THE IMPORTANCE OF FAN ENGAGEMENT AND FAN MANAGEMENT IN SPORTS

This investigation explores the current state of fan management and engagement in the sports management, and its growing importance within sports clubs as a driver of revenue. Among the different aspects embedded in sports organizations’ management, “fan experience” has become one of the most relevant and innovative concepts developed. In 1980s, ticketing represented 90% of the turnover; currently, ticketing accounts for between 15% and 20% of revenue. Revenue is now largely derived from other sources of entries: e.g. broadcasting, TV rights, sponsorship and commercial deals. Fan experience, in this scenario, arises as a new lever for sports clubs for diversifying and increasing revenues (establishing a direct relationship between fan engagement and revenues). Leveraging my position as Press Officer at Juventus FC, data was collected from interviews with experts in the industry, such as Francesco Campagna (Protocol Officer President Office at UEFA) and Mike Cragg (Athletic Director at St John’s University), and a survey completed by more than 100 sports fans. The results point to a positive impact from managing fan engagement on financial outcomes for sports teams

Characterization of the subsurface urban heat island and its sources in the Milan city area, Italy

AbstractUrban areas are major contributors to the alteration of the local atmospheric and groundwater environment. The impact of such changes on the groundwater thermal regime is documented worldwide by elevated groundwater temperature in city centers with respect to the surrounding rural areas. This study investigates the subsurface urban heat island (SUHI) in the aquifers beneath the Milan city area in northern Italy, and assesses the natural and anthropogenic controls on groundwater temperatures within the urban area by analyzing groundwater head and temperature records acquired in the 2016–2020 period. This analysis demonstrates the occurrence of a SUHI with up to 3 °C intensity and reveals a correlation between the density of building/subsurface infrastructures and the mean annual groundwater temperature. Vertical heat fluxes to the aquifer are strongly related to the depth of the groundwater and the density of surface structures and infrastructures. The heat accumulation in the subsurface is reflected by a constant groundwater warming trend between +0.1 and + 0.4 °C/year that leads to a gain of 25 MJ/m2 of thermal energy per year in the shallow aquifer inside the SUHI area. Future monitoring of groundwater temperatures, combined with numerical modeling of coupled groundwater flow and heat transport, will be essential to reveal what this trend is controlled by and to make predictions on the lateral and vertical extent of the groundwater SUHI in the study area

Thermal Management of Electrified Vehicles—A Review

Vehicle electrification demands a deep analysis of the thermal problems in order to increase vehicle efficiency and battery life and performance. An efficient thermal management of an electrified vehicle has to involve every system of the vehicle. However, it is not sufficient to optimize the thermal behavior of each subsystem, but thermal management has to be considered at system level to optimize the global performance of the vehicle. The present paper provides an organic review of the current aspects of thermal management from a system engineering perspective. Starting from the definition of the requirements and targets of the thermal management system, each vehicle subsystem is analyzed and related to the whole system. In this framework, problems referring to modeling, simulation and optimization are considered and discussed. The current technological challenges and developments in thermal management are highlighted at vehicle and component levels

Research and Development on Noise, Vibration, and Harshness of Road Vehicles Using Driving Simulators - A Review

Noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) is a key aspect in the vehicle development. Reducing noise and vibration to create a comfortable environment is one of the main objectives in vehicle design. In the literature, many theoretical and experimental methods have been presented for improving the NVH performances of vehicles. However, in the great majority of situations, physical prototypes are still required as NVH is highly dependent on subjective human perception and a pure computational approach often does not suffice. In this article, driving simulators are discussed as a tool to reduce the need of physical prototypes allowing a reduction in development time while providing a deep understanding of vehicle NVH characteristics. The present article provides a review of the current development of driving simulator focused on problems, challenges, and solutions for NVH applications. Starting from the definition of the human response to noise and vibration, this article describes the different driving simulator technologies to tackle all the involved perception aspects. The different available technologies are discussed and compared as to provide design engineers with a complete picture of the current possibilities and future trends