The Impact of Online Sales and Marketing on Sports Events

This dissertation investigates the significant impacts of online sales and marketing on the global sports industry, specifically focusing on the Wimbledon sports event in London. The research explores the influence of digital marketing on various aspects, including online ticket sales, merchandise purchases, live and recorded match viewing, and overall customer satisfaction. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods to analyze primary data, revealing strong correlations between online marketing strategies and changes in customer behavior, customer relationship management, and revenue generation. The findings highlight the evolving landscape of the sports industry and the importance of adapting to online platforms to enhance customer engagement and drive business growth. The dissertation also delves into the background of the study, relevant concepts, and the methodologies employed, including research design, data sources, and analysis techniques. It concludes with a reflection on the implications of these findings for the future of sports marketing.

Running head: DISSERTATION
The Impact of Online sales and Marketing on Sport Event in London
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like praise the almighty GOD for providing me the opportunity to carry
out the study. I am also highly indebted to {Prof…………….} for his guidance and advice in
conducting this work. I would like to thank {Prof……….} for his encouragement and
direction during the work.

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Abstract
The usage of internet and online interfaces and the increasing popularity of online and social
media have considerable influences on the overall global business environment and has led to
much dynamics in almost all types of industries, which includes the global sports industry as
well. The recent activities of online marketing and digital selling of goods and services have
been increasingly incorporated by the sports industry, which in turn has led to a shift in the
behavior of the clientele globally, which in turn has led to considerable impacts on the sports
event and industry. In this context, the concerned research focusses on the impacts which are
experienced by the Wimbledon Sports Event in London, due to the increased application of
online sales and marketing. The results, both qualitative and quantitative, derived from
primary data analysis and interpretation, finds significant linkages of the same, in the aspects
of online booking of tournament tickets, online purchasing of Wimbledon merchandise,
online viewing of live as well as recorded matches as well as overall changes in customer
satisfaction, customer relation management and company revenue generation.

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Table of Contents
Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................3
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................7
1.1 Introduction......................................................................................................................7
1.2 Background of the Study.............................................................................................8
1.3 Research Problem......................................................................................................16
1.4 Research Objectives..................................................................................................17
1.5 Research Questions........................................................................................................17
1.6 Thesis Framework.....................................................................................................18
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................20
2.1 Purpose of the study.......................................................................................................20
2.2 Background (Already known facts)...............................................................................20
2.3 Different tools of online marketing................................................................................20
2.4 Relevant concepts and theories......................................................................................23
Sports Marketing..............................................................................................................23
The Sports Sales and Marketing Ecosystem Model.........................................................24
Sports Marketing Stratagems and social media stratagems.............................................25
Analysis of social media..................................................................................................26
Effect of online marketing sales and marketing on sports events....................................28
Online marketing goes main stream.................................................................................29
2.5 Lawn tennis sports events (Wimbledon)........................................................................29

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2.6 Limitations and recommendations.................................................................................30
Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................31
3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................31
3.2 Research Design.............................................................................................................31
3.3 Research Philosophy......................................................................................................32
3.4 Research Approach........................................................................................................33
3.5 Data sources...................................................................................................................34
3.6 Data Techniques.............................................................................................................34
3.7 Sampling size and techniques........................................................................................35
3.8 Data analysis..................................................................................................................35
3.9 Ethical Consideration.....................................................................................................36
3.10 Research Limitations....................................................................................................36
Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS...................................................................37
4.1 Findings and Analysis of Quantitative Data..................................................................37
4.1.1 Descriptive Statistics...............................................................................................37
4.1.2 Correlation Analysis of the variables......................................................................41
4.1.3 Regression Analysis of the variables......................................................................43
4.2 Thematic Qualitative Analysis.......................................................................................46
4.3 Discussion......................................................................................................................48
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION......................................................................................................49
Reflection.................................................................................................................................51

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Chapter 6: REFERENCES.......................................................................................................53
List of Figures
Figure 1: Internet users across the globe as a percentage of total population over the years....6
Figure 2: Global advertisement expenditures across different mediums (2017) in US$M........6
Figure 3: Increasing revenue of the Global Sports Market (2005-2017)...................................7
Figure 4: Share of global sporting events market by events......................................................8
Figure 5: Youth Football fans involved in different media activities........................................9
Figure 6: Revenue of different Grand Slam Tournaments.......................................................11
Figure 7: Sales in sports and the marketing ecosystem model.................................................21
Figure 8: Types of research design..........................................................................................27
Figure 9: Types of research philosophy...................................................................................28
Figure 10: Types of research approach...................................................................................29
Figure 11: Types of data sources.............................................................................................30

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List of Tables
Table 1: Frequency of watching Wimbledon Tournaments.....................................................34
Table 2: Frequency of online viewing of Wimbledon Tournament.........................................35
Table 3: Frequency of online shopping from Wimbledon online stores..................................35
Table 4: Frequency of online purchase of Wimbledon tournament tickets.............................36
Table 5: Level of satisfaction from online marketing..............................................................37
Table 6: Comparison between online and offline experiences................................................37
Table 7: Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients for the concerned variables................................38
Table 8: Model Summary.........................................................................................................39
Table 9: ANOVA Test Results................................................................................................40
Table 10: Coefficients of regression........................................................................................41
Table 11: Level of Significance...............................................................................................41

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
In the contemporary period, the global business and commercial scenario has
developed and has experienced huge dynamics, much of which can be attributed to the
international phenomena like that of Globalization, industrial revolution as well as trade
liberalization in the major economies across the globe, which has helped in making the global
commercial and business environment more integrated, inclusive and hugely diversified
(Ferraro and Briody 2013). Along with these phenomena, the continuous and robust
development of the global technological and infrastructural abilities and revolutionary
innovations in these aspects have also played significant roles in building up a continually
evolving business framework in the global framework, which in turn has been affecting both
the demand and the supply side of almost all the industries across the globe (Botha, Kourie
and Snyman 2014).
One of such aspects of huge importance in global business scenario, which has played
crucial roles in bringing in huge changes in the operational frameworks of global business
and marketing is that of the advent of online sales and marketing technologies in the
contemporary period. With the increase in the usage of internet by almost all sectors of the
population of the world, the online mediums are becoming an integral part of the lives of
people in the contemporary period. In this context, the businesses are also incorporating the
usage of online interfaces and internets in their operational framework (Anandarajan,
Anandarajan and Srinivasan 2012). With the increasing integration of global businesses and
with more businesses and events going global, internet and online mediums are being

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increasingly used by different businesses and industries for marketing and sales purpose, in
order to attract a global clientele.
These increased online sales and marketing practices are found to have considerable
impacts on different industries, businesses and events as a whole in the global framework.
keeping this into consideration the concerned paper tries to analyze the impacts of the
increasing practices of online sales and marketing, particularly on the different sports events,
specifically emphasizing on the sports even held in one of the globally popular cities of
London (Shank and Lyberger 2014). The paper specifically emphasizes on the particular
lawn tennis sport event which is held at Wimbledon in London and tries to analyze and
interpret the impact of the recently growing online sales and marketing activities on the same
in the contemporary periods (Rudestam and Newton 2014).
1.2 Background of the Study
The term digital marketing refers to the marketing of different commodities and
services in front of the clientele, using non-traditional, digital technologies with the mediums
being internet, mobile phones, digital display advertising, social networks and other digital
mediums (Chaffey and Chadwik 2016). Over the years, the extent and magnitude of digital
marketing in global businesses has increased substantially, owing to the increase in the usage
of internet by all sectors of the population in the world as can be seen from the following
figure:

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Figure 1: Internet users across the globe as a percentage of total population over the
years
(Source: Statista.com, 2018)
With the increase in the number of internet users across the world, over the years, the
different businesses and commercial institutions across the globe have been incorporating
online marketing and sales techniques in their operational framework, in order to reach to a
much higher number of global clients and markets much faster and at a comparatively lesser
cost (Witkemper, Lim and Waldburger 2012). The gradual shifts towards an increased
preference of internet and online mediums amongst the businesses across the globe can be
seen from the following figure:

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Figure 2: Global advertisement expenditures across different mediums (2017) in US$M
(Source: Digitalstrategyconsulting.com, 2018)
As can be seen from the above figure, showing tremendous increase in the internet
advertisements in the recent periods, these techniques of digital marketing and sales are being
increasingly implemented in various industries and commercial domains which also evidently
includes the sports industry. In this context, the term “Digital Sports Marketing” refers to the
events which include the marketing of a club, a sports event, an athlete and sorting
professionals (Ryan 2016).
The global sports industry has developed consistently over the years with the
increasing number of sports, sport events as well as sport enthusiasts in the global framework.
This in turn has led to an increase in the expanse and size of the global sports market, which
can be seen from the following figure:

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Figure 3: Increasing revenue of the Global Sports Market (2005-2017)
(Source: Statista 2018)
As is evident from the above figure, development in the revenue of global sports
market has been upward for the most part over the last decade. According to a study by
Statista (2017), total revenue of global sport market was 46.5 billion US dollar, the total
revenue, which had been 78.2 billion dollars in 2012, increased to a considerably big amount
of 90.9 billion US dollar, by the end of 2017.
Much of this increase in the revenue as well as in the market size of the global sports industry
can be attributed to the increase in the level of enthusiasm among the population of the world
as well as to the increase in the number of sports event, small as well as large, seasonal as
well as regular ones, happening across the world, as can be seen from the following figure: