in South Africa. A self-administered survey was used to collect information from a sample of 164 website owners, web administrators or webmasters based in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The results indicate that providing information to visitors, generating awareness, projecting a favourable image and interacting with web visitors are regarded by sports organisations to be important reasons for establishing websites. The study also shows that while a majority of sport organisations have websites, gaining access to previously inaccessible customers, obtaining feedback on service performance and selling merchandise or tickets seem to be unimportant to sport organisations.

Keywords: Sport organisations, Internet marketing, website, South Africa.