56 research outputs found

    Organizational Escalation and Retreat in University Athletics: Brand Insulation in Birmingham-Southern College’s Transition to Division III Athletics

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    This case study will explore the theory of escalation of commitment within the context of intercollegiate athletics. This management-based theory has been used within business and foreign policy literature, but has yet to be explored through a sport management context. Recently, Birmingham-Southern College chose to reclassify its athletics programs from the Division I classification to the Division III classification. Utilizing qualitative methodology, interviews (N = 11) were conducted with a variety of university constituents. Findings revealed the following four themes: a) unsubstantiated outcomes regarding the benefits of Division I athletics, b) strained finances, c) presidential leadership, and d) perceived roles of a small, liberal arts institution. Discussion and application of the resulting thematic emergences with the escalation of commitment determinants will be discussed

    Professional Sports Organizations and Business Analytics: Monopoly Power vs Debt Financing

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    In this essay, we consider the factors that explain the reticence of PSOs to be early adopters of analytics. We examine the relatively privileged position that professional sports franchises at the highest echelon in the U.S. and Canada enjoy and compare it the industry dynamics firms face in competitive environments. We remark upon the expansion of the league via debt financing, and why that promotes increased use of analytics. We also offer several propositions about the growth of analytics, and we conclude with some thoughts about what the future may hold for PSOs and analytics

    Brand Establishment at the University of Chicago: An Investigation of De-Escalation of Commitment in University Athletics

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    This article is a historical case analysis of the University of Chicago’s decision to discontinue participation in scholarship football in 1939. This decision was made at the behest of then University of Chicago President Robert Hutchins and Board of Trustee members in hopes of preserving the university’s academic reputation and brand. This article discusses the decision of a highly selective and academically prestigious research university to abandon Division I athletics during a period of athletic success by its football team. This unprecedented decision by a founding member of one of the nation’s premier athletic conferences, the Big Ten, has left questions about the role of intercollegiate athletics within a highly selective and academically prestigious university

    A Dichotomy of Sport Sponsorships: Does the Nature of Competition Among Sponsors Matter?

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    In this paper, we argue that the firm value implications of sport sponsorships for sponsors may depend on the competitive environment during the bidding process for different types of sponsorships. More specifically, we contend that the bidding environment for professional football (soccer) kit sponsorships represents a form of common value auction, while the bidding environment for corporate logo sponsorships on teams’ shirts does not. As common value auctions are prone to winner’s curse, the firm value implications should be different for kit sponsorship announcements than for shirt sponsorship announcements. Our results suggest that shareholders indeed perceive the value derived from kit and shirt sponsorships differently, resulting in the predicted distinction in their impact on sponsors’ firm value. This study sheds light on conflicting results on firm value implications of sport sponsorships in the prior literature and provides rich areas for future research

    Intercollegiate Athletics and Escalation of Commitment

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    This dissertation provides an overview of the history of intercollegiate athletics through the lens of escalation of commitment theory, a framework that has been used primarily in business and public policy literature. The dissertation is comprised of three case studies that reflect the direction that different college or universities have chosen to take regarding their athletic programs. This dissertation explores the literature regarding escalation of commitment and its impact on college athletics. Contributing to the paper is a focus on the financial contributions colleges and universities continue to make in their athletic programs despite evidence that these resources are not being rewarded. The papers hypothesizes that both external and internal pressures play a key role in the investments that college and universities are making in their Division I athletic programs

    Moving Beyond Traditional Sponsorships: Understanding the Structure and Dynamics Of Minority Equity Sponsorship Agreements

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    Purpose - The purpose of this study is to understand the structure and dynamics of minority equity sponsorship agreements and the motivations for organizations to go beyond traditional sponsorships by acquiring minority equity in the sponsored organization. Design/methodology approach - This paper adopts a qualitative methodology and presents interview data from key actors involved in minority equity sponsorship agreements. Findings - The findings of the paper include major characteristics of minority equity sponsorship agreements including the motivations, dynamics, and resources exchanged by sponsoring firms and clubs in these relationships, based on the experiences of key actors from firms, clubs, and other key stakeholders, and a conceptual model for forming and maintaining these relationships. Practical implications – Sponsorships are increasingly evolving into minority equity sponsorship agreements, particularly in the European market. The findings of this study assist sponsoring firms and the executives of clubs in better understanding the dynamics and stakeholder-related consequences of these relations. Originality/value: The findings of this paper illustrate the differences between minority equity sponsorship agreements and both traditional sponsorships and minority equity alliances. The findings also identify major characteristics of these relationships and the interdependencies among these characteristics

    Change is hard: overcoming barriers to service innovation

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    Creating value through service innovation requires new processes and ways of communicating to multiple stakeholders. Institutions and stakeholders within the service ecosystem, however, often resist change. Adopting a new service strategy entails two distinct costs – monetary and psychological. The tensions between an organization’s need to generate incremental revenue and the challenges of balancing business as usual and the costs associated with service innovation are explored. Specifically, this paper aims to explore the adoption of a customer relationship management (CRM) technology solution in a bureaucratic setting, and the sequence of events needed for successful implementation, with emphasis on overcoming various barriers and hurdles.Ye

    Action sports athletes as entrepreneurs: Female professional wakeboarders, sponsorship, and branding

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    This teaching case explores the sport of wakeboarding to examine how its female practitioners need to become entrepreneurial in order to make a living from the sport. Students ponder the financial pressures of becoming a professional female wakeboarder, and how to sustain momentum once one turns professional. The significance and inter-relationship of sponsorship and self-branding/promotion figure prominently. Costs of competing are high in the best of circumstances, and nearly insurmountable without corporate backing. Obtaining such support requires a healthy degree of marketing oneself. The female riders offer a number of anecdotes and recollections providing salience to issues concerning sustainability and gender inequity. Male riders may earn up to four times more on tour than female riders and there is pressure to adapt to the “boys’ club” to advance one's career. Earning a living through involvement in wakeboarding is difficult for women. Models of entrepreneurism are provided to guide student discussion in developing strategies to overcome issues for female wakeboarders making the sport financially attractive for female competitors.Ye

    More than competition: exploring stakeholder identities at a grassroots cause-related sporting event

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    The purpose of this paper is to (a) explore stakeholder identities of a grassroots cause-related sporting event; and (b) gain a better understanding of how identities are related to stakeholder development, support of the event, and future intentions. We used a mixed methods research design that consisted of two studies: qualitative followed by quantitative. Study 1 explored stakeholder identities and how they are related to stakeholder development and support of the event, and Study 2 examined how future intentions regarding attendance, donations, and sponsor support differ based on levels of stakeholder identity. Sports marketing and non-profit management literature streams as well as identity theory and social capital theory informed our studies. The National Kidney Foundation Surf Festival was selected because it is a grassroots cause-related sporting event with financial success over the last two decades. In addition, a surf contest, an action sport, is a unique sport setting in the nonprofit sector, which offers insight to marketers seeking to target subcultures. The findings of the qualitative study revealed three identities relevant to participants: sport subculture, community, and cause. A framework emerged from the data that illustrated how these identities unite together to generate social capital, which is linked to effective volunteer and sponsorship management. Quantitative analysis through survey data provided further evidence of the impact of identification with a cause-related sport activity on consumer outcomes. Results indicated attendees with high surf-related identity are more likely to attend future Surf Festivals, have higher intentions to donate to the cause, and have higher sponsor purchase intentions compared to those with low self-identity with the sport subculture. The conclusion discusses implications, framing the findings through the intersection of the sports marketing and non-profit sector industries, and provides suggestions for future research.Ye

    Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome associated with COVID-19: An Emulated Target Trial Analysis.

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    RATIONALE: Whether COVID patients may benefit from extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) compared with conventional invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) remains unknown. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the effect of ECMO on 90-Day mortality vs IMV only Methods: Among 4,244 critically ill adult patients with COVID-19 included in a multicenter cohort study, we emulated a target trial comparing the treatment strategies of initiating ECMO vs. no ECMO within 7 days of IMV in patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (PaO2/FiO2 <80 or PaCO2 ≥60 mmHg). We controlled for confounding using a multivariable Cox model based on predefined variables. MAIN RESULTS: 1,235 patients met the full eligibility criteria for the emulated trial, among whom 164 patients initiated ECMO. The ECMO strategy had a higher survival probability at Day-7 from the onset of eligibility criteria (87% vs 83%, risk difference: 4%, 95% CI 0;9%) which decreased during follow-up (survival at Day-90: 63% vs 65%, risk difference: -2%, 95% CI -10;5%). However, ECMO was associated with higher survival when performed in high-volume ECMO centers or in regions where a specific ECMO network organization was set up to handle high demand, and when initiated within the first 4 days of MV and in profoundly hypoxemic patients. CONCLUSIONS: In an emulated trial based on a nationwide COVID-19 cohort, we found differential survival over time of an ECMO compared with a no-ECMO strategy. However, ECMO was consistently associated with better outcomes when performed in high-volume centers and in regions with ECMO capacities specifically organized to handle high demand. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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