Sport Club Websites Condition : Marketing Oriented Research

The purpose of this study was to determine Turkish Basketball First Division clubs’ Internet web sites condition according to marketing activities. Analytical Hierarchy Method (AHM) was used to evaluate marketing activities of the clubs’ on their official web-sites. The method was used in solving of multi dimensional problems, in observing the alternatives and evaluating the performances. The measures are in a row: side product, ticket, sponsors, funs, news, and general information and usage elements. As the purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the web sites of the clubs which were built for internet marketing, it was convenient to use the AHM. Qualitative reserch method scanning model was used for gathering data. 8 teams and 7 measures were taken in to consideration for creating the decision matris in the size of 8x7. R conclusion vektor in the statement # 17 is obtained by the multiplation of the values on the matris and W dominancy vektor between measures in statement # 1. Consistency rate is in value of (CR<0.10) 0.029 for the measures topics. As result, it was firstly determined that clubs have to give a place to the news on their Web sites and secondly the easy usage of Web sites’ is too important to be effective when sport clubs are selling the merchandise via Internet. The clubs need to consider strategic and use their websites as marketing, public relation and promotiong tool. So, website is important for the institutional structure also.


Introduction
A number of businesses emerged that facilitated the buying and selling of advertising space on web pages.Entities that operated web portals settled on the traditional "free-tv" model: generate traffic by giving away the content and sell that traffic to advertisers (wikipedia.org, 2013).E-marketing means using digital technologies to help sell your goods or services.These technologies are a valuable complement to traditional marketing methods whatever the size of your company or your business model (dotcomegypt.com, 2013).
Nowadays there is much more business activity runs via internet such as bank operations, cinema and sport events tickets sales, or order a meal.Sport is one of the sector uses the internet as a market and connection tool with the customer or fans.Sports clubs are trying to increase their revenues via internet marketing like other servis sector enterprices.On the other hand websites are using for some social network, public relation activity or media center.Some big sport organizations and clubs' internet marketing strategies in USA and Europe were good exemple for the organizations and clubs in the other countries.Now almost all sport federations, clubs and organizations are exist on the internet.
The purpose of this study was to determine Turkish Basketball First Division clubs' Internet web sites condition according to marketing activities.In the content of this study, while we are identifying the measurments, we used the coding schema of Beech, Chadwick and Tapp (2000 a: 56) which is used in English Premier League in the season of 1998/1999.main groups.The first of this is the product information about souveniers and jerseys.The second one is ticket sales information and online ticket sales transactions.The third one is the sponsors.The forums and online chats which are bringing together the funs of the clubs are forming the fourth group.The fifth group includes current news.
The measure which has the general information about the club is in the sixth group.The last one includes the usage of the site and reachability.The structure of the paper was firstly figuring out the measurements then use the data collection tools, analize the data and find the results.I tried to show importance of the internet and the strategic website usage with the structure.

Internet and Improvement
Internet was an important tool in army and aducation about fifty years ago.But it hasn't providence that internet will be use not only army and education purpose but also for business purpose.Nowadays every body is sure about that user of the internet and internet fast grooving will be continue.Therefore internet will be powerfull in the business (Haşiloğlu, 1999).Internet became commercial and usage widespread with softwares which created in nineties.Now internet is a network person or institution could connect any time (Mucuk, 2001).Marketing on the internet carry out with e-mail and webside.Webside is a chep way for promoting and distribution as advertising and marketing.But this is not the certain presentation in the marketing strategies.Also in spite of the excessive internet usage there are some problems like security, which is bordering efficiency in marketing (Angelides, 1997).
Traditional business moved to the websides because of the increasing number and type of commercial activity in this area.From the basis of trade marketing activities began to take place on the internet and caused to a new business function which calls marketing on the internet.Today, people are now learning all characteristics of the goods or services they want without leaving the house.Moreover, by making comparison they can buy a product online.Similarly, businesses can also procure all kind of needs (Kırcova, 2005 Internet usage is rapidly increasing in all sectors.Businesses are using the internet for delivering their product, service or giving institutional information to the customer, also to communicate them and sale the products.Football clubs, who realize importance and the financial and institutional benefits of the internet used by businesses are slowly begun to use the internet.Some clubs are using the internet as a reputation tool, some for communication, some uses more marketing focus approach (Beech, Chadwick, Tapp, 2000).

Marketing Measures of Sports Clubs
The main targets of marketing programmes are to increase the number of visitors to the web sites of clubs.It is easier to transform the visits in to sales just because of the interactive characteristics of internet.Even online bookstore, Amazon, which is the most succesful internet online bookshop in online business, is shown as the brand equality just because the consumer traffic happened on web site and which provides extra added value.
The web site traffic needed to analyse to transform the visits in to sales.Any traditional media environment can not offer the measurement oppurtunities which internet offers (Kırcova, 2005:2).
Even there is no consensus on e-measuements which are used to improve Internet business model, it is apparent that internet is used for the same target with different names.The reason why there is not a standard e-measurement definition is that the models continuosuly find new measures and new fields of measurments.In addition to that, the results which are important for different models can be one of the reasons for why there is no consensus (Kırcova, 2005: 7).
With the help of membership pages, clubs can have regular communication and personal information bout their prospective consumers Ford (2005: 22).Thanks to this, clubs can use databases to improve their marketing efforts and also can make private publicity ticket sales information and fun loyalty increasing.

The Purpose of the Study
Internet is a strong media to reach the resources like sponsorships and licensed product sales which are important revenue sources conducting marketing actives by means of internet (Thomas, 1998: 40).
The purpose of this study was to determine Turkish Basketball First Division clubs' e-marketing conditions via Internet web sites.With the results we gain from this study, we assumed that the study will give a light to the marketing efforts of clubs on internet settings.

The Content and Restrictions
The study consists of the evaluation of the internet sites of the basketball clubs who competed in the first division basketball league in the last five years.In the study, the internet pages of the clubs are evaluated in a given time.Evaluation process of marketing in internet and sports marketing is analyzed with using analytical hyerarchy method.
Research is conducted between 1 July and 30 July 2010.After the evaluation process there could be some changes in the pages of the clubs.

The Questions
There are three research questions identified to reach the expected answers.
1) Which measures that are used in the research are better in the marketing of the clubs on internet?
2) Is the so called "the three bigs" of Turkish sports clubs' (Besiktas, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce) dominance, also valid in internet marketing just as the case is true in every other field?
3) In sports clubs' internet marketing, what is the releation between the most dominant measure and the most dominant club?

Study Method
In the evaluation process of the sports clubs' internet pages, the Analytical Hyerarchy Method are used which is developed by Saaty (1977).This method is used in solving of multi dimensional problems, in observing the alternatives and evaluating the performances.(Süer, 1993: 86-87) The most important characteristics of the method are that the researchers can include their objective and subjective thoughts in to the decision process.
Because the method is very effective in many decision problems it is widely used in marketing, finance, education, economy, medicine and in the field of sports for making reserches (Kuruuzum and Atsan, 2001: 84-85).The AHP is a technique for considering data or information about a decision in a systematic manner.The computational aspects of AHP involve several steps as outlined by Saaty (1988).
As the purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of the web sites of the clubs which are built for internet marketing, it is convenient to use the Analitical hyerarchy method.On the other hand, it is also convenient, with the study, just because we use the comparisons of the internet sites of different clubs using this method.
In studies in which this method has been used the main objective is to evaluate the performance and with this method it is pointed out that it will decrease the subjectivity resulted by the values of the researcher who does the evalutaion (Yaralioglu, 2001: 129).
Diagonal components (when the factors compared with itself i=j) of compare matris was measured by number 1.
Evaluators gives number when compare the factors according to table 2. They need to give numbers for above factors of the diagonal value which is 1, and need to use second formula for belong factors.
To find the consistency of the vector w i superiority, biggest eigenvalue () of the A matrix compute Another value needed to calculating consistency ratio (CR) is random index (RI).Random Index values determined by n value and consisting with fixed numbers are shown in table 1. Superiority and consistency of the vector ratio calculation, calculated for the entire hierarchical structure and mxn size DW decision matrix created with mx1 size superiority vectors.To reach final R vector following formula was used.

R=DW×W
The measures are in a row: side product, ticket, sponsors, funs, news, and general information and usage elements.Under the title of side products there are the souvenirs and the sportive products of the clubs licensed by the clubs.Even if the clubs are not making the online selling of these products, they are giving wide variety of information about the products and they are directing the consumers to the selling points.Periodical magazines of the clubs and the licensed credit cards are also evalutated under the title of side products.
The ticket sales information and the online selling is consisting the ticket measure.The transactions while buying the tickets, all the advantages given with online selling of the tickets, the discounts made about the combined ticket selling and answering all the questions about the ticket selling is evaluated under this title.About the sponsors, the existence of the sponsors of the clubs and the displaying of the sponsors in the sites are evaluated.
The applications for the fans, membership systems and chat possibities are considered under the fun measure, forums are bringing fans together and it enables them to communicate with each other and with this way provides the information flow.At the same time, the fans who are communicating in the forums are considered to increase the team loyalty and with this way the likelyhood of them to follow the marketing activities of the clubs as a consumer.With the membership service fans are informed about the latest news and informations about the products and services clubs are offering by means of having information to their emails.The chat possibilities with the athetes are also a factor increasing the satisfaction of the fans.
The settings in which the clubs are mentioning about the lates developments and the currents news are evalutated under the news title.The information got by the fans about the latest developments and their arrangements between themselves about the latest developments constituting and important subject for the clubs are mentioned.For this aim, effective usage of the web sites on the subject of news broadcasting is an important issue.Club and players' informations, club history information, game schedules are evalutated in general info title.Lastly the user friendliness of the sites and reachability are evaluated under the title of usage measure.For gathering data from the sports clubs' web sites, qualitative reserch method scanning model is used.Data is gathered with the study group consiting of five people; in the selection of the group members; athletes, marketing people, potential consumer or fans taken into consideration.First of all, the method is explained to all the group members and also the explanations are given in a written way.The 1-9 preference scala is shown in table 3. The working group members are required to evaluate every title for 8 clubs with comparing every other two clubs for the comparisons.The members are encouraged to ask the points in which there are unclear parts during the evalutaion process.With this way, it had been gueranteed that all the members of the study group have the good commend of understanding about the process.
Finally, by taking the harmonical median of the datas gained by the group members the final tables are constructed and the analytical hyerachy method is conducted on this tables.Dominancy vektor and concistency ratio calculation is calculated for the whole hyerarcichal structure and R conclusion vektor is obtained.İn the reverse comparisions the reverse of importance is taken in to consideration

Forming of the Comperative Ascendance Dominancy Matrixes
The following findings in table 4 gives answer to first question which is "Which measures that are used in the research are better in the marketing of the clubs on internet?"Data which are representing the relevant importance of every single measure from the point of contribution about reaching the target are formed by using the 1-9 selection scala which is shown in table 3  The matris A is consisting of the data from the table 4 which is seen in the expression 1, first column of the matris A is representing "side product", second column is representing "ticket", third column is representing "sponsors" fourth column is representing "fans", fifth colunm is "news" sixth column is representing "general info" and the seventh column is is representing "usage" values.Similarly, first line of the matris A is representing "side product", second line is representing "ticket", third line is representing "sponsors" fourth line is representing "fans", fifth line is "news" sixth line is representing "general info" and the seventh line is is representing "usage" values.With mutually comparing the column and line values of the matris, the double dominance between measures values is identified.When a measure is compared by itself, the value is 1, so the diagonal elements of the matris will be 1, after the evaluation of the measures the consistency rate is in value of (CR) 0.029.Because this rate is less than 0,10, the evaluation is considered as consistent.
When we analyze the evaluation of the focus group members as a percentage, we found these importance rates: "side product" 13.1%, "ticket" 14.3%, "sponsors" 4.2%, "fans" 10%, "news" 33.5%, "general info" 8.2% and "usage" 8.2%.With these results the news measure seems like the most important measure with the rate of 33.5%.At the same time, this data is the answer of the first question of the research which is: "which measure of the internet sites of the clubs is most dominant about the internet marketing?" After this phase, all the clubs have to be evaluated seperatly for every other measure and the answers tried to find following questions.
"Is the so called "the three bigs" of Turkish sports clubs' (Besiktas, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce) dominance, also valid in internet marketing just as the case is true in every other field?" "In sports clubs' internet marketing, what is the releation between the most dominant measure and the most dominant club?" For this aim, firstly side product measure has gone under evaluation.With the result of the double comperative dominancy values' harmonical mean identified by the members of focus group side product measures cross clubs dominancy values are obtained in Table 5. Ticket measure is taking the third place on the importance ranking with 14.3%.Because of the consistency rate which is taken from dominancy vektor is (CR) 0,000 the matris values are consistent.The ticket measure dominancy ranking is: Banvit 32%, Darussafaka 25%, Galatasaray 9%, Anadolu Efes and Turk Telekom is 8%, Besiktas 7%, Fenerbahce 6% and Karsiyaka 5%.
Sponsors measure is in the last place when the marketing activities of the clubs are evaluated with the percantage of 4.2%.The mutual comparison when the sponsors' numbers and the identification of the sponsors' measures can be seen with seventh expression and the dominancy vektor can be seen in the eight expressions.The consistency rate is (CR) 0,074 the values are consistent.Sponsor measure dominancy ranking is: Darussafaka 29%, Banvit 22%, Anadolu Efes 14%, Turk Telekom 9%, Fenerbahce ve Besiktas is 8% and Karsiyaka is 4%.

The Formation of the Decision Matris
For creating the decision matris in the size of 8x7, 8 teams and 7 measures were taken in to consideration.R conclusion vektor in the statement # 17 is obtained by the multiplation of the values on the matris and w dominancy vektor between measures in statement # 1.
In the matris in which the efficiency of the internet sites is evaluated when the dominancy rank is made, it is seen that Banvit is in the first place again like many other measures.The rest of the teams are ranked with: Darüşşafaka 22%, Anadolu Efes 17%, and Türk Telokom 13%.These data also are the answer of the second research question.The three big teams of Turkish Baketball league with the percentage of 7% are far behind the other teams.About the last research question, it is seen that Banvit is in the first place about the general evaluation but in the third place about the news measure.

Discussion
After the general evaluation with the conclusions of the study, the following results are obtained.After the comparison of the measures among themselves, it is seen that news measure is in the first place in importance.
The conclusion of usage measure in the second place shows that people give importance to the usage friendliness of the internet sites about visiting the pages of the clubs.
With the results, it is seen that product selling, and product information and also ticket info and ticket selling has less importance value than the news and usage measures.When it is considered that people are sensitive about buying products from internet because of security reasons, this is an expected result that it has lower importance value.
The fan measures dominancy is identified as 10%.This result shows that forums, online chat, membership like subjects are important but the priority of the importence is given to current news and how effective the people can use the pages of the Professional basketball teams.The importance of general info like history, player and club info, fixture and communication infos importance is 8.2%.
According to Shank (2005), most positive side of the internet is similarities between profile of the internet users and sport consumers.Typical internet users' definition is between 18-34 years old and educated men who want entertainmet.Famus TV channel ESPN's internet websides which is www.espn.comvisitors definations are 94% men, 47% single and 66% 18-34 years old people.So, the basketball clubs need to avare of this knowledge and use their websides as communication tool.Also these features of the websides could be chance for the clubs to find sponsors who want to advertise their product.
Even though it is very important that a club has sponsors about revenue generation, the identicifation of the sponsors and the number of sponsors are having the 4.2% importance in the ranking.
The fact that the numbers of the sponsors are very small in generale may be a sign of the lower importance the clubs are giving to this matter.It should be considered that it is very beneficial to use the promotion and publicity benefits of internet connected to sponsors.
The reason why the sponsorship measure had been evaluated by the decision makers as the least important measure is naturally caused by the information about sponsors coming after all the other measures but because the potential sponsors can use the internet sites of the teams as easy as the funs, the information in this part is very curicial.The potential sponsor firms, when the sponsorship deal has started, want to see the amount of reach of their names to the site users with looking at these criteria.
According to final conclusion vektor R; When the Turkish Basketball League teams' internet sites are evaluated, Banvit and Darüşşafaka clubs effect are very close to each other, Anadolu Efes, Turk Telekom, Galatasaray, Besiktas, Fenerbahce and Karsiyaka if following these teams.
According to the results, the first team coming in to the minds in Turkish Basketball, Anadolu Efes's position in the third place in the evaluation shows that Anadolu Efes cannot use its strenght in internet settings.When we consider the dominancy of the "3 bigs" about Turkish football, Beşiktaş, Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe cannot use their dominancy in the internet marketing domain as much as the smaller clubs in basketball league.
Some of the clubs have product selling stores and they are advertising their products in the internet pages.For example, Fenerbahçe clubs' products are being sold in the internet site of www.fenermarket.com.This page is prepared for selling of the Fenerbahce products in Turkey and in abroad.As it is mentioned in the page of the club, these pages' main aim is to present the products of the club to the fans with increased quality standarts.We can foresee that when the usage of the internet is getting easier and easier, the number of the fans using these sites will increase.
Marketing activities conducted via the web pages are overlap with the marketing science features.For instance, marketing via internet is a direct marketing way.Therefore suggestion of working with expert in the marketing area principle is valid in the online marketing too (Dagli Ekmekçi, 2007).
Importance about the currency of the sports clubs makes the websites of the sports clubs more frequently visited.
And the more fans are visiting the sites the more succesful the internet sites will be about orienting the marketing efforts of the clubs by means of internet.After the news measure second most important measure is identified as the usage friendlyness.The easy usage of the sites will affect the clubs ability to reach their marketing goals more effectively.
According to Thomas (1998), futbol also is popular sport getting bigger and bigger every day.This is the reason that size of the football economy growed importantly.But upsizing of the football economy also increased their expense.Therefore they needed to find other revenue resources.In this case internet is usefull tool that clubs can reach to the some sponsors and they can sell licenced merchandise.In this context, the Internet, offers the opportunity to perform a more direct marketing activities of football clubs.In addition, to carry out the marketing activities via the internet is quick and economical.
On the other hand, according to Ford (2005), the clubs can have a regular communication and personal informations with their fans who are potential customers with membership web pages.In this way, they can establish databases to make more efficient use of marketing activities.They can sell more things via web pages like tickets.
Ticket sales are seen major income of the clubs in the sport economy.Especially season ticket method gives opportunity to get money for transfers before the season.35-45% of the budget amount of teams in the NBA comes from ticket sales.This amount in England premier soccer league is 37% annually.Mega sport events' (Olympics, world championships etc.) largest portion of the revenues comes from TV rights, sponsors and ticket sales (Shanwald, 2005).
The marketing efforts made through web pages are consistent with marketing sciences characteristics perfectly.For example, internet marketing can be considered as one of the ways of direct marketing.For this reason, a marketing rule which is working with skillful people who are efficent in their positions is also important about this matter here.
The charming power of the designs of the websites is also important on the time spent by the fans and at the same time the frequency of the site visitings.For this reason, the clubs have to consider all these factors to make it possible that the fans are spending more time on internet sites.
It has been quite fast raised Internet using areas with fast growing usage of Internet.Marketing becomes first of those areas.Sports marketing subject exists especially in last fifteen years in Turkey.A number of target markets of sports marketers are Internet users in the same time.Therefore Internet covers an important place on sports marketing (Dagli Ekmekci, 2007).
Clubs' main target consumers are mostly formed by the young generations and the inclination of the youth to internet is getting more and more increasing day by day.When this fact is considered the importance of internet on sports marketing is increasing.
This research will shed light on the future strategic internet marketing activities.I believe that future works, management, marketing and the communications with customers will be online via internet.Therefore websites will be vital strategic management tools.Also websites will be field of marketing area which all kind of activities such as selling, promoting, bartering or sharing.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Sports clubs web page measurements

Table 1 .
Random index data CR) value is determined by the following formula.If the CR value bigger then 0.10, pairwise comparison matrix is repeated.

Table 2 .
Group members' working characteristics

Table 3 .
Analytic hierarchy method 1-9 scala by the focus group members.With the results of the comperative dominancy values' harmonical mean which is identified by focus group members in table 4 the dominancy values are obtained.