Publications

Romantic relationships, athlete branding, and social media dynamics: Examining the NFL’s Instagram posts and fan responses to Taylor Swift content

Published in Journal of Sport Management, 2026

Our analysis of 41 NFL Instagram posts along with over 200,000 comments about the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce relationship revealed that content visually presenting the couple with minimal explicit romantic cues achieved higher engagement and more favorable sentiment by effectively managing competing audience expectations rooted in a gendered cognitive schema conflict.

Download Paper

Sports, politics, and social media: A human-AI collaborative analysis of consumer reactions to Trump’s Break 50 appearance

Published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2026

Using a human-AI collaboration pipeline, we revealed how entertainment, politics, and athletic frames shaped warmth and competence judgments of Trump’s Break 50 appearance, advancing theory while offering a scalable, replicable way to study user-generated content.

Download Paper

Experience is all you need: A large language model application of fine-tuned GPT-3.5 and RoBERTa for aspect-based sentiment analysis of college football stadium reviews

Published in Sport Management Review, 2024

Drawing on LLMs (transfer learning), we analyzed Tripadvisor reviews to identify the key drivers of exceptional college football game day experience.

Download Paper

Tweets, triumphs, and tensions: A machine learning approach to decoding multi-tier thematic framing of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on social media

Published in Communication & Sport, 2024

Our research examined how different content creator tiers on X framed and influenced engagement during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Through text mining, we identified three key themes—athletic achievements, international participation, and geopolitical implications—with distinct engagement patterns across creator levels.

Download Paper

Gamification for value creation and viewer engagement in gamified livestreaming services: The moderating role of gender in esports

Published in Journal of Business Research, 2022

Our research examined how gamification impacts viewer engagement in esports livestreaming through an online survey. The findings revealed that immersion and socialization features significantly enhanced viewer engagement, with distinct gender preferences: females responded more strongly to immersive elements, while males were more influenced by social features. These insights provide platforms with clear direction for optimizing their gamification strategies to enhance viewer experiences across different audience segments.

Download Paper

Watching sports on Twitch? A study of factors influencing continuance intentions to watch Thursday Night Football co-streaming

Published in Sport Management Review, 2021

We explored the NFL’s Thursday Night Football co-streaming partnership with Twitch, examining how video game personalities influence viewer engagement. The findings revealed that co-streaming fit and virtual interactions significantly drive continued viewership, with streamer expertise having particularly strong impact among highly identified viewers. This study provides valuable insights for sports organizations seeking to leverage social live streaming platforms for enhanced fan engagement through personalized commentary and interactive experiences.

Download Paper

It is in the game: Dimensions of esports online spectator motivation and development of a scale

Published in European Sport Management Quarterly, 2020

We utilized a mixed methods design to develop the Motivation Scale for Esports Spectatorship (MSES). The findings revealed unique motivational factors specific to esports viewing—skill improvement and vicarious sensation—alongside traditional viewing factors like competition excitement and social bonding. By examining platform-specific features such as first-person views and chat interaction, this study provides stakeholders with a validated framework for understanding and enhancing viewer engagement in the expanding esports market.

Download Paper

Make Golf Great Again? Analyzing Social Media Reactions to Trump’s Appearance in Bryson DeChambeau’s “Break 50” YouTube Series

Published in NASSM2025, San Diego, CA, 2025

This study analyzes audience evaluations of Donald Trump’s appearance in Bryson DeChambeau’s Break 50 YouTube series, revealing how entertainment, political, and athletic frames elicited distinct, nuanced stereotypes of warmth and competence across social media platforms. For more details, please refer to the presentation slides.

Esports’ debut as a medal event at the 2023 Asian Games: Exploring public perceptions with BERTopic and GPT-4 topic fine-tuning

Published in The 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Big Island, HI, 2025

This study examined public perceptions and stakeholder dynamics of esports at the 2023 Asian Games through LLM-enhanced topic modeling. The findings revealed that while esports’ inclusion as a medal event helped legitimize competitive gaming, strategic social media marketing and cross-subcultural collaborations were crucial for building mainstream acceptance. This study provides valuable insights into how major sporting events can effectively integrate esports while managing public perception and stakeholder engagement.

Download Paper

Technology, authenticity, and fans’ sentiment: A case study of the automated ball-strike system

Published in Sports Technology and Innovation Symposium, Washington, DC., 2024

Our research examined baseball fans’ reactions to Automated Ball-Strike technology through analysis of Reddit posts and comments. The findings revealed three key dimensions of authenticity that influenced fan acceptance: nostalgic (traditional elements), procedural (game mechanics), and community (shared experiences). This study provides valuable insights into how sports organizations can effectively balance technological innovation with preserving the game’s essential character, ultimately enhancing our understanding of technology’s role in modern sports engagement.