Is Fantasy Football’s Popularity Decreasing Fan Attendance? : A Social Identity Perspective

When most people think of football they think of specific teams and the fans associated with the team. Fans close identification with their team has made the National Football League (NFL), the most popular sports league in the United States. However, the NFL faces an interesting dilemma as fans are becoming more involved with league oriented activities, such as fantasy football, versus team specific activities which causes a dichotomy in league growth. Growth is increasingly being driven by league level activities, such as television and fantasy sports, while the core component of team revenues, game attendance, decreased from 2007 to 2010 This paper takes a social identity perspective to examine the changing nature of the NFL fan. The social identity perspective states that people define and evaluate themselves in terms of the group to which they belong. Individuals can have as many social identities as groups they belong to, and in the NFL example fans can identify themselves with a specific team or in terms of another social group, fantasy football participant. In this scenario, the individual teams serve as distinct subgroup identities and the fantasy football player as a superordinate identity since it includes participation from all 32 NFL teams. Superordinate groups occur when multiple subgroups recategorize themselves into a single identity which improves intergroup relations. This research examines the question of whether fans are increasingly developing a superordinate identity, exemplified by fantasy football, which is decreasing their identification with the local team, the subgroup identity? In order to examine this phenomenon, we explore the changing use of NFL fan message boards. While we expected to find that fans are increasingly adopting their league wide identity, which results in a decrease in identification with the local team, what may actually be happening is that fans are forming a dual identity with the league and the team. This dual identity has a potentially negative impact for local teams as fans adopt the low cost superordinate identity, watching at home, versus the high cost subordinate identity, watching in the stadium

There is No I in Team: The Role of Sales Faculty Coaching and Organizational Culture on Student Competition Teams

As sales competitions become more prevalent in the educational environment, faculty coaching has taken on a role that closely replicates coaching by industry sales managers. This case study examines how the combination of faculty coaching and student sales team organizational culture impact performance in sales competitions. By providing positive feedback, role modeling, and building trust, faculty coaches can improve performance and commitment while preparing students for their future careers. Additionally, developing an organizational coaching culture plays a critical role in contributing to the overall success of the team as it encourages student commitment and participation. These lessons are also relevant to industry sales managers and faculty coaches as a means to improve performance

The Evolving Nature of the Inside and Outside Sales Relationship: Cooperation and Conflict

Firms are increasingly turning to inside sales, salespeople working from a single or virtual location versus traveling to customers, because of the significant costs savings and improvements in communications technology. As a result, there is growing interaction between the inside and outside sales organizations. Through a series of interviews with inside and outside sale representatives, this research explores the evolving relationship between the two. The results of the interviews show that the sales responsibilities for inside and outside sales vary significantly across firms. Additionally, the research finds that personal relationships play a critical role in the success of the inside and outside sales relationship while overlapping goals and responsibilities can lead to conflict. Finally, the research shows that COVID-19 has changed the outside sales role so that it is taking on components of the inside sale function, such as virtual versus face-to-face meetings

The Impact of Fantasy Football on the NFL Fan: Exploring Differences between the Fantasy Football Participant and the Traditional Fan

Fans of the National Football League (NFL) often identify themselves not only with a specific team but also in terms of a broader social group, fantasy football participant. This research utilizes a social identity perspective and data collected from an online context to compare those fans with a team-specific identity to those who also actively participate in fantasy football. Our results show that fans often form a dual identity with the league and the team. This is an important consideration for managers, because while previous research shows that fantasy football participants may attend more games, social identity theory suggests that fan behavior may change. A dual identity can have a negative impact on local teams as fans may increasingly adopt the low cost superordinate identity, watching league games at home, versus the high cost subordinate identity, watching games in the stadium

The impact of implementing a design-thinking project in the sales classroom

Experiential instruction has been implemented in classrooms as a method of learning and reinforcing complicated material. This study introduces a design-thinking project taken from a University Art & Design Program and adapted for a sales course. ‘Pre’ and ‘post’ comprehension testing of students on the SPIN selling approach was completed to establish the value of this project, and the study further investigates its impact on student interest and engagement. Results suggest that this project not only helps to reinforce key concepts, but also student confidence, level of interest, and perceptions of sales people as customer-oriented and benevolent service providers

Individual and Firm Level Drivers of the Relationship Development Life Cycle

Buyer/Seller relationships evolve over time at two distinct levels, the firm level, from firm to mass audience, and the individual level, from salesperson to individual customer. This research examines the drivers of change in the Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987) relationship model by examining both firm-level and individual-level drivers. The research proposes that within the firm-level relationship building process, there are also individual-level factors that influence how rapidly relationships progress. We propose the drivers of relationship evolution vary as the relationship progresses, moving from the firm level to the individual level. This research contributes to the relationship marketing literature by proposing the drivers of relationship stage change and their impact at both the firm and individual level. Understanding the influence and interaction of the two relationship levels will allow managers to develop more targeted marketing strategies based on the relationship development stage

Can Marketing and IT Be Friends? The Impact of Information Strategy, Structure, and Processes on Business Performance: An Abstract

The management of information is critical to customer relationship management and business performance. Marketers are increasingly becoming engaging in information management from inception or being tasked with advanced technology infrastructure decisions that will effectively collect and analyze information. To address the increasing role of information and technology in marketing strategy, the focus of this research is twofold. First, we investigate the impact of uncoordinated information management on the quality of information available. Next, we explore how behavioral (e.g., trust, power, strategic alignment), relational (e.g., collaboration), and resource (e.g., data analytics skills, data decision-making culture) elements impact the role of information governance on firm performance

Relationship Building Between Marketing and IT: The Impact of Information Governance and Collaboration: An Abstract

Marketers are increasingly using data and information to drive decision making and as a result becoming more engaging in information management activities. To address the increasing role of information and technology in marketing strategy, the focus of this research is twofold. First, the study investigates the impact of information governance on the quality of information available: How are firms managing information (strategy, structure, process) to provide high quality information? The second research question is: How do relational (e.g., collaboration) elements impact the role of information use on information quality and firm performance? Through the lens of strategy, structure, process (SSP) theory this research utilizes a survey of 298 marketing and Information Technology (IT) managers to evaluate the impact of information governance and marketing IT collaboration on information quality and firm performance. The research results show that all three components of information governance, structure, strategy and process, positively impact information quality which has a positive effect on business results. When specifically exploring the relationship between marketing and IT, we find that differences in functional power and difference in knowledge of marketing and IT at the executive level can negatively affect collaboration between the two functions. This is critical because marketing/IT collaboration enhances the effects of information processes on information quality. For managers, this research demonstrates the importance of having a well-defined information governance strategy that promotes individual decision making and a focus on cross-function information sharing to improve information quality. Managers can then use accessible, integrated, high quality data to improve overall business results. Additionally, managers should improve collaboration between the marketing and IT functions, which enhances information quality, by reducing power differences between the departments and enhancing knowledge of both marketing and IT by executives

Removing silos to enable data-driven decisions: The importance of marketing and IT knowledge, cooperation, and information quality

Business decision-making increasingly requires that the information technology (IT) and marketing functions work together. Despite their distinct objectives, marketing managers need improved access to data to drive strategy. Based on an absorptive-capacity perspective, this study examines how marketing and IT business knowledge at the executive level affect decision-making. Results indicate that IT business knowledge has a direct, positive effect on data-driven decision-making, and marketing business knowledge does not. In addition, information quality and marketing/IT cooperation have differential moderating effects