Just one screen is not enough: Social TV role to Brazilian fans of Major League Soccer

Abstract

PurposeSports leagues, such as Major League Soccer (MLS), aim at expanding their audience at global level through alternative media other than television (TV). Brazil stands out among football media consumer audiences as one of the main markets worldwide. Brazilian MLS consumers play the role of fans to converge between TV media and digital platforms, in a phenomenon that has been called Social TV.Design/methodology/approachThe aim of the current research is to investigate how Brazilian MLS fans' consumption process is established through Social TV; it was done based on netnography performed between 2018 and 2020.FindingsResults have indicated that Social TV is a catalyst of practices associated with fan culture: cultural convergence, technologies appropriations, poaching experiences and production of a collective intelligence.Research limitations/implicationsCurrent research reinforces how ethnography methodology has been gaining room as likely consumer market research, working as alternative method based on the prevalence of focus group and survey techniques.Practical implicationsSocial TV phenomenon presents itself as a possibility to expand and direct marketing strategies focused on sports management, just as the media often consumed by fans.Originality/valueFrom the results, it is possible assuming that connections between fans are punctually guided by their relationship with the cultural object consumed by them in a network relationship whose actors deindividualize sociocultural practices such as consumption. Thus, the main contribution of the study lies on identifying how fan culture can be autonomously established in the market arena in comparison to other cultures.