Use annotations APA format.? There are three basic sections in an annotation: 1) Summary, 2) source quality and justification, 3) Usefulness for the reader and application to the sports

JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SPORT MANAGEMENT 2020, VOL. 5, NO. 2, 223–241 https://doi.org/10.1080/24704067.2019.1576144

Gun Violence, eSports, and Global Crises: A Pro- posed Model for Sport Crisis Communication Practi- tioners

H. Ross Knighta, Karen L. Hartmanb and Amanda Bennettc

aMBA Programs for Working Professionals, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA; bDepartment of Communication, Media & Persuasion, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA; cDepartment of Communication, Media & Persuasion, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA 


ABSTRACT On Sunday, August 26, 2018 an eSport gamer killed two competi tors and injured 10 others in Jacksonville, FL. at the Mad- den 19 Southeast Qualifier, a competition sanctioned by the Madden Championship Series. The shooting, live-streamed to thousands of fans watching on Twitch, stands as the first mass shooting to occur at a professional sporting event. Due to the changing com plexity of sports crises, and the ever-increasing power of sport organizations, the authors of this paper argue that sport commu nication practi- tioners and managers need explicit guid- ance for how to act in crisis situations, especially as research shows that sport crisis managers are overwhelmingly un- derprepared. The authors, therefore, pro- pose a visual step-by-step model based off of Coombs’s (2007b) Situational Crisis Communication Theory that lowers barri- ers to entry for sport communication prac- titioners to effectively implement a crisis response even when they have little knowledge of the theory.

枪支暴力, 电子竞技和全球危机：体育运动危机沟通从 业者的拟建模型

2018年8月26日星期日, 由麦登冠军系列赛 官方授权, 在佛罗里达 州杰克逊维尔举办 的麦登 19东南区预选赛中, 一名电子竞技 游戏 玩家杀死了两名竞争对手, 并致使10

人受伤。成千上万的粉丝通 过游戏现场直 播平台Twitch观看了此次枪击事件, 这是专 业体育赛 事中发生的首例大规模枪击案。 由于体育运动危机的复杂性不断 变化, 体 育运动组织实力日益增强, 笔者认为体育 沟通从业者和管 理者需要显性指导以应对 危机情况, 特别是有研究表明, 体育危机 管 理者中绝大多数人都没有做好危机应对准 备。因此, 基于 Coombs’s（2007b）提出 的情景危机沟通理论, 笔者提出了一个可 视化分步模型, 该模型降低了体育沟通从 业者的入门门槛, 即使对 情景危机沟通理 论知之甚少, 也能有效地实施措施, 应对危 机。

1. Introduction ARTICLE HISTORY Received 15 October 2018 Revised 3 January 2019 Accepted 9 January 2019

KEYWORDS Situational crisis communication theory; gun violence; crisis; sport; eSports

关键词

情景危机沟通理论； 枪支暴力；危机； 体育运动；电子竞技 


On Sunday, August 26, 2018 two eSport gamers were killed by a fellow competi- tor at the Madden 19 Southeast Qualifier, a competition sanctioned by the Mad- den

CONTACT Karen Hartman [email protected] Department of Communication, Media & Persuasion, Idaho State University, Address: 921 S. 8th Ave., Stop 8115, Pocatello, ID 83209, United States 2019 Global Alliance of Marketing & Management Associations (GAMMA) 224 H. ROSSKNIGHT ET AL.

Championship Series. Several other people were injured in the shooting, includ- ing 10 from gunshots (Levenson, Stapleton, & Yan, 2018). The shooting took place at the GLHF (Good Luck Have Fun) Gaming Bar in Jacksonville, FL (Williams, 2018) and was momentarily broadcast on Twitch, a live-streaming network owned by Amazon. At the time of the shooting there were approximately 150 people in the building (Fleming & Wolf, 2018) and thousands watching live on Twitch (Calise, Solomon, Taylor, & Reeves, 2018).

The shooting was perpetrated by David Katz, an individual who had been competing in the tournament all weekend. This was the first Madden NFL 19 tournament of the season and featured $5,000 in prize money, in addition to a spot in the finals at the Madden Classic in Las Vegas scheduled for late fall 2018. Katz had previously won tournaments and qualified for the Madden Club Series Championship in 2017. Prior to the shooting Katz had won two and lost two games in the tournament, the last loss occurring just minutes before he started shooting (Fleming & Wolf, 2018).

The shooting is by no means the deadliest to happen in Florida in recent

memory. The Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School shooting in Parkland, FL on February 14, 2018 claimed 17 lives and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Or- lando, FL on June 12, 2016 was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, with 50 people killed (Berkowitz, Lu, & Alcantara, 2018). What is unique, however, about the tragedy at Jacksonville Landing is that it is the first shooting to be inadver- tently live-streamed to thousands of fans watching a sporting event (MacDonald, 2018). Additionally, it is the first mass shooting to occur at a professional sports event. According to a Washington Post report from September 2, 2018, no mass shooting, since they were first tracked in the mid-1960s, has taken place in a sports venue (Berkowitz, Lu, & Alcantara, 2018), marking a major first in sports history.

While Jacksonville Landing is the first sports-related mass shooting, major league sports have been preparing for the possibility for years. Their proactive crisis prevention efforts are obvious through efforts such as in 2011 when the National Football League provided handheld metal detectors to use at each team’s stadium (Steinbach, 2011), in 2015 when Major League Baseball man- dated stadiums to install and use standing metal detectors (Baker, 2017), and also in 2015 when all National Hockey League rinks were outfitted with walk- through metal detectors (Whyno, 2015). Besides these proactive security mea- sures, teams have utilized some reactive security measures. For example, in March 2018 a shooting threat for a major eSports event in Las Vegas was post- ed online. The threat never materialized, but security was heightened at the venue after the threat was received (“Jacksonville Landing shooting raises ques- tions of security”, 2018).

The shooting should make practitioners and academics question if sport crisis communication practitioners are effectively prepared to handle such large-scale crises? The eSports shooting crisis coincides at a time when researchers are identifying the high stakes environment of sports. According to Billings (2018), “The management of one’s reputation is certainly not new; yet the stakes and prominence afforded within sport-based situations have never been more ampli- fied” (p. 2). Furthermore, the role of crisis management in sport is critical as the “frequency and severity of controversy, legal issues, and crises heighten” (Ruih- ley, Pratt, & Carpenter, 2016, p. 52).

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Due to the changing complexity of sports crises (such as gun violence), and the ever-increasing power of sport organizations, the authors of this paper argue that sport communication practitioners and managers need explicit guidance for how to act in crisis situations, especially as research shows that sport crisis managers are overwhelmingly underprepared (e.g., Stoldt, Dittmore, Branvold, 2012). In general, crisis communication research demonstrates a gap between academic findings of best practices in a crisis and what practitioners actually implement (Kim, Avery, & Lariscy, 2009), so inserting practical crisis communica- tion response strategies into sport management scholarship is imperative since, arguably, the field has not been overly inundated with research related to sport crisis communication responses. The authors of this paper, therefore, propose a visual step-by-step model based off of Coombs’s (2007b) Situational Crisis Communication Theory that lowers barriers to entry for sports communication practitioners to effectively implement a crisis response even when they have little knowledge of the theory.

2. Literature Review Crisis has been defined in a myriad of ways ranging from environmental disaster to threats to one's reputation. Coombs (2014a) defines crisis as “the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders related to health, safety, environmental, and economic issues, and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes' ' (p. 2). In addition, he clarifies that a “crisis disrupts or affects the entire organization or has the potential to do so” (p. 3). Coombs (2014b) highlights two main types of organizational crises: rep utational and operational. The distinction between the two subcategories of crisis is that reputational crisis threatens to negatively im- pact the reputation of the organiza tion with its stakeholders but will not affect any measurable operational damage. In contrast, operational crisis has a direct impact on the organization’s operations such as a stadium fire or a General Manager embezzling funds (Coombs, 2014b). In sport, most crises fall into the reputational category, as most sports crises do not impact day-to-day game op- erations (Coombs, 2018). And while reputational crises seem to happen consis- tently, few crises in organized sport shutdown teams or present a sig nificant threat to brand images (Koerber & Zabara, 2017).

Coombs’s (2007b) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) seeks to address the needs of practitioners and provide a framework to deal with crisis. It endeavors to present research in a way that bridges the gap from theory to praxis and provides guidelines that assist crisis managers (Coombs, 2007b). Coombs argues that practitioners can find value in an evidence-based model that facilitates effective crisis response (Coombs, 2007b, p. 163). To this end, the theory builds on previous research, compiling works of Benoit, Coombs, and others to provide the model’s framework. Furthermore, it represents a culmina- tion of decades of research on organizational crisis and image restoration (Coombs, 2007b).

The SCCT involves specific steps a communication practitioner should follow. When a crisis occurs, the practitioner should first identify what type of crisis oc- curred and how to protect stakeholders from any physical and/or psychological 226 H. ROSSKNIGHT ET AL.

effects of the crisis. Messages during the first step should include instructing and adapting information. Instructing information identifies what stakeholders should do to protect themselves from any physical threat. Adapting information identifies what happened, what will be done to protect stakeholders from a simi- lar crisis in the future, and shows concern for any victims. Once these immedi- ate communication efforts are completed, the second step of the SCCT requires practitioners to identify and assess any reputational threat the crisis poses. Coombs identifies two ways to move through this second step. First, identify the type of crisis based off of stake holder attributions, then choose a response strategy based off of the type of crisis. The SCCT model offers three types of response strategies: denial, diminish, and/ or rebuild.

The model has been studied and applied to a variety of organizations and fields. Within the general field of crisis communication, the SCCT is viewed as the primary theoretical framework (Avery, Lariscy, Kim, & Hocke, 2010; Fediuk, Pace, & Botero, 2010; Ma & Zhan, 2016). It has been used to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze a variety of organizations in differing crises. For example,

the model has been applied to non-profit organizations (e.g., Brummette & Sis- co, 2015; Cooley & Jones, 2013; Sisco, 2012b), for-profit organizations (e.g., Jeong, 2009), political groups (e.g., Sisco, 2012a), and social media (e.g., Ki & Nekmat, 2014), among others. Within sport research, use of the SCCT is gain- ing traction (e.g., Brown, 2015; Brown-Devlin, 2018; Coombs, 2018; DiSanza, Hartman, Legge, & Gershberg, 2018; Harker, 2018; Jordan & Smith, 2013; Sherrill, 2018) and approaches focus on a wide variety of angles that span from experimental to rhetorical. For example, Brown-Devlin (2018) uses experi ments to determine the efficacy of crisis responses as a way to provide practical crisis management plans to sport organizations and athletes. DiSanza, Hartman, Legge, and Gershberg (2018) argue for a focus on narratives within the SCCT, specifically within the adapting and instructing information stage of the theory. And Coombs (2018) analyzes how the sport realm includes important modifiers when applying the SCCT to certain sports crises. These modifiers include the role of fans, economic factors, and the visibility of athletes.

Ultimately, the SCCT is a widely used tool for evaluating crisis response and pro vides practitioners with an evidence-based model to guide them in manag- ing crisis (Coombs, 2007b). This model presents a fundamental approach to understanding cri sis; however, there is a need to refine the theory for today’s overextended sports organizational reality and reimagine the presentation of the model for sport commu nication practitioners.

3. ESports and the Global Marketplace

Within sport, the rising influence of eSports stands out even in comparison to estab lished sports organizations. While other leagues and organizations have strong rev enue and participation, eSports presents a league with unparalleled short-term growth, revenue, and global appeal. For example, the Madden NFL community is just one of several eSports communities that contributes to the rapid growth of competi tive online gaming. While the games and competition structures vary as widely in

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eSports as they do in traditional sports, collectively eSports are followed by mil- lions of fans that watch live-streamed events online or attend large sell-out tour- naments. In 2017, 588 major eSports competitions took place, and in 2018 it is projected that 380 million people worldwide will watch eSports (Willingham, 2018). The revenue growth in eSports has been rapid, from $493 million in 2016 to $655 million in 2017 (“How much can the eSports market grow in 2018?” 2018). This growth is not expected to slow anytime soon; it is projected that eS- ports’ worldwide revenue will climb to over $900 million in 2018, with 1.6 billion people having some level of knowledge of eSports. Further growth is expected the next year with projected rev enue of over $1 billion dollars by the end of 2019 (Willingham, 2018), resulting in the doubling of eSports revenue in just three years.

Increased popularity of eSports is one reason for the revenue increases; a growing variety of revenue streams is another. eSports revenue is realized through several channels: sponsorships, which exceeded $250 million in 2017; advertising; media rights, an emerging source of revenue; game publisher fees paid by publishers to host tournaments; and tickets and merchandise sales

(“How much can the eSports market grow in 2018?” 2018; Perez, 2018). This rapid growth has led to a legitimization of eSports in the traditional sport-

ing community. Along with the Madden NFL franchise, the NBA launched a new eSports league, called NBA 2 K, with 17 teams in early 2018. The draft for NBA 2 K, held in April 2018, looked and felt a lot like the annual NBA draft (Richards, 2017; Willingham, 2018). In addition, big-time athletic apparel companies Nike and Adidas signed on with eSports teams in 2017 (Richards, 2017). Much like traditional sports, eSports is not limited to professional teams; over 50 colleges in the United States have created varsity eSports programs, which are governed by the National Association of Collegiate eSports (Willingham, 2018). Many of these colleges, 30 as of 2017, offer eSports scholarships and high schools are also beginning to develop eSports programs and competitions that are growing in popularity (Richards, 2017).

The growth, and resulting influence of eSports, is further emphasized by its world wide fan base. International markets make up a large percentage of eS- ports growth. In 2018, more than 50% of eSports fans and participants will be from the Asia-Pacific region; and 24% of eSports 2018’s projected revenue will come solely from South Korea and China. Given the growing popularity of eS- ports in Asian markets, major events have recently been held in the region. The 2017 Riot Games World Championship, hosted by China, was “the most watched eSports event in 2017” (Perez, 2018, para. 11); and South Korea host- ed the 2018 championships (Goslin, 2018).

With the rising global implications of leagues such as eSports, crises now have the potential to reverberate beyond the damage that a player, a team, or a domestic league might typically experience. The inherent element of live-stream- ing and Twitch viewing puts players and fans in a new dynamic in which crises can impact global audiences like never before – especially as live-streaming platforms are increasingly being used in connection with violent acts (Fisher, 2017). While a player in China might not feel immediately impacted by a shoot- ing in Jacksonville, the power of live streaming minimizes the distance organiza- tions might want in a crisis. Instead, as in 228 H. ROSSKNIGHT ET AL.

the case of the Jacksonville shooting, a crisis can occur in one location but par- tici pants from all over the world can witness it and be impacted even if they are not physically there. While fans of other sports watching televised competitions might also view violence if done during a live event, eSports competitions still lack large scale security measures – something critiqued after the Jacksonville Landing shooting and something that professional leagues have put significant funding towards. The proposed model, therefore, is meant to specifically help crisis managers in eSports that arguably could be more prone to live streamed violence, but also address a gen eral need in sport crisis management of practi- tioners being unprepared to handle and address crises.

4. Are Sport Crisis Managers Ready to React?

The difficulty of being prepared is not unique to sport crisis managers, but it is some thing that challenges the larger crisis communication field. Research over the past few decades, extending across the fields of management science, crisis

communication, and public relations, attempts to clarify the complexity of what practitioners do and do not know. The gap that exists between what scholars recommend and what practi tioners do is known as the scholar-practitioner di- vide, or the rigor-relevance gap, and exists for two reasons. First, it is “due to ineffective translation of academic research into publications, frameworks, and tools that practitioners use” (Claeys & Opgenhaffen, 2016, p. 233). Second, the divide is also due to scholars producing research that is relevant, but not partic- ularly useful (Markides, 2011). This divide has been identified in public relations research as well, specifically as related to the SCCT. For example, while SCCT’s effectiveness has been demonstrated quantitatively and qualitatively, the inte- gration of crisis theory in organizations is still relatively minimal (Kim, Avery, & Lariscy, 2009; Schwarz & Pforr, 2011). Kim, Avery, & Lariscy (2009) explored the application of crisis response theory by practitioners and found that they heavily used strategies that are discouraged by the SCCT. They note that the lack of utilization of SCCT in practice represents a significant gap between theory and praxis. For example, organizations were found to heavily use a denial strategy independent of crisis type, going against recommended best practices of both the SCCT and the Image Repair Theory (Benoit, 1995, 1997). Kim, Avery, and Lariscy (2009) suggest that 18 years of research surrounding these theories has been immater ial in transitioning the SCCT into practical use. The study con- cludes that it is unreal istic to assume that all crisis responses will follow a crisis response theory; however, the significant lack of adherence suggests the gap between theory and practice is wider than preferable.

Other research, however, finds that while practitioners are aware of crisis theories, strategic and legal considerations limit practitioner ability to automati- cally use aca demic recommendations (e.g., Claeys & Opgenhaffen, 2016; Tyler, 1997). For example, crisis practitioners might know that stealing thunder is an effective crisis response and are willing to implement it, but they might not im- plement the strategy immediately, "not under all circumstances, and they need to take legal liability and

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restraints from management into consideration" (Claeys & Opgenhaffen, 2016, p. 242).

Overall crisis communication research such as this suggests a need for crisis theory integration with practical crisis responses (Kim, Avery, & Lariscy, 2009) and that even the vast amount of research is in itself a barrier that prevents the synthesis of findings into applicable guidelines (Coombs, 2014b). But what about crisis responses within the sporting industry? Are sport crisis managers ready to react?

While the authors of this research were unable to find specific research relat- ed to the qualifications of sport communication practitioners to handle high-level crises, some research suggests there could be problems. Within organizations, sport public relations (PR) practitioner’s responsibilities are becoming increas- ingly complex, but most efforts revolve around media relations or community relations (Stoldt, Pratt, & Dittmore, 2007). These clear-cut roles, however, are changing. Current trends suggest that sport public relations practitioners are now also involved in enhancing the image of their organization and creating messaging, which breaks from traditional sport PR roles (Pedersen, Laucella,

Kian, & Geurin, 2017). Furthermore, at the intercollegiate level in the United States, sport public relations practitioners are increasingly expected to manage communications rather than simply execute communication tac tics (Ruihley, Pratt, & Carpenter, 2016). And even at the professional sports level, it is unclear if PR practitioners are adequately prepared:

We can only wonder about the extent of crisis readiness among other sport organi- zations. If the majority of organizations at the highest levels of sport – such as the professional leagues and teams – are ill equipped for crises, the situation is likely even worse in minor league and smaller collegiate sport organizations in which staff members commonly assume multiple jobs. And that speculation does not even begin to take into account crisis readiness within other sectors of the industry. (Stoldt, Dittmore, Branvold, 2012, p. 198)

The need for sport communication practitioners to be prepared is further em- pha sized as the role of traditional media and social media influence how publics view sporting organizations and athletes. According to Billings, Butterworth, and Turman (2015), “sport’s ability to generate media interest is almost unparalleled” (p. 5) and social media serves as a prominent way fans connect and interact with other fans, athletes, and journalists (Sanderson, 2011). Media outlets and platforms can help cri ses grow in magnitude and Coombs (2018) argues that sport crises garner more attention than crises in other corporate areas:

The media will be much more interested in the misconduct of a player than the misconduct of corporate leadership. Because media attention is a key driver in reputational crises, the media gravitation toward athletes, especially star athletes, creates special crisis concern for sports. The media interest creates pressure for both athletes and the systems to respond. (p. 21)

Overall, this research suggests that sport public relations roles are increas- ingly including more responsibilities, but also that practitioners are unprepared to handle large crises. Being overextended, unprepared, and part of an all-en- compassing media focus, sport communication practitioners and managers must have appropriate react ive crisis responses available when timing, clarity, and appropriateness are critical. Therefore, the addition of a visual model to fa- cilitate sport communication 230 H. ROSSKNIGHT ET AL.

Figure 1. Coombs (2007b) Crisis situation model of SCCT (p. 166).

practitioners hopes to increase the use of the SCCT as sport crises become more glo bal and consequences become more severe.

5. Visual Model

While the hope is that sport crisis managers will rarely have to deal with a signif- icant crisis that threatens their organization’s reputation, crises do happen. The practitioner must be able to respond quickly to successfully navigate crisis. The need for rapid response requires tools to circumvent the reality that there is of- ten a lack of planning and little resources available to prepare a crisis response. This is where a visual model can benefit practitioners. The use of visuals has been documented to help facilitate learning (Dwyer, 1978) and to help learners process information (Paivio, 1972). According to Hodes (1998): “Images serve to reduce the information processing bur den by representing spatial information in a concise manner” (p. 133). But visuals do need some refinement and better visuals are those that include text (Hodes, 1992) and ones that are clearly la- beled (Hodes, 1998). This section, therefore, outlines the key elements of Coombs’s (2007b) SCCT model to see how it can be adapted into a step-by- step visual model that incorporates short textual directions in order to benefit learning and information processing for sport communication practitioners.

Coombs (2007b) uses a diagram to crystalize the interdependency of the var- ious parts of crisis response for the SCCT (Figure 1). The diagram illustrates the correl ation of the different elements of crisis response; however, it is limited in its ability to convey the linear structure of a crisis response in which each piece builds on the next (Coombs, 2007a). The lack of a linear relationship within the diagram is a challenge for sport crisis managers facing competing priorities, and oftentimes a lack of crisis

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Table 1. Coombs (2007b) SCCT crisis types by crisis clusters (p. 168). Victim cluster: In these crisis types, the organization is also a victim of the crisis (Weak attributions of crisis responsibility ¼ Mild reputational threat)

Natural disaster: Acts of nature damage an organization such as an earthquake. Rumor: False and damaging information about an organization is being circulated. Workplace violence: Current or former employee attacks current employees onsite. Product tampering/Malevolence: External agent causes damage to an organization.

Accidental cluster: In these crisis types, the organizational actions leading to the crisis were uninten- tional (Minimal attributions of crisis responsibility ¼ Moderate reputational threat)

Challenges: Stakeholders claim an organization is operating in an inappropriate manner. Technical-error accidents: A technology or equipment failure causes an industrial accident. Technical-error product harm: A technology or equipment failure causes a product to be re- called.

Preventable cluster: In these crisis types, the organization knowingly placed people at risk, took inappropriate actions or violated a law/regulation

(Strong attributions of crisis reponsibility ¼ Severe reputational threat) Human-error accidents: Human error causes an industrial accident. Human-error product harm: Human error causes a product to be recalled. Organizational misdeed with no injuries: Stakeholders are deceived without injury. Organizational misdeed management misconduct: Laws or regulations are violated by manage- ment. Organizational misdeed with injuries: Stakeholders are

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