[Listening Post] I envy and admire Chan Ho Park, a former Dodger

Today was my grading day all day, which means that I did not have enough time to follow any news or stories. But, Chan Ho Park, who was once a great pitcher of Major League Baseball and has been my hero, signed the contract with Hanhwa Eagles. And, I think he sent a message to me as well as many people in Korea.

Sports

• No. 61 officially returns home

The Eagles initially planned to sign him on a 400 million won ($342,000) deal with an option of another 200 million won, but announced plans to donate the money to help nurture amateur baseball, in keeping with Park’s wishes.

I think this is what many organizations and celebrities in Korea need to take as a role model.

Social Media

• Hallmark channel uses on-air QR codes to increase engagement  twitted by @jeffespo

• Three social media predictions for 2012 written by @jeffespo and twitted by @chrisborgan

I agree with his predictions: 1) Measurement is King, 2) institutionalization, and 3) consolidation such as Facebook vs. Google

I kind of want to add one more thing. There will be lots of social media activities related with social responsibility.

• Facebook’s Open graph is Music to my peers written and twitted by @briansolis

I am already addicted to Spotify. This is the change I like the most among all changes that Facebook has made.

Public Relations

• 6 questions for rekindling employee engagement written by @MarkRaganCEO  digesting another blog post, Re-recruitment and Re-engagement, written by  Stephen Gill, HR consultant.

Only 52 percent of workers say they “feel valued on the job.”

This quote reminded me one TED presentation, the power of vulnerability, presented by Brene Brown, research professor at the University of Houston. It is really important to communicate well with employees.

OK. Not much, but, please feel free to give me any comments!!

Fantasy Sports Study

I now would like to approach fantasy sports study using public relations perspective.

I am interested in many publics of sports organizations and one of them is a fan.

My friend, Dr. Nick Bowman, proposed some interesting model for fantasy sports here.

It is overall very interesting. It looks like a fantasy sports version of disposition theory.

And, it is a good sign that there are more people who now study fantasy sports.

My colleague, Dr. Hill and I figured out there were not many studies done out there, even though

Now an estimated 27 million American adults play fantasy sports, translating to annual revenue between $800 million and $1 billion, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, an industry organization that represents more than 110 companies. About 85 percent of gamers play fantasy football, and 40 percent participate in fantasy baseball. The average player is male, between the ages of 18 and 49 and boasts above-average income and education levels – in other words, a marketer’s dream. (Ankeny, 2009)

Our paper was accepted by Journal of Sports Media last summer and will be published during next year. We interviewed fantasy sports leaders and asked them what kind of communication research they would like to see in the near future. One of them was about fantasy sports users.

My next study will use expectation questionnaires I used for my dissertation study. My hope is that I can develop index for sports media expectancy.

I think my colleague and I just finished our first step. Nick made a big jump on it. And, I hope to be able to add one more leap there with my study.

It is good to see I have many colleagues who have similar interest with me. It’s boring world of scholar, probably, but, it’s really fun, fun, fun. I love it.