A cross-sectional survey of club administrator representatives from community football clubs was conducted in the state of NSW, Australia. Clubs were based in major city, regional, and rural communities.

An expert advisory group with representation from community sports clubs (senior club administrators), health promotion practitioners, implementation and behavioral scientists, and experts in organizational change informed the development of a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey, based on previously implemented surveys in sports clubs and other community settings [14,39]. The CATI was piloted on a subsample of community football club administrator representatives to ensure survey language and length was appropriate. Surveys were conducted by trained interviewers in the Australian winter football season (June-August) of 2015. The average length of the survey was 40 minutes.

Statistical analyses were conducted in SAS version 9.3 statistical software (SAS Institute Inc). Clubs were grouped by football code (Rugby League, Rugby Union, Soccer/Association football, and Australian Rules Football), and classified according to geographical location (major city or inner regional/outer regional) using the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia score (ARIA) and size (small [≤10 teams] or large [>10 teams]). All statistical tests were 2-tailed with an alpha of 0.05.

For aim 1, simple descriptive statistics were used to describe sports club administrators’ access to and use of the Web and electronic devices to undertake club tasks. For aim 2, similar to other TAM studies [39,42], the mean score and standard deviation for each TAM construct was calculated. The internal consistency of each TAM construct was assessed using Cronbach alpha.

For aim 3, again similar to other TAM studies [39,42], the 3 TAM constructs were dichotomized into a score of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5.9 (slightly agree) or 6 (agree) to 7 (strongly agree). By choosing this cut-point, the results allow for a clinically meaningful interpretation, as the median score of the constructs were used. Additionally, this dichotomized score differentiates between those who disagree or only slightly agree to those who have full to strong agreement with the items examined within the TAM constructs. Fisher’s exact test was used to test the significance of association between club administrator intention to use the Web-based program (1.0-5.9 [low intention] vs 6.0-7.0 [high intention]), club geographic location, size, administrator age (≤50 years vs >50 years), use of electronic device for club tasks (≥1 device vs no devices), access to the Internet when undertaking club tasks (yes vs no), perceived ease of use of the Web-based support program (construct mean score dichotomized: 1.0-5.9 [low perceived ease of use] vs 6.0-7.0 [high perceived ease of use]), and perceived usefulness of the Web-based support program (construct mean score dichotomized: 1.0-5.9 [low perceived usefulness] vs 6.0-7.0 [high perceived usefulness]). For aim 4, descriptive statistics were used to summarize the features of a Web-based support program that sports clubs administrators agreed or strongly agreed that they would find useful to support implementation of recommended alcohol management policies.

Ethics approval was obtained from The University of Newcastle, Human Research Ethics Committee (H-2008-0432).

A total of 73 community sporting clubs were approached to participate in the study, of which 63 consented to participate (86%). Of these 63, 17 were ineligible and 46 completed the survey (73% of eligible). Of the participating clubs, the largest proportion were Rugby League clubs (15/46, 33%) and Rugby Union clubs (14/46, 30%), the majority of clubs (38/43, 88%) were located in major cities, and just over half the sample (24/46, 53%) was classified as large clubs. Most club administrator representatives held the role of club president (15/46, 33%) or secretary (14/46, 30%) and were male (39/46, 85%), with a mean age of 48 years and a mean number of 4.3 years in that position (Table 1).

Most (98%) football club administrators reported current use of electronic devices for club-related tasks and all reported having access to the Web when undertaking these tasks. The proportion of clubs that reported undertaking specific tasks using electronic devices is reported in Table 2.

Table 3 presents the mean score and standard deviation for each individual TAM question and overall for each of the 3 TAM constructs. Internal consistency for each construct was high, with a Cronbach alpha score of >0.9 for each of the 3 TAM constructs. For all 11 items within the TAM domains club administrators had high scores, with a mean score of 5.83 or greater (max 7) for all items. The perceived usefulness of a Web-based program to help sports clubs implement recommended alcohol management policies was high; with an overall mean construct score of 6.17 (SD 0.85). Similarly, the perceived ease of use (construct mean 6.00, SD 0.99) and intention to use such a Web-based support program were high (construct mean 6.25, SD 0.87). A total of 89% of clubs reported a high behavioral intention to use a Web-based alcohol management program.

Table 4 presents the results of tests of association between club and administrator characteristics and perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived intention to use a Web-based program to support implementation of alcohol management policies. The characteristics that were found to be positively associated with high intention to use a Web-based alcohol management program were perceived ease of use (P=.02) and perceived usefulness of the program (P=.03). Club size was found to be positively significantly associated with high intention to use such a program (P=.02).

Overall, there was a high level of agreement regarding the usefulness of each of the proposed program features. All club administrators agreed or strongly agreed that the ability to complete program requirements within their own time would be a useful feature. Greater than 90% of club administrators agreed or strongly agreed that it would be useful for the program to enable completion of program accreditation assessment and monitoring online (96%), develop tailored action plans (96%), send email reminders and prompts to complete actions (96%), provide access to support tools and resources (96%), include program support (email or live chat) (94%), and provide program-related peer comparison (91%). A high level of support was evident for access to videos or interactive activities for training and education (83%), an ability to communicate with club members by email (78%), and an ability to communicate with other sports clubs in the program (70%).

This is the first study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a Web-based program to support the implementation of alcohol management policies by community sports clubs. There was universal access to the Web and use of electronic devices when undertaking club-related tasks among clubs. The vast majority (89%) of club administrators reported high behavioral intention to use a Web-based program to support their club’s implementation of recommended alcohol management policies. Furthermore, both perceived usefulness of a Web-based alcohol management program and its perceived ease of use were positively associated with intended use. The findings suggest that there is considerable potential for a Web-based program to support sports clubs in the implementation of recommended alcohol management policies and in doing so to make a contribution to reducing alcohol-related harm in this setting and the community at large.

The study findings are comparable to similar studies conducted in other settings. For example, high intention to use Web-based programs to support implementation of health-related programs have been reported in childcare services [39], health care centers [43], and other community settings [42]. Furthermore, significant associations between perceived ease of use or perceived usefulness of Web-based programs with their intended use has been consistently reported across settings [37,39,43]. To ensure a high level of perceived ease of use and usefulness, such findings underscore the importance of program features designed to address barriers to engagement (eg, assimilation and personalization reduction) [27,44] and the importance of formative research with end-users to ensure the development of useful programs that meet their needs.

In this study, larger clubs had a significantly higher level of intended program use (100%) compared to smaller clubs (76%). This may be due to greater complexity of managing alcohol use in larger clubs, requiring greater workforce, resources, and infrastructure to manage. Potentially, the use of Web-based programs to coordinate the implementation of alcohol management policies in these settings may be perceived as of greater benefit. Similarly, as in licensed venues, sports clubs experience a high number of alcohol-related incidents [45,46], Web-based support to reduce such alcohol-related harm may be more salient among administrators of larger clubs. Nonetheless, the findings suggest that Web-based support may be less effective in supporting improvements in alcohol management in smaller clubs. Future research to identify alternate and adjunctive models of support for such clubs appears warranted.

The results of this study should be considered with respect to its strengths and limitations. The strengths of this study include the application of a validated tool [40] to assess intended use of a hypothetical Web-based program, strong internal consistency across TAM constructs, and complete data for all participants. On the other hand, while club administrators are those most likely to be coordinating and overseeing the introduction of a Web-based program to support the implementation of recommended alcohol management policy, it is possible that they may not be representative of all individuals involved with clubs that may at times use such a program, such as volunteers and other staff. Clubs in this study were randomized into either the intervention or control arm of a face-to-face alcohol management trial between 2009 and 2012 [14], thus some of the clubs would have received intensive intervention support throughout this time. Therefore, it should be noted that previous intervention clubs within this group may be more likely to find it feasible and acceptable to use a Web-based program to support alcohol policy implementation. In addition, findings from this study may not be able to be generalized to groups outside of the study sample, such as other sporting codes or other community organizations. Finally, although there is empirical evidence [35] to show that intended use of a program is linked to actual use, actual rates of use of a Web-based program to support the implementation of recommended alcohol management policies among participants in this setting has not been reported.

Further studies are required to determine if sports clubs will actually use such a program if it existed and to show whether such a program has the intended effect of supporting clubs to implement recommended alcohol management policies.