Search

The Internet has played a critical role in the globalization of sport. The provision of multilingual content exists as one way professional sport organizations have attempted to strengthen their appeal among ethnic or international sport consumers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore international language offerings on the websites of professional sport leagues and teams in the United States. The researchers used the cultural dimensions theory and the key components of effective communication for websites as the theoretical foundation to analyze 167 U.S. professional sport websites. The results showed only approximately 30% of sport league or team websites provided multi-language options on their sites. Fisher's exact test indicated significant differences in three cultural dimensions and two attributes between English- and Chinese- or Koreanlanguage pages. The results of this study suggest sport organizations offer multilingual options on sport websites with complete information and integrate this initiative into the organizations' global marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores why 400 Taiwanese college students from four universities follow U.S. sports, using the 1995 and 2001 Sport Fan Motivation Scale, to guide sport marketing efforts. Entertainment value, similarity or feeling they can relate to the athletes, and patriotism for Taiwanese athletes such as Major League Baseball's Chien-Ming Wang, topped the 7 major motivations. Betting on Taiwan's sports lottery, a sense of team connection, artistic value and boredom are also major factors.