When Crises Change the Game: Establishing a Typology of Sports-Related Crises

Abstract

In order to properly evaluate crises that occur in sports, scholars have previously called for a sports-specific crisis communication typology (Wilson, Stavros, & Westberg, 2010). Two studies were conducted to develop the resulting typology. Study 1 utilized a questionnaire to obtain a comprehensive list of sports-related crises that were later grouped into twelve crisis types and three unique clusters through the use of qualitative content analysis. Study 2 utilized a questionnaire completed by 282 college students to determine the levels of crisis responsibility attributed to each cluster of crises. The resulting typology provides the necessary foundation for crisis communication research that uses sports as a context by evaluating the level of organizational blame that exists when a crisis occurs.