Professional Sports Industry Research Articles

Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues

Executive pay regulation is widely discussed as a measure to reduce financial mismanagement in corporations. We show that the professional team sports industry, the only industry with substantial experience in the regulation of compensation arrangements, provides valuable insights for the regulation of executive pay. Based on the experience from professional sports leagues, we develop implications for the corporate sector regarding the establishment and enforcement of executive pay regulation as well as the level, structure, and rigidity of such regulatory measures.

Congressional complicity in the baseball antitrust exemption: analysing senate voting patterns

This article examines a key congressional vote on preserving baseball's antitrust exemption. It finds that the most important factor influencing a legislator's vote was whether there was a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in the legislator's constituency. This supports the notion that the professional sports industry has been effective in ‘capturing’ their political overseers.

From the Tomahawk Chop to the Road Block: Discourses of Savagism in Whitestream Media

From the Tomahawk Chop to the Road Block:Discourses of Savagism in Whitestream Media Daniel Morley Johnson (bio) It's the job of the Canadian government's mainstream media to help the RCMP and OPP to use whatever means necessary to conjure up early European images of uncivilized crazed "lawless" savages. These images are then hopefully meant to get the public's attention as this is what they are taught in school and images most Canadian citizens and new immigrants are familiar with. Even if they are not true, Canada will do what they can to sway minds so we will not be supported. Canada then criminalizes our right to stand up and protect our very existence. Is that in accordance with the Rule of Law? Janie Jamieson (Six Nations of the Grand River) Since early colonial times, Indigenous peoples on Anówarakowa Kawennote—"Great Turtle Island" in Kanienkeha (the Mohawk language)—have been represented via the imaginations of the invading European settler-colonists. Not surprisingly, such typically distorted representations have long been a part of the popular press and news media in the United States and Canada. In 1996 the report of Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples asserted, "When the media address Aboriginal issues, the impressions they convey are often distorted."1 In a statement to the Commission, the Canadian Association of Journalists stated: Canada's Aboriginal peoples are, in general, badly served by national and local media. . . . The country's large newspapers, TV and radio news shows often contain misinformation, sweeping generalizations [End Page 104] and galling stereotypes about Natives and Native affairs.. . . The result is that most Canadians have little real knowledge of the country's Native peoples, or of the issues which affect them.2 Typically, the news media have tended to portray Natives as a conquered people, a poor minority in a rich country, militant activists, remnants of an ancient North American past, and so on. As Canada's Royal Commission pointed out, media outlets continue to perpetuate stereotypes and inaccurate generalizations about Indigenous peoples, and aside from a few independent and Indigenous-owned media sources, the misinformation continues mostly unchallenged and unabated. This essay will explore the use, perpetuation, and legitimization of anti-Indigenous rhetoric (discourses of Savagism) in media with regard to two major flashpoints of misrepresentation: racist sports imagery and anticolonial Indigenous protest. All in Good Fun: Racism, Sports, and the Media As an undergraduate in aboriginal studies, I first read Ward Churchill's "Let's Spread the 'Fun' Around," in which the author proposes groups other than Native Americans be similarly "honored" with mascots and team names.3 Churchill likens the use of Indigenous imagery for sports teams as analogous to contemporary Germans using Jewish caricatures in a similar way, which should underscore for us the psychologically and historically perverse nature of mocking those peoples and nations whom some European Americans have tried to exterminate. In his usual style, Churchill offers a number of team names that might pay similar tribute to other communities, making the point that the practice of "honoring" people with tomahawk chops, pep rally war whoops, halftime powwows, and similarly grotesque misappropriated images and names is a treatment unique to Indigenous peoples. We might understand this as part of the European American obsession with naming, a symbolic act that requires the self-appointed authority to name (both people and places) and, in this case, the power to ridicule and create an Other that is ridiculed in schools and in the professional sports industry. European colonizers have proclaimed for themselves the right to name (and hence claim) most of the world and the world's peoples—so the team nicknames "Redskins" and "Chiefs" share a genealogy with those nations and people who were renamed in the minds of invading Europeans.4 [End Page 105] And, as I will soon elaborate, such bizarre imagery and naming is part of the "Savagist" discourse developed over time as part of European colonialism, such that many teams deploy certain imagery to summon a whole catalog of "tribal" and athletic ferocity. But, as Churchill and others remind us, when these images are used "all in good fun," we might be led...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications in the G-25 football clubs

A key recent theme in the academic literature focuses on the increasing role of corporate social responsibility in the professional sport industry. This study is located within this body of work and examines how CSR communications occur in the professional football industry. This paper answers three key research questions: What kind of CSR-related issues do football clubs address with stakeholders? How do football clubs communicate their CSR efforts, if they do so? What strategies are followed and how do these differ across clubs and national spaces? The paper reviews important aspects of CSR communication across different clubs and football markets, using the G-25 professional football clubs in the world. It proposes a continuum model which adopts an international perspective and sheds light on how CSR communication strategies vary and evolve across different clubs and football cultures.

Below Market Loans: From Abuse to Misuse - A Sports Illustration

Below market loans have been traditionally used as substitutes for gifts, salaries, and dividends for the primary purpose of tax avoidance in the transfer of wealth. The Supreme Court's opinion in Dickman v. Commissioner subjected both demand and term loans in an intrafamilial setting to the federal gift tax. Congress, while subjecting all below market loans to either income or gift tax, applied different valuation formulas to term and demand loans and, in so doing, favored the use of demand loans as a salary substitute. This Article analyzes the current status of below market loans by examining their use in a typical business setting - the professional sports industry. Dean Closius and Professor Chapman argue that Congress should establish tax neutrality as between term and demand loans. This result can be achieved by providing an income tax for demand loans, by ascribing the borrower's below market benefit to the lender, or by statutorily imputing a term of years to all demand loans.

Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues

Executive pay regulation is widely discussed as a measure to reduce financial mismanagement in corporations. We show that the professional team sports industry, the only industry with substantial experience in the regulation of compensation arrangements, provides valuable insights for the regulation of executive pay. Based on the experience from professional sports leagues, we develop implications for the corporate sector regarding the establishment and enforcement of executive pay regulation as well as the level, structure, and rigidity of such regulatory measures.

Using triangulation and multiple case studies to advance relationship marketing theory

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the contribution of qualitative methods and techniques in extending the understanding of relationship marketing theory.Design/methodology/approach – The study investigated six Australian sporting organisations using multiple data collection methods including semi‐structured interviews with several senior executives within each organisation, secondary and historical data sources and participant observation. The application of triangulation and multiple case studies is discussed in relation to their contribution toward a greater understanding of relationship marketing practice in the professional sport industry, as well as the barriers to the adoption of this strategy.Findings – Using triangulation and a multiple case study approach provided a richness of information which, upon analysis within and across cases, revealed a number of commonalities and some limited diversity. Using this approach maximised the depth of information and increased the transfer...

Beyond the Game: Perceptions and Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Professional Sport Industry

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an area of great interest, yet little is known about how CSR is perceived and practiced in the professional sport industry. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, including a survey, and a qualitative content analysis of responses to open-ended questions, to explore how professional sport executives define CSR, and what priorities teams have regarding their CSR activities. Findings from this study indicate that sport executives placed different emphases on elements of CSR including a focus on philanthropic activities and ethical behaviors. The data suggest that professional sport executives view CSR as a strategic imperative for their business. Sport executives indicated that a number of factors influenced the practice of their CSR including: philanthropy (altruistic giving), an emphasis on the local community, partnerships, and ethical concerns. We also examine important organizational variables for sport (winning, revenues, and team value) and highlight their relationship with reported CSR involvement. We discuss the implications of the findings and propose recommendations for both theory and practice.

Introduction to Symposium on Sports Economics

The professional team sports industry is characterized by five major peculiarities. First, there are hardly any opportunities for productivity gains in this industry. On the output side, the number of championships that can be produced is limited. On the input side, the room for productivity gains is limited as well. In soccer, for example, clubs cannot increase their productivity by playing without their left defender even if this allowed their opponents to cut their right wing, eliminate one linesman, and so forth. Second, competition in professional team sports exhibits significant externali ties. Since output in terms of team rankings is limited, each team cannot improve its output (ranking) without the externality of worsening the rank of at least one opponent. Third, there are probably more monopolies in professional team sports than in any other industry. Teams often enjoy local monopolies. Competing leagues usually do not survive for longer periods. Either one league becomes too dominant and drives out its competitors or the competing leagues merge to form a monopoly. Due to its peculiarities and perhaps its popularity, the professional team sports industry enjoys several exemptions from common antitrust regulations. For example, salary caps, transfer restrictions, and centralized marketing by league-monopolies would not be tolerated in other industries. These exceptions result in very interesting labor market peculiarities within professional team sports. Fourth, the so called uncertainty of outcome hypothesis suggests that competitive balance increases fan demand. In other industries, firms prefer weak competitors. In professional team sports, weak opponents cannot draw large crowds and are therefore economically unattractive. Fifth, professional team sports creates various satellite markets which may generate even larger revenues than the primary sports market. A typical example of such a satellite market is the betting market. These peculiarities make the industry of professional team sports an interesting research field for economists. Since the industry is organized differently across the world and we even can often observe different institutional arrangements within a given country, professional team sports is an interesting source of natural experi ments. Moreover, the industry is rich in easily accessible data. This symposium of three selected papers has been assembled from two sessions on sports economics at the 2006 annual conference of the Eastern Economic Associa tion in Philadelphia. The first paper by Brandes and Franck empirically analyzes the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, fan demand

Sports Marketing in a Recession: It's a Brand New Game

The North American professional team sports industry has long been thought of as recessionproof or recession-resistant. Like the brewing industry, pundits have suggested the average consumer will forego certain discretionary income purchases but not relinquish "basic needs" . This paper raises questions about the viability of that logic by suggesting the economic conditions of sport in America in 2002 will be unlike any sport marketers have seen in the last 30 years. Fundamental to this review is a clear understanding of recession economies, the financial foundations of contemporary American spectator sports and how sport marketers may need to change their short-term marketing strategies.

Instrumental versus bounded rationality: a comparison of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association

The professional team sports industry is characterized by an abundance of information, defined objectives, and clear consequences. Given these characteristics, researchers have generally assumed that economic actors follow the dictates of instrumental rationality. The purpose of this research is to present evidence that in professional baseball, where player statistics have historically been tabulated and utilized, information is employed efficiently. However, economic agents in professional basketball, where player statistics are less intuitive and not historically tabulated, fail to process information in a fashion consistent with the precepts of instrumental rationality.

Collective Bargaining Simulation: The Federal Football League versus the National Association of Professional Footballers

The last decade has witnessed two related phenomena, which provide the motivation for the development of this collective bargaining simulation. Within the industrial relations arena, enterprise or collective bargaining has replaced arbitration as the major process for wage determination and dispute resolution (Wooden, 2000). Over the same period, Australian sport has witnessed the rise of professionalism and the emergence of professional bodies intended to represent players in negotiations with sporting clubs, leagues and national associations (Dabscheck, 1996a; Dempsey, 1998). These two developments have, not surprisingly, made industrial relations an issue of central importance in the professional sports industry. This simulation, which is based upon the events in a fictional professional sporting league, is primarily intended to aid in the teaching of industrial relations issues with respect to professional athletes. However, the simulation provides a number of additional applications, most notably in the area of bargaining and negotiation.The simulation may also stimulate useful discussion in the areas of group and individual decision-making, the use of power, and balancing multiple stakeholder groups. The following notes provide the instructor with guidelines for operation of the simulation and suggest a number of discussion topics, so as to maximise the learning potential of the exercise.

From Diamonds to Dollars: The Dynamics of Change in AAA Baseball Franchises

Sport franchises are challenged to operate within the fast-changing environment of the professional sport industry. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which these organizations are changing and to understand why some organizations have embraced the competitive strategies and institutional beliefs of their contemporary environment, while others have remained relatively unchanged. The concept of archetypes was used to create two templates for professional sport franchises: The sport-centered archetype and the business-centered archetype. Data were then collected from interviews with representatives of five AAA baseball franchises, documents were retained from the league's public relations firm and the franchises themselves, and information was assembled from newspapers and trade magazines. The results of the research indicated that one organization was in the sport-centered archetype, three were in the business-centered archetype, and one was between the two archetypes. It was found that a trigger for change and the ownership of the franchise impacted heavily on the ability of the franchises to adapt to their contemporary environment.

Patriotic Images and Capitalist Profit: Contradictions of Professional Team Sports Licensed Merchandise

The professional team sports industry has consistently worked at constructing a symbiotic relationship in the collective American mind linking professional team sports with United States patriotism. Professional team sports organizations use a variety of advertising images, rituals, and ceremonies to reinforce this association. One means by which the organizations perpetuate this association is through league logos, all of which use only the colors red, white, and blue—the precise color combination found on the flag of the United States. League logos are prominently displayed on all their licensed merchandise, merchandise that generates about $10 billion in annual revenue for professional team sports. This paper focuses on the contradiction or paradox that exists between the imagery of All-American patriotism professional team sports construct and the fact that much of their licensed merchandise is manufactured in foreign countries by exploited labor. The analysis centers on meaning-production by deconstructing and critiquing the managed image of professional team sport organizations.

A Sociological Perspective of Sport.

1.Introduction to the Sociology of Sport. Some Brief Observations of the Social Significance of Sport. Sport as a Concept. Sport in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sociological Theories of the Relationship Between Sport and Society. 2.A Brief History of American Sport. 1600 - 1700. 1700 - 1800. 1800 - 1850. 1850 - 1918. 1919 - Present. Characteristics of Modern Sport. How Sociological Theories Explain the Rise of Sport. Industrialization, Urbanization, and Mass Communication. A Brief Chronology of Sport Sociology. 3.Sport and Culture. Culture. Culture and Values. Values in American Society. Values in Sport. Cross Cultural Differences: Sport as a Mirror of Dominant Societal Values. Sport Heroes Reflect Dominant Cultural Values. Immortality via Sport. 4.Sport and Social Organization. Levels of Social Organization: Interpersonal, Group, and Societal. Sport Organizations as Associations. Sport as a Social Institution. Key Sociological Concepts for Understanding the Social Organization of Sport. The Professional Athlete. 5.Sport and Socialization. Socialization into Sport. Socialization via Sport. Organized Youth Sport Programs. 6.Sport and Social Deviance. Structural Sources of Sport Deviance. The Relativity of Social Deviance. Eufunctions and Dysfunction's of Sport Deviance. Theories of Social Deviance. A Sociological Theory of Social Deviance: Anomie Theory. Drugs in Sport. Crime and the Athlete. Domestic Violence Perpetuated by Athletes Violence in Sports. 7.Sport and Social Stratification. Characteristics of Social Stratification. Sport Stratification Is Social. Sport Stratification Is Ancient. Sport Stratification Is Ubiquitous. Social Stratification Is Diverse. Sport as a Social Mobility Mechanism. Disengagement from Sport. Social Stratification Has Sport Consequences. Favorite Sports by Social Class. Attendance at and Participation in Various Sporting Activities. The Fitness Revolution: Some Sociological Observations. Sportsfan Index. Life Chances. 8.Sport and Race/Ethnicity The Meaning of Race. A Brief History of African-Americans in Professional and Amateur Sport. Statistical Trends Documenting African-Americans' Involvement in Sport. Discrimination in Sport. Performance Differentials. Rewards and Authority Structures. 9.Sport and Gender. The Social Organization of Gender in Society. The Dynamic Relationship Between Sport and Gender. Current Issues and Trends. 10.Sport and Education. College Athletics. Some Academic Considerations. Organizational Deviance. Reforming the College System. Interscholastic Athletics. 11.Sport and Economics. Emergence of Corporate Sport. The Professional Sports Owner. The Size and Profitability of the Professional Sport Industry: Determinants and Mechanisms. The Financing of Sport Facilities. The Costs of Ownership. Sport as a Monopoly. 12.Sport and Politics. The Olympics as a Case Study in Power Politics. Politics at the State, National, and International Levels. 13.Sport and Religion. Defining Religion. Functions of Religion. Characteristics of Institutionalized Religion. Connections Between Religion and Sport. Sport as Civil Religion. Uses of Religious Practices in the World of Sport. 14.Sport and the Mass Media. Popular Culture and Sport. Functions of Media Sport and Theories of the Media's Influence. The Print Media. The Electronic Media: Broadcasting. The Electronic Media: Television. How Television Has Affected Sport. The Economic Impact of Television and Sports. Some Consequences of Television Sport Coverage. Recent Television Sport Coverage. Television Sportscasters and Sports Journalism. The Future of Television and Sports. 15.Sport, Collective Behavior, and Social Change. A Case Study of Collective Behavior in Sport. Theories of Crowd Behavior. Theories Explaining Sport Spectator Violence. A Theory of Collective Behavior. Social Movements in Sport. More Recent Social Movements in Sport.. 16.Epilogue. Social Change. Two Futuristic Sport Scenarios. Department of Sports? Author Index. Subject Index.

Judicial Review of Labor Agreements: Lessons from the Sports Industry

Much of the recent legal controversy in the professional sports industry has emanated from the clubs' efforts to limit the movement of players among teams. The traditional restraints have included devices such as the draft system, reserve and option clauses, and arrangements requiring that compensation be paid to a club whose player has accepted employment with another member of the same league.' Until the early 1970s, these player restraints were treated as matters of private contract between club and player. Except for occasional decisions interpreting the breadth of the club's claim or clarifying the mechanism for a club's unilateral renewal of a contract,2 the judiciary played no significant role in overseeing the operation of the restraint system. The treatment of the restraints as a private law matter changed dramatically in the mid-1970s. The advent of durable players' unions and the commencement of a series of antitrust challenges interjected the law's institutions, especially the courts, rather deeply into the issue of player mobility.3 The beneficial effect of these cases was to open the way for greater player input, typically through collective bargaining, into the shaping of

The Determination of Bonuses in Professional Sports

Many of the players in the professional team sport industry receive bonuses when they sign their first uniform player contracts. The bonuses are given to the players by sport club owners as an in ducement for the players to sign with their clubs. A prospective player would probably receive bonus offers from several sport team owners, if the market for signing free agents is competitive. Each sport club owner would evaluate the player's abili ty in relation to his club's needs. The player's value to each of the clubs would vary with the relative contribution that he could make to each club's revenue.