[论文解读] "This is why we play": Characterizing Online Fan Communities of the NBA Teams

Jason Shuo Zhang, Chenhao Tan+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Sep 4, 2018

Sports, Gender, and Society参考文献 39被引用 5

一句话总结

本研究分析了来自NBA球迷社区的150万篇Reddit帖子和4300万条评论，以探讨球队表现如何影响球迷行为。研究发现，出人意料的结果——如强队失利或弱队获胜——会引发更高的球迷参与度；而强劲表现则因‘临时粉丝’的存在导致球迷忠诚度下降；表现不佳的球队则培育出更具忠诚度、更关注未来的球迷群体。

ABSTRACT

Professional sports constitute an important part of people's modern life. People spend substantial amounts of time and money supporting their favorite players and teams, and sometimes even riot after games. However, how team performance affects fan behavior remains understudied at a large scale. As almost every notable professional team has its own online fan community, these communities provide great opportunities for investigating this research question. In this work, we provide the first large-scale characterization of online fan communities of professional sports teams. Since user behavior in these online fan communities is inherently connected to game events and team performance, we construct a unique dataset that combines 1.5M posts and 43M comments in NBA-related communities on Reddit with statistics that document team performance in the NBA. We analyze the impact of team performance on fan behavior both at the game level and the season level. First, we study how team performance in a game relates to user activity during that game. We find that surprise plays an important role: the fans of the top teams are more active when their teams lose and so are the fans of the bottom teams in an unexpected win. Second, we study fan behavior over consecutive seasons and show that strong team performance is associated with fans of low loyalty, likely due to "bandwagon fans." Fans of the bottom teams tend to discuss their team's future such as young talents in the roster, which may help them stay optimistic during adversity. Our results not only contribute to understanding the interplay between online sports communities and offline context but also provide significant insights into sports management.

研究动机与目标

• 理解NBA比赛中的球队线下表现如何影响在线社区中的实时球迷参与度。
• 调查球队表现与长期球迷忠诚度模式之间的关系，涵盖多个赛季。
• 探索表现不佳球队的球迷如何讨论球队未来，尤其关注其长期忠诚度。
• 为体育管理提供洞见，以在连胜与连败期间有效利用球迷参与度。
• 考察球队年龄与阵容构成在塑造球迷社区行为中的作用。

提出的方法

• 构建了一个大规模数据集，整合了来自NBA相关子版块的150万篇Reddit帖子和4300万条评论，以及官方NBA比赛统计数据。
• 识别Reddit上的比赛讨论帖，将实时球迷讨论与具体比赛事件及结果关联起来。
• 使用主题建模技术分析球迷讨论的主题焦点，尤其关注球队未来与球员发展议题。
• 应用时间序列分析，研究球迷活动的季节性模式及其与NBA赛季的契合度。
• 通过多个赛季的纵向用户活动与参与度指标，衡量球迷忠诚度。
• 分析球队表现、得分差以及阵容年龄对球迷行为与社区动态的影响。

实验结果

研究问题

• RQ1 单场NBA比赛中的球队表现如何影响在线社区中的实时球迷活动？
• RQ2 连续多个赛季的球队表现如何影响球迷忠诚度与社区参与度？
• RQ3 球队表现的意外性（如出人意料的胜利或失败）在塑造球迷参与度方面发挥什么作用？
• RQ4 表现不佳球队的球迷如何讨论球队的未来？这揭示了何种长期忠诚度特征？
• RQ5 球队阵容的平均年龄与球迷活动及社区情绪之间存在何种相关性？

主要发现

• 强队意外失利或弱队意外获胜显著提升了在线社区中的球迷活动，凸显了‘意外性’在驱动参与度中的关键作用。
• 强劲表现与较低的球迷忠诚度相关，因为球迷更可能是‘临时粉丝’，在持续成功后选择离开。
• 表现不佳球队的球迷更频繁地讨论球队未来，尤其是年轻球员与培养计划，表明其通过保持希望与长期投入来维系忠诚度。
• 平均年龄更小的阵容与更高的比赛日球迷活动及更强的长期社区忠诚度相关。
• 表现挣扎球队的社区更倾向于开展面向未来的讨论，表明球迷身份通过希望与对球队发展的长期投入得以维系。
• 本研究证实，持续胜利并不能保证持久的球迷参与度，而逆境反而可能催生更深厚、更具韧性的球迷群体。