Marketing communication practices that foster integration in football clubs

This study investigates the marketing communication practices in football clubs in an attempt to understand the extent to which integration is implemented in them. Based on the close link between integration and marketing communications, it can be argued that this study examines the current practice in an effort to access the strategic focus of the marketing communications practices encountered. In other words, the aim of this study is not only to create an account of the marketing communications practices in football, but also to identify and access whether the current practices implemented foster strategic integration, which is a key aspect of strategic brand management

Alternative revenue streams for centrally funded sport governing bodies

In a world of ever-increasing focus on Government spending as a result of recession-induced austerity measures, the current Government of the United Kingdom has clarified its intention to share and ultimately transfer the burden of funding to those sports that currently enjoy government support. Outside the sports that, due to their wide commercial and broadcast appeal are able to derive significant revenues, it will become necessary for national governing bodies (NGBs) to cast the net wide in search of consistent, reliable methods of generating revenues that satisfy broader stakeholder aims whilst maintaining focus on their core responsibilities of sport development, encouraging participation and driving performance. In order to unpick this process, interviews were undertaken with senior officials from non-commercialised NGBs to better grasps the current situation and what steps are being taken to secure funding with further exploration of the impact of these new streams. Using Pfeffer and Salancik’s Resource Dependence Theory and Markowitz’s Portfolio Theory, this study examines the revenue streams currently explored by the NGBs, as well as their associated benefits and pitfalls. Through this research, it was found that the applicability of each stream was largely dependent on the unique characteristics of each body. Size and demographics of membership or participants, the degree of formality of participation, local or regional importance of the sport and commercial appeal to potential sponsors and partners, all drove the particular mix of revenue streams achieved by NGBs, making generalisation or the creation of a usable, common template difficult as a result

CSR in professional football

CSR in professional footbal

Strategic brand management in and through sport

Within the extended academic literature on strategic marketing, brand management appears to be high on the agenda of scholars in the past seven decades. Despite the continuous enquiry over these years, the way in which a brand can or should be managed in a strategic manner appears to still attract academics’ and practitioners’ interest, with novel and often unexpected ideas and practises emerging. Among these, brand management within sport and through it remains a unique area for further enquiry, and one that is bound to yield interesting insights due to the social, political, geographical, cultural, and historical peculiarities of sport, granting it a natural ‘marketing’ advantage. This article explores the evolution of brand management, its manifestation in and through sport and its potential future directions within and beyond the ever-developing sport ecosystem

Integration scenarios

With a focus on exploring IMC’s implementation and appreciation in EPL clubs, and thus offering a wider and more thorough view of IMC in practice, this chapter centres on synthesising football clubs’ practices and practitioners’ views. Through this synthesis and the juxtaposition of the two, four integration scenarios are identified and presented in this chapter, along with the conditions and levels in which they occur. This, in turn, allows not only for the full strategic integration scenario to be studied but also for the newly identified practitioners’ strategy paradox, the unintentional implementation paradox and the no integration scenario to be introduced and examined in this chapter.</p

Integrated marketing communications in football

This book takes an important step forward in showing how Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) have been applied within the English Premier League (EPL) – arguably the most commercialised and watched sport league in the world – and how it can and should be utilised in the context of other sports properties.  Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research, the book offers a detailed view into the marketing communications practices of EPL clubs (such as brand management and communications alignment), the football clubs’ practitioners’ perspectives of IMC and the integration processes taking place within the clubs. It examines the key marketing communications practices that strategic IMC entails, including marketing strategies and goals, cross-functional communication, external communication management and brand management, and helps researchers and practitioners to understand how IMC can have the maximum positive impact on the brand of an organisation, by managing their content, channels, stakeholders and results.  This book is fascinating reading for any researcher, advanced student or practitioner with an interest in sport management, the business of football, sport marketing or innovative approaches to marketing and business communications in other commercial spheres.</p

Public relations: the missing element in the eSport governance

Despite the enormous value public relations can yield to the eSport ecosystem in communicating and building sustainable relationships with various stakeholders, scant research emphasises the necessity for the adoption of a public relations approach in eSport. This commentary argues that the lack of a unified governance structure or an international governing body is the foremost hurdle of eSport, while a critical omission in the eSport governance discussion is how to build and sustain relationships among partners. By combining these two and viewing issues through the lens of public relations, we suggest that principles of good governance such as transparency, public communication and democratic processes, can be achieved in eSport by employing appropriate public relations strategies.</p

Operational crisis communication management: a content analysis of FIFA’s communication during Covid-19

Despite the high number of crises that the sport ecosystem encounters, crisis communication management in sport requires further attention, with operational crisis communication in particular being considered a rather uncharted territory, regardless of its potential significant effects on sport organisations’ reputation. In this study we focus on exploring the themes used in FIFA’s communication during the Covid-19 pandemic, in an attempt to understand how operational organisational crisis communication was managed by football’s leading sport organisation in this unprecedented climate. Content analysis was conducted in all FIFA’s press releases and Twitter messages related to Covid-19 from March 5th to July 3rd 2020, in order for the main themes of their crisis communication to be identified. In this study, insights are offered to the content and meaning of FIFA’s operational crisis communication, their attempts to emphasise the organisation’s positive traits and actions, and the links built with managing and improving the organisation’s reputation. At the same time, the analysis of the themes used indicates that a proactive planning and formulation of crisis communication management had been conducted, while lessons from previous handling of crises also appear to have been learned. By outlining the crisis communication strategy adopted by FIFA, in this study we offer insights to the unexplored area of operational crisis communication in sports, while presenting a roadmap for operational crisis communication management for other sport organisations and future studies exploring the topic.</div

The present and future understanding of match-fixing: Exploring the building blocks of match-fixing theory

This concluding chapter discusses how the contributions of this edited volume help to better understand match-fixing in sport. Building on the four core elements or building blocks of theory development (Whetten, 1989), this chapter outlines how this edited volume supports novel insights into the what?, how?, why?, and who, where, and when? questions related to match-fixing. Taken together, these contributions provide a polyphony of viewpoints on match-fixing. Doing so, we have pushed the agenda for diverse perspectives from differing contexts, backgrounds, and theoretical standings to be examined in the future, while offering suggestions of areas that could be explored in future academic work on match-fixing.</p

Sustainable is the new black

With the effects of the global climate crisis being difficult to ignore, the word ‘sustainability’ is being used increasingly within the sport ecosystem and beyond. In the sport industry, the pressures, challenges and opportunities that sport ecology bears are often the topic of discussion, sometimes paired with some, albeit minimum, actions on behalf of sport organisations. In this commentary we focus on sport ecology and the ‘buzzword’ of sustainability in sport, in an attempt to examine sport sustainability in practice and the potential scenarios for the industry’s inevitable, due to recent legislation, future actions.</p