Quantitative Assessment of Football Web Sites: An Empirical Study of the Best European Football Club

Francisco Javier Miranda, Antonio Chamorro, Víctor Valero, Jesús Maestre

.

DOI: 10.4236/jssm.2010.31014                

Abstract

Football and the Internet have shown early signs of a prosperous marriage. Web sites with football content are among the most popular, with football followers and web users sharing remarkably similar demographics. Despite these compelling observations, limited empirical research has been undertaken exploring how to maximise the opportunities for competitive advantage that the Internet can provide to football clubs. This research was a response to this void, and was undertaken by manually accessing and evaluating the web sites of European Football Clubs. Quality of web sites was determined using an original Web Assessment Index, which focuses on four categories: accessibility, speed, navigability and content. A detailed report of the results arising from this investigation is presented and systematically analyzed. These findings will be useful for both researchers and practitioners who seek to understand the issues relevant to football club management.

Keywords

World Wide Web, Football, Content Analysis, Web Design, Internet, Research Paper

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	D. Selz and P. Schubert, “Web assessment: A model for the evaluation and the assessment of successful electronic commerce applications,” Electronic Markets, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 46–48, 1997.
[2]	C. Liu, K. Arnett, L. Capella, and R. Beatty, “Web sites of the fortune 500 companies: Facing customers through home pages,” Information and Management, Vol. 31, pp. 335–345, 1997.
[3]	J. Ho, “Evaluating the world wide web: A global study of commercial sites,” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1997.
[4]	J. R. Evans and V. E. King, “Business to business marketing and the world wide web: Planning, managing and assessing web sites,” Industrial Marketing Manag- ement, Vol. 28, pp. 343–358, 1999.
[5]	R. Simeon, “Evaluating domestic and international web- site strategies,” Internet Research: Electronic Network- ing Applications and Policy, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp 297–308, 1999.
[6]	E. Huizingh, “The content and design of web sites: An empirical study,” Information and Management, Vol. 37, pp. 123–134, 2000.
[7]	D. Young and J. Benamati, “Difference in public web sites: The current state of large U.S. firms,” Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 94–105, 2000.
[8]	C. Bauer and A. Scharl, “Quantitative evaluation of web site content and structure,” Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 31–43, 2000.
[9]	J. W. Palmer, “Web site usability, design, and perfor- mance metrics,” Information Systems Research, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 151–167, 2002.
[10]	A. Boyd, “The goals, questions, indicators, measures (GQIM) approach to the measurement of customer satis- faction with e-commerce web sites,” Aslib Proceed- ings, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 177–187, 2002.
[11]	R. V. D. Merwe and J. Bekker, “A framework and metho- dology for evaluating e-commerce web sites,” Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, Vol. 13, No. 5, pp. 330–341, 2003.
[12]	M. Buenadicha, A. Chamorro, F. J. Miranda, and O. R. González, “A new web assessment index: Spanish univer- sities analysis,” Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 226–234, 2001.
[13]	F. J. Miranda and T. M. Ba?egil, “Quantitative evaluation of commercial web sites: An empirical study of Spanish firms,” International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 24, No. 4, August, pp. 313–318, 2004.
[14]	F. J. Miranda, R. Cortés, and C. Barriuso, “Quantitative evaluation of e-banking web sites: An empirical study of spanish banks,” The Electronic Journal Information Systems Evaluation, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 73–82, 2006.
[15]	M. Murray, “Evaluating web impactthe death of the highway metaphor,” Direct Marketing, Vol. 59, pp. 36– 39, 1997.
[16]	S. Muylle, R. Moenaert, and M. Despontin, “Introducing web site user satisfaction: An integration of a qualitative pilot study with related MIS research,’’ Working paper, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 1998.
[17]	D. L. Hoffman and T. P. Novak, “Marketing in hyper- media computer mediated environments: Conceptual foundations,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60, pp. 50–68, July 1996.