Academic to Consultant: A Pilot Study on Sport Marketing Research

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the level of consultancy currently taking place between Sport Management faculty and their respective athletic departments. The subjects of the study were Directors of Marketing of athletic departments within universities that offer Sport Management programs (N=201). A list of universities offering Sport Management programs in the United States was retrieved from the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) website. A link to an online survey was distributed to the Directors of Marketing via e-mail. Fifty-four useable responses were received for a response rate of 27%. Results of the pilot study, discussion, and future research on Sport Management consultancy are provided

A Mixed Methods Approach to Identifying Administration Issues Pertinent in Interscholastic Sports

The purpose of this study was to investigate three propositions: a) What are the administration issues most pertinent to interscholastic sport today, as well as the next five years?, b) How important are those administration issues to athletic administrators?, and c) What are the potential implications of those pertinent administration issues to practicing athletic administrators? The literature provides a general overview of relevant issues surrounding interscholastic athletics. However, the importance and implications of relevant issues to practicing high school athletic administrators are difficult to discern. To answer the first proposition, the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) provided 10 contemporary administration issues that were most pertinent to interscholastic sport today, as well as the next five years. To answer the second proposition, a Likert-Scale was created so that practicing athletic administrators could rate each issue on a scale of 5 = extremely important to 1 = very little importance. A national study was conducted with athletic directors from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (N = 170) annual conference. A one-tailed ANOVA was executed to determine significant differences among the 10 administration issues identified by the MSHSL. Four issues were found to be significant; Athletic Facilities, Athletic Training, Health Issues and Travel Teams. A Games-Howell post hoc was executed to determine significant differences across geographical regions of the United States. For the third proposition, semi-structured interviews were completed to provide insight on the implications for practicing athletic administrators. The results offer insight from which further investigations could be conducted to continue building on policies that influence interscholastic athletic administrators’ day-to-day accountability when overseeing their athletic programs

Organizational justice and commitment in interscholastic sports

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of three organizational justice dimensions on the commitment of high school student athletes (N = 480) to continue playing a referent sport. The athletes were asked to complete an instrument designed to assess their perceived levels of justice displayed by their coaches in three justice dimensions-procedural justice, distributive justice and interpersonal justice. The findings indicated that justice perceptions did significantly (p < 0.05) influence their intent to continue playing a specific sport. Further analyses found fairness perceptions differed significantly (p < 0.05) when considering the students' grade level, gender and referent sport, while no differences existed based upon the race of the student athletes. These findings provide insight into organizational justice in sport

Sustaining Male Dominance in Interscholastic Athletics: A Case of Homologous Reproduction…or Not?

To establish if male hegemony continued to exist in high school athletics within the USA and to determine the extent that homologous reproduction (hiring people of the same gender) might be a contributing factor, the administrative structures of 480 high school athletic departments were analyzed. The gender of each school’s principal, athletic director, and coaches were collected from The National Directory of High School Coaches. Male hegemony was found to exist since men dominated both principal (76%) and athletic director (85%) positions, however evidence of homologous reproduction was only evident at the coaching level. The culture of hegemonic masculinity within athletics might be sustained more as a result of sex-role theory or gender-based schematic processing, rather than homologous reproduction

How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX

The purpose of this study was to assess how well women have fared under Title IX at the interscholastic level, not as participants or coaches, but beyond the playing field into the offices of the athletic director. Demographic data were collected pertaining to the gender of members who belong to state high school athletic director associations identified by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA). An analysis of the gender composition of those state organizations showed that significantly (p < .05) fewer women (13%) than men (87%) held interscholastic athletic administrator positions. Additional analyses showed that there were state as well as regional differences in the percentage of women serving as interscholastic athletic directors. The findings demonstrate that although women have made extensive gains on the playing field as participants, they have been denied access to the positions of power within interscholastic athletics. Remedies and the potential effects of this segregation on girls and women, beyond the playing field, are also discussed

Using biometrics for sport venue management in a post 9-11 era

The purpose of this paper is to assess technologies, both currently available and under development, which may be used to assist sport facility and other venue operators in preempting a terrorist act or some other form of organized act of violence. The attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 highlighted the vulnerability of large facilities to attack by committed terrorists. Facility managers and venue operators must face the challenge of protecting physical assets as well as participants and spectators. This technology forecast focuses on technologies associated with biometrics. The proposition presented has been based, in part, on information provided from interviews with industry experts from a variety of professions, including facility management, biometric technologies, event security and anti-terrorism from both the private and government sectors. A review of published and unpublished materials associated with biometrics is also presented as part of the technology forecast

Traditional Managerial Activities and Interscholastic Athletic Directors: Examining the Differences, Similarities, and Connections between Engagement, Gender, and Success of High School Sports Administrators

The business realities of operating an interscholastic athletic program suggest that there is a rise in the behavioral similarities among traditional business managers and sport managers. This study explored how interscholastic athletic directors allocated their time when engaged in managerial activities; determined if gender influenced behavior; and to what extent the level of engagement in those activities influenced success. The findings indicated most of their time was spent on traditional management activities and the least time engaged in networking. Gender differences did not exist, however, the time spent on traditional management activities was positively correlated to success

Florida ADs and Homologous Reproduction

Kanter’s (Men and women of the corporation, Basic Books, New York, 1977) proposition that those in control within organizations sustain their dominance through homologous reproduction was first applied to sport by [Knoppers, Quest 39(1):9–22, 1987]. Applying the construct to interscholastic athletics in Ohio (Stangl and Kane, Sociol Sport J 8:47–60, 1991) and in Texas (Lovett and Lowry, J Sport Manage 8:27–35, 1994) researchers were able to provide a theoretical foundation to support the anecdotal “good old boys network” which prevailed in high school athletics. This study conducted in Florida determined that while sport remained a male dominated institution, homologous reproduction did not appear to be the factor sustaining the current organizational structure within interscholastic athletic departments

Fairness and Enjoyment in School Sponsored Youth Sports

The purpose of this study was to expand upon research in organizational justice by introducing the construct into a school sponsored sports setting from a sociological perspective. Three dimensions of organizational justice — distributive justice, procedural justice, and interpersonal justice — were assessed to determine if the fairness of coaches, as perceived by their student athletes (N = 259), was associated with the sports the students' enjoyed participating in the most or the least. Two research questions answered by this study were: 1) do fairness perceptions differ between the sport the students enjoy the most and the sport they enjoy the least, and 2) did those perceptions influence the students' desire to continue participating in those referent sports. The findings indicted that perceptions of each of the three dimensions differed between the referent sports selected by the student athletes, and those differences were significant (p < .001). The findings also suggested that a linear relationship existed between each dimension and their intent to continue playing the referent sports