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ABSTRACT
While women’s football (WF) experienced exponential growth after the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the drivers for building players’ personal brands (PB) remain opaque to our understanding of the sport’s image. The purpose of this research is to provide a cross-country multidimensional comparison and multi-method exploration of this process based on self-presentation and gender roles. Thus, a mixed-method approach was adopted, encompassing: (1) a content analysis of Brazilian and German elite players’ Instagram posts (n = 278); (2) in-depth interviews with national team players of both nationalities (n = 9); and (3) a survey with football fans of both countries (n = 430). The collective and embedded construction of a player’s PB as well as the global branding of WF are addressed in the discussion, contributing to the current debate surrounding athletes’ brand construction in social media, from a multi-dimensional and comparative perspective.
Acknowledgments
This paper uses primary data from Ana Costa’s master’s thesis entitled ‘Determinants of the construction of personal brands of Brazilian and German women’s’ football players on Instagram’ (2022, German Sports University Cologne). Some of the data was also used in a previous study by Costa and Hallmann (Citation2022), but with a different focus of analysis (A. Costa, and K. Hallmann, ‘Determinants of personal brand construction of national football players on Instagram’. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing 22, no. 2/4 (2022): 189-210. doi:10.1504/IJSMM.2022.124046)
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. FIFA, ‘Women’s Ranking’.
2. FIFA ‘WWC France 2019’.
3. Ferris, ‘record viewership’; Statista, ‘television audience’.
4. FIFA, ‘FIFA Women’s World Cup™ growth’.
5. FIFA, ‘WF Strategy’.
6. Ibid; IOC, ‘Gender Equality Report’.
7. FIFA, ‘WF Strategy’.
8. FIFA, ‘Women’s Ranking’.
9. FIFA, ‘Benchmarking Report’.
10. FIFA, ‘Women’s Ranking’.
11. Chadwick and Burton, ‘From Beckham to Ronaldo’.
12. Hasaan et al, ‘Athlete brand construction’.
13. Parmentier and Fischer, ‘How Athletes Build their Brand’.
14. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
15. Hasaan et al, ‘Athlete brand construction’.
16. Hearn, ‘Meat, Mask, Burden’.
17. Marwick and Boyd, ‘To See and Be Seen’, p. 141.
18. Smith and Sanderson, ‘I’m Going to Instagram It!’.
19. Ibid; Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
20. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
21. Ibid.
22. Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Female athletes’ self-representation on SM’.
23. Goffman, Presentation of self.
24. Smith and Sanderson, ‘I’m Going to Instagram It!’.
25. Bruhn, Schoenmueller, and Schäfer, ‘Are social media replacing traditional media?’.
26. Hasaan et al, ‘Athlete brand construction’.
27. Summers and Johnson, ‘More than just the media’.
28. Arai, Ko and Ross, ‘Branding players’.
29. Hasaan et al, ‘Implications of player brand’.
30. Ibid.
31. Hasaan et al, ‘Athlete brand construction’.
32. Arai,Ko and Ross, ‘Branding players’.
33. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
34. Hambrick and Kang, ‘How Professional Sports Organizations Use Pinterest’.
35. Lebel,Pegoraro and Harman, ‘Impact of Digital Culture’.
36. Miah, Sport 2.0.
37. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’; Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Athletic labour of femininity’.
38. Linklaters, ‘Sports broadcasting trends’.
39. Oxford, ‘new media’.
40. Van Dijck, ‘You have one identity’.
41. Miah, ‘Sport 2.0’.
42. Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Athletic labour of femininity’.
43. Socha and Eber-Schmid, ‘What is new media’.
44. Lebel and Danylchuk, ‘How tweet it is’.
45. Smith and Sanderson, ‘I’m Going to Instagram It!’.
46. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
47. Toffoletti and Thorpe, ‘Female athletes’ self-representation on SM’.
48. Smith and Sanderson, ‘I’m Going to Instagram It!’.
49. Globalwebindex, ‘Report’.
50. York, ‘Instagram ad sizes & specs’.
51. Cooky, Messner and Hextrum, ‘Women Play Sport, But Not on TV’; Pfister, ‘Sportswomen in German popular press’.
52. Knijnik and Souza, ‘Brazilian women in sports press’.
53. Hartmann-Tews and Rulofs, ‘Construction of gender’.
54. Ibid.
55. Knijnik and Souza, ‘Brazilian women in sports press’.
56. Toffoletti and Thorpe: ‘Athletic labour of femininity’.
57. Banet-Weiser, ‘Authentic’.
58. Miah, Sport 2.0.
59. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
60. Nielsen Sports.
61. ‘Communicating via photographs’.
62. Ibid; Lebel, Pegoraro and Harman, ‘Impact of Digital Culture’; and Toffoletti and Thorpe’:Athletic labour of femininity’.
63. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
64. Lebel,Pegoraro and Harman, ‘Impact of Digital Culture’.
65. Fink, ‘Female athletes, women’s sport, and sport media’.
66. Knijnik, ‘Femininities and masculinities.
67. Eagly, Sex differences.
68. Eagly and Wood, ‘Social role theory’.
69. Ibid.
70. Pfister, ‘Women, Football and European Integration’; Broch, ‘Intersections of Gender and National Identity’.
71. Hofstede, Culture’s consequences.
72. Jackson, ‘Legacy of G.Hofstede’; Sent and Kroese, ‘Commemorating G.Hofstede’.
73. Hofstede, Culture’s consequences, p.xix.
74. Hofstede Insights.
75. Correa da Cunha et al, measurement of cultural distance’; Sent and Kroese, ‘Commemorating G.Hofstede’.
76. Hofstede Insights.
77. Ibid.
78. Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, ‘Communicating via photographs’.
79. Gratton and Jones, Research Methods for Sports Studies.
80. Correa, Hinsley, and Zúñiga, ‘Who interacts on the Web?’.
81. Hofstede Insights.
82. IMF, ‘World Economic Outlook’.
83. Gough, ‘Revenue of the Big Five’.
84. IMF, ‘World Economic Outlook’.
85. Hofstede Insights.
86. Knijnik, ‘Femininities and masculinities’.
87. Hofstede Insights.
88. FIFA, ‘WF Survey report’.
89. FIFA, Women Ranking.
90. Hofstede Insights.
91. Hartmann-Tews and Rulofs, ‘Construction of gender’.
92. Hearn, ‘Meat, Mask, Burden’.
93. Marwick and Boyd, ‘To See and Be Seen’, p. 141.
94. FIFA, ‘Benchmarking Report’; FIFA, ‘Vision 2020–2023’.
95. Smith and Sanderson, ‘I’m Going to Instagram It!’