Managing a home court transition: The case of the New Zealand Breakers

This case study involving the New Zealand Breakers basketball team explores key factors relating to the home venues of sport teams. The case study is suitable for use in a variety of undergraduate courses such as sport management, sport marketing, and facility management. The New Zealand Breakers have two multi-purpose facilities within Auckland where home basketball games can viably be staged. Growing ticket demand and the opportunities associated with the larger and more modern of the two facility options have necessitated strategic thinking and decision making from Breakers’ management. They have not yet made a permanent move, but have chosen instead to move to the new facility gradually. There are several aspects of the ongoing transition period that require careful management to ensure the long-term success of the franchise. The Breakers’ management of the ongoing decision and transition are well-grounded in management, marketing, and facility management literature. As students consider the case, they will have the opportunity to think critically and consider theory in the context of a real professional sport franchise. A variety of questions and references are provided in the teaching note that can be used in conjunction with the implementation of the case study.     

If you build it,will they come?: A case study of digital spaces and brand in the National Basketball Association

This case addresses the relationship between sport and digital spaces by introducing students to strategic marketing processes related to developing a team-managed fan website. The case was created in conjunction with three former members of the Cleveland Cavaliers who helped create www.cavfanatic.com, the official fan site of the team. Key areas addressed within the case study are brand development, brand communication, and brand extension. The case follows a new hire, Natalie, as she joins the new media team of www.cavfanatic.com. The sport marketers she works with review the development of the website and provide information on the strategic development process they went through. In the end, Natalie is charged with looking forward and developing further strategies to continue to engage the Cavaliers fans and to develop the CavFanatic brand.     

An unacceptable status quo: A sport development case study of swimming and drownings

This case study illustrates the complexity of sport development decision-making and specifically highlights the public health concern of drowning disparities in the United States. Using sport development research to demonstrate the linkage between empirical study and practice, students must consider various factors for the most effective approach to attract and retain participants involved in a local swimming program. The parks and recreation department director, Bob Shell, is tasked with determining the best program structure based on the sets of sport development proposals he received from a member of the management staff. To further ensure students are presented with a realistic scenario, this case offers a combination of fictional and real life events from an innovative swimming program in Memphis, Tennessee. Students must critically evaluate not only sport development practices and the merits of the swimming program, but other organizational partnerships that may be formed in the community. Therefore, students are placed in a decision-making role that is common to managers in many sport contexts beyond swimming. This case study is appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate sport management courses, with specific application to sport development, policy and governance, strategic management, and recreation or leisure topics.     

How can Country-of-Origin image be leveraged to create global sporting goods brands?

While much marketing research has focused on brand creation and management, less is known about the creation of sport brands. This paper complements the stakeholder model of branding and brand creation, which highlights the role of a firm's stakeholders in the analysis of brands, by including country-specific factors based on location and Country-of-Origin (CoO). Using a sample of innovative New Zealand-based firms, our qualitative study uses a comparative case method in two subsector settings to investigate how they have built outdoor sport brands based on that country's particular country-specific factors. We show how firms are able to leverage New Zealand's strong sport product category-country associations to create brand value. Our findings confirm that CoO image together with sport product category-country associations enables the creation of brands in sport product categories. Our paper contributes to theory and practice by extending understanding of brand creation by demonstrating the importance of location and product category. Further research directions are suggested.     

论城市体育品牌塑造

体育运动与城市发展有着密不可分的联系,城市体育品牌塑造是经营城市理念的延伸,是提高城市竞争力的有效途径。本文以品牌塑造理论为基础,从城市体育品牌及其塑造的涵义、过程和策略三个方面论述了城市体育品牌塑造。研究表明:城市体育品牌塑造包括内外部环境考察、城市体育品牌的定位、设计、营销和管理五个环节,可采取优化城市体育品牌塑造环境,成立城市体育品牌塑造管理机构,培养城市体育品牌管理专业人才,推广和传播城市体育文化四个方面的塑造策略。     

Sport event sponsorship management from the sponsee’s perspective

Sponsorship plays a critical role in the delivery of major sport events. To date, the majority of sponsorship research has focused on the sponsors’ perspective or consumer responses. Drawing upon brand alliance literature and relationship marketing theory, this paper discusses learnings from the management of sponsor-sponsee relationships at a major sport event. We provide insights from the sponsee (i.e., the event) perspective: this is intended to further our understanding of relationship management in the context of event sponsorship, as well as providing practical information for both event industry and sport industry practitioners. This case study produced three main findings in terms of relational effectiveness: clear and compatible strategy, development of positive inter-organisational culture and inter-personal relationships, and stability. Each of these attributes are key to successful and effective sponsorship management.     

中国举办大型体育赛事存在的主要问题、原因与对策

研究中国举办大型体育赛事存在问题的目的在于分析存在问题的原因,找出解决问题的对策,为大型体育赛事的可持续发展和中国今后举办体育赛事提供可资借鉴的理论依据。存在的主要问题:1、夸大体育赛事对社会的影响,包括政治、经济和文化等方面的影响。2、政府对举办赛事大量投入,包括各种隐性支出。3、体育赛事市场营销收入不高。4、动用过多的人力参加赛事组织工作。5、安保方面投入大量的人力、物力和财力,影响举办城市市民和观众的日常生活。6、大量体育场馆赛后闲置,增加赛事组织者和举办城市的经济负担。解决存在问题的对策:1、客观评价赛事对举办城市的社会影响,把办好体育赛事放到首位。2、加强政府对赛事的政策性支持,增加政府对赛事支出的透明度,减少隐性支出。3、建立专业化的市场营销团队,打造赛事品牌,增加赛事的收入。4、提升赛事的管理水平,核定工作岗位,控制各方面工作人员数量。5、加强对安保工作的科学化管理,赛事安全与举办城市市民和观众在正常环境中生活和观赛同步。6、从观念到行动,提高对比赛场馆赛后利用率的重视程度。     

Introducing branded communities in sport for building strong brand relations in social media

Brand communities have become an important aspect for brand management in social media. However, many brands have failed to establish a successful online brand community. In this study, we introduce branded communities as an alternative concept to brand communities. In contrast to brand communities, a branded community does not revolve around a specific (sport) brand, but around any interest or need. However, a specific brand makes use of the community for marketing purposes by sponsoring or operating the community. We emphasize the suitability of sport as an interest around which branded communities can be built as well as links of branded communities to sport sponsorship. We empirically studied the factors which influence the success of this phenomenon and the effects of operating or sponsoring such a community for a brand by using an online survey (N = 501) of members of a branded online community relating to football. The results demonstrate the relevance of topic interest (i.e., identification and involvement with football) and the quality of the community as determinants of interest in and loyalty towards a branded community. The brand owner benefits from an increase in brand loyalty for those community members who are aware of the brand as the operator of the community, whereby awareness of this sponsorship does not decrease loyalty towards the community. Our research contributes to previous knowledge by proving that branded communities are both an effective means for companies to deploy sponsorship and branding strategies in social media and provide a promising opportunity for sport managers to generate value.     

Navigating the storm: A counterproductive work behavior and leadership case study in a Division I FBS School

The “Navigating the storm” case study is positioned in the context of a North American, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I FBS marketing department. The case study scenario revolves around Steve, an ambitious graduate assistant (GA) who was recently promoted to the Marketing and Promotions Game Day Director, as he interacts with his team of employees and prepares for the first home football game of the season. This personnel management case study is centered on the interaction of six important areas: transformational leadership and implementing a leadership vision, counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), organizational justice perceptions, equity theory, leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, and hiring processes. In reading this case study, answering the provided questions, and engaging in the suggested teaching activities, sport management students should develop an applied understanding of how these six areas come together to impact human performance in a sport industry job setting.     

Branding and positioning Australian rules football for participation growth in North America

Founded in 1996, the United States Australian Football League is a participation-based, amateur league that has the goal of increasing awareness, interest and participation in the sport of Australian rules football in the United States. The league has encountered challenges in creating awareness of, and therefore building participation in the sport. Lack of exposure and awareness of the sport in the United States sport marketplace is a fundamental barrier to growing participation. The USAFL has experienced difficulties in building participation because there is limited awareness and knowledge of the sport and league in the US, in addition to also a general confusion about, and lack of understanding of the sport of Australian rules football. These challenges have hindered the growth of the game in the US. The case provides students with the opportunity to consider the challenges inherent in positioning a sport in a foreign context. The case invites students to consider issues of creating awareness of a sport and branding it from the perspective of the President of the USAFL (an Australian ex-patriot) and a fellow board member (an American citizen). By comparing and contrasting the perspectives of an individual from the sport's country of origin (where the sport is immensely popular), and an individual from the sport's new cultural context encourages students to critically challenge assumptions about the popularity of sports, and explore strategies that may more effectively brand and position a sport within a new cultural context.     

Examining the antecedents of sport team brand equity: A dual-identification perspective

Although the practice of building brand equity in the context of professional sport teams is popular, the formation of sport team brand equity in the sport marketing literature is still relatively unknown and incompletely understood. In this study, the authors propose a dual-identification model to examine the formation of sport team brand equity in an Asia-based professional team sport setting. Baseball fans (N = 548) of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan participated in the self-administered survey. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model analysis revealed that marketplace characteristics (including group experience, salient experience, team history, and fan rituals) and brand-identified-related factors (including self-congruity and team brand prestige) were significantly related to identification with sport team and identification with sport team brand, respectively. In turn, both identification with sport team and identification with sport team brand were significant predictors of sport team brand equity. These findings highlight the importance of studying a dual-identification model in order to understand how sport team brand equity forms and suggest implications for sport team managers.     

‘What about the community impact?’: The Corpus Christi ‘hook’

This case study draws on theory in the following areas (1) public financing of sport facilities and in particular, the method of bonds and the impact on and involvement of local taxpayers, (2) community impact of minor league sport teams, and (3) leveraging of sport teams and facilities. This case is centered on Justin Drew, the president of the Corpus Christi Hooks, who must work with city officials to ensure that his minor league baseball team does not lose local support. The city of Corpus Christi helped finance the Hooks’ stadium a few years prior, and now with new members on City Council, tough economic times, and a history of folded professional sports teams in the city, Drew must be proactive in seeing that the Hooks do not meet a similar fate.The case presents a common challenge confronted by communities that host professional sport teams. In many cases, cities must provide some level of public financing for sport facilities in order to attract or retain a team. To gain public support, various promises are made about the potential for the team to transform the community. However, once public funding is secured and a team and facility is in place, it is unclear who has the responsibility for delivering on these promises. The situation presented in this case is not unique. In fact, similar claims are made about the impact of a sports team, regardless of the size of the host community or the type of team. This case gives students the opportunity to measure impact and also think critically about how to leverage a sports team to create value for the community. Although the characters in the case are fictitious the case draws upon actual facts and data from public records regarding Corpus Christi and their minor league baseball team, the Hooks; thus, providing students with a realistic dilemma to consider. The case is intended for use in Sport Finance/Economics and Sport Policy courses, but could also be adapted for other courses such as Sport Marketing, Sport Communication, Facilities and Event Management or even Research Methods.     

Clifton Forge and Back Again

Abstract

Coming from small-town Appalachia, Josh Howard reflects on his career as a public historian with a focus on sport. He maps out his recent work at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Lamar University, and other sport history work in explaining a journey from a background in statistics to one in public sport history. He concludes by offering some suggestions to better develop scholarship on the intersection of public history and sport history specifically through partnerships with professional sport franchises.     

Acceptance,motivations, and usage of social media as a marketing communications tool amongst employees of sport national governing bodies

National governing bodies (NGB) of sport are not-for-profit organisations that typically receive less mainstream media coverage and have much smaller marketing budgets than mainstream professional sports. Therefore, they must seek alternative methods from mainstream media and traditional marketing in order to increase brand awareness and reach fans and stakeholders. While all sport organisations stand poised to benefit from social media, NGBs seem to be a segment of the sport industry uniquely positioned to capitalise on social media's benefits. Because there is currently no known literature on NGBs’ use of social media, this study examined the role that social media plays within NGBs in the United States including employees’ acceptance of social media, motivations to use social media, and the organisation's current usage of social media. An online survey was distributed to NGB employees in the spring of 2012, and results revealed that contrary to studies on other sport organisations, NGB employees reported high levels of acceptance and motivation to use social media regardless of demographic factors. Additionally, NGBs seemed to use social media as a communications tool to a greater degree than as a marketing tool. Implications for international and niche sport organisations are presented in the conclusion.     

平衡记分卡法在公共体育场馆战略管理和绩效评价中的应用

平衡记分卡法是一种组织战略管理和绩效评价的新方法，经改进可以用于公共体育场馆的运营管理。在平衡记分卡方法下，公共体育场馆的总体目标（即“使命”）是围绕公众利益来确定的，其运营策略由观众顾客般东、财务、内部流程和创新成长4个要素层面构成，并可进一步分解为18项战略目标和30项指标，以对运营业绩作出客观公正的评价，并不断据此修正公共体育场馆运营管理的方式。     

User-generated branding via social media: An examination of six running brands

The increased global popularity of social media has led many consumer brands to increasingly turn to consumer-to-consumer marketing methods in recent years. One such method, user-generated branding (UGB), is defined as “the strategic and operative management of brand related user-generated content (UGC) to achieve brand goals” (Burmann & Arnhold, 2009, p. 66). Other disciplines have identified potential benefits of UGB such as cost effectiveness, the ability to track consumers, and immediate feedback regarding a brand and its products or services (Burmann, 2010). Hambrick and Kang (2015) also posited that UGB might be effective in developing stronger relationships between brands and consumers and eliciting greater engagement with consumers on social media. This study sought to fill the gap on UGB research within the sport management field. Utilising Porter’s (1985) generic strategies as a theoretical framework, the Instagram accounts of six purposefully selected running brands were examined to determine to what extent brands utilised user-generated content on their Instagram accounts and whether differences existed in audience engagement based on the type of content posted. A quantitative content analysis method was employed, and results indicated that those brands utilising a differentiation strategy and posts with an overt focus on the product or brand were most successful in eliciting engagement from followers. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed in greater detail in the paper.     

澳大利亚利用大型体育赛事开展旅游目的地营销的经验借鉴

澳大利亚是西方较早运用体育赛事进行城市营销、发展旅游业的国家之一。其利用大型体育赛事作为城市形象塑造和品牌推广有相对较长的历史,在体育赛事的开发利用方面有很多可以借鉴的经验和可以吸取的教训。文章通过对其开展的赛事主办地城市营销实践进行回顾和梳理,并归纳总结经验教训,为我国更好更科学的利用大型体育赛事这一手段进行城市品牌营销与形象塑造提供参考。     

体育冠名权的法理分析——一个球衣换名案引发的思考

随着社会经济的不断发展,注意力资源作为一种重要的市场资源越来越受到市场的重视,体育冠名权就是运用注意力资源的典型,企业利用被冠名载体所吸引的注意力资源宣传自身品牌形象扩大自身影响力,已经成为一种被广泛应用的商业模式且还有不断发展壮大之势。以恒大单方面更换球衣胸前广告产生的违约成本和产生的商业价值来分析体育冠名权的法律保护迫在眉睫。分析认为,体育冠名权是一种私权并兼具公共属性;体育冠名权属于名称权的一种扩张,有其独特属性,易受到新闻媒体的侵害,更易受到来自于物主的侵害,需要针对体育冠名权的独特属性配置一套直接的保护规则。     

基于品牌传播的体育赛事赞助

通过对品牌传播研究意义的阐述,分析了体育赛事与企业品牌定位之间的相关性,进一步厘清了品牌传播与体育赛事赞助之间的关系。     

RunTex: A community landmark run out of business

The case follows Paul Carrozza and his journey in building a once highly successful running shoe store in Austin, TX. The case presents newspaper accounts and other publicly available information regarding Carrozza and the store he built and ultimately had to close, RunTex. Specifically, the case offers both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to evaluate the repercussions of a business that fails to engage in strategic planning. As a result, this case provides the ideal backdrop for instructors to convey the significance and obligation for future sport managers to understand the importance of strategic management. The case is primarily intended for use in strategic management, organizational behavior, and/or sport marketing courses wishing to highlight CSR strategies.