How Sports Venues Can Energize Communities

One thing that comes up in sports management education is how sports development works to drive tourism. We know that sports aren’t only for people who live in the city or community, they’re also about people who are traveling there, either for business or pleasure. One thing we see happening with sporting venues that’s been happening for a long time is that it isn’t enough to simply put the venue in the middle of a location, and assume that people are going to come.

We know from history that there also needs to be some retail there. There has to be some commercial, and maybe even residential development that goes into it. What we’re really talking about is building small communities around these sports venues. This is essentially sport-led development, where we see sports as the centerpiece to growing something much larger that benefits the community as a whole.

One interesting example is in the Tampa, Florida, downtown area, which had previously been almost exclusively used during business hours, without much else going on outside of that. But then, the Tampa Bay Lightning NHL team took new ownership by Jeff Vinik, a financier from Boston who had come to Tampa. When he showed up, he decided that he would not only infuse money into the franchise and venue, but he was also going to use it as the centerpiece of growing the downtown area, making it much more vibrant and active than it had been in decades—or longer.

That growth in Tampa has continued to happen. There is now $3 billion worth of investment in the downtown area in partnership with Bill Gates, which demonstrates that something big is indeed happening there. Additionally, just in the span of a few years, hotels are already going up and the entertainment district is flourishing. Even a major medical school is moving its main campus to the area. So, there has been this incredible growth coming from this sporting venue, and in a way really re-growing and re-imagining the city. Though we do have to keep an eye on this type of growth and make sure it’s happening at a sustainable and manageable place, but overall, it’s really great to see.

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How Strong Leaders Can Shape a Healthy Culture

Sports are capable of cultivating values, but just because they can do so doesn’t mean that they’re automatically going to. To happen, it requires the right kinds of support systems and the right kind of structure. And in a way, it all comes down to the coaches, who are some of the biggest influences in young people’s lives. They shouldn’t just be there to win games, because if that becomes the focus, then it’s no longer about leadership, honesty, integrity, and cooperation. Instead, it’s just about winning, and that leads to negative values, such as being willing to cheat or prioritizing winning at all costs, no matter what it takes to do so.

For example, how does a coach handle a situation or expect an athlete to operate, when there are competing values at stake? For instance, a team is down a couple of points near the end of a basketball game. A point guard goes on a fast break and plows into another player, and that player hits the ground painfully and starts writhing around in agony. And keep in mind, this might be a high-pressure game near the end of the season, where one more shot could be the difference between making it to the finals or not.

In that situation, what is the athlete going to do? Are you going to go for the shot? Are you going to stop, and make sure that your opponent is okay? What exactly is expected of you? Now, there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer there. However, the way that coaches approach that kind of situation with their athletes can be the difference between a kid who comes out of that game with a certain amount of integrity and respect for the people with whom they’re playing, and a kid who has just become obsessed with winning.

So, even at the youth level, the stakes in sports can be pretty high, and this can lead to amazing outcomes. It can lead to kids coming out of it not just being heroes from the game but also being really successful human beings in life. However, we also see a fair bit of corruption, and irresponsibility, and pain coming out of sports. And those are the cases in which the support systems aren’t set up the right way.

Sports can be an opportunity to develop camaraderie and relationships that last a lifetime, but they can also be a significant location for trauma and long-term abuse, and the line there may not be as clear as you think it is.

It’s pretty standard for organized sports teams to have hazing or some sort of induction ceremonies or events. For these, it’s one thing to have team-building exercises, but it’s another thing to degrade your rookies for no reason other than the fact that they’re new to the team and need to prove themselves.

So, to navigate that line between effective team-building exercises and the things that embarrass, degrade, and abuse people, it has to be overseen and navigated by strong leaders. Those leaders are the team captains and the coaches who decide and demonstrate that you can build a team and camaraderie in ways that don’t negatively influence the mental and physical health of the athletes and the team. Because at worst, some of these negative examples can lead to long-term injury, or even death of athletes who are forced to do horrible things, like hold their breath underwater, or sleep outside without clothes.

Fortunately, these types of immoral and unhealthy practices can be avoided, as long as you have strong leaders.

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How Technology Is Changing Sports

If we look at technology and global sports, one of the fascinating things is that we have technology that has actually enabled new sports, in new leagues. One example we can look at is the World Surf League. The World Surf League operates with waves on shores. So, how would technology impact that league?

Well, it’s interesting, because if you think about it, it’s dependent on local weather and surf conditions. As a result, it’s very difficult to schedule a surfing competition in advance with the same precision that a broadcaster would want, or that fans would want so they could know when to tune in and watch, or when to attend.

So, what we’ve got now with social media is that it allows the conditions to be monitored by the producers of the event, and it allows them to get the word out through social media to their fans. They can announce things like “in the next six hours, we’re going to run our surfing event”.

Because of the technology of social media, we’re able to have that sport. Furthermore, we can deliver that telecast directly to consumers in something we call over the top, by going direct on the internet to consumers who may subscribe to the World Surf League channel. So, this is an example of a league that would have a really hard time existing if not for modern technology. The technology allows you to engage your fan base on a real-time basis when the event is going to occur. And the event, of course, is dependent on local conditions in terms of surf, weather, etc.

This is a really good example of how technology didn’t just change a sport, but it actually made a sport possible. While new technologies are generally viewed by many people as a good thing, they don’t affect everyone equally. For example, if you think of the rights holders, and the broadcasters to professional sports leagues who are accustomed to telecasting through a television set, through cable or broadcast TV, the new technology isn’t necessarily a good thing to them.

What happens when fans who are constantly on the go are much more inclined to watch games on their smartphones, or on any other mobile device, including the iPad? These are some of the questions that have to be asked and examined as technology continues to evolve.

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How the Finance Industry Is Merging With Global Sports

A topic that comes up in sports management education is how finance ties in with the world of sports. There are a lot of roles that people in finance can play in sports, both from banking and sponsorships through banks and investment banking. So, financial services definitely fall under those categories. There are consulting companies as well. The large banks, the large consulting companies and the large accounting firms all play a role in advising franchises, owners, buyers and sellers in prospective purchases and sales of teams.

Entities that want to own sports interests do it for a variety of reasons. Corporations that own them find that it’s great production value. We’ve seen companies like Disney, which owns ESPN, or Rupert Murdoch’s companies, which owned all of the regional sports networks, buying teams like the Anaheim Angels, the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Dodgers because they were content. Often, that content is like the tail wagging the dog. Those corporations really wanted to be able to produce the content; they didn’t need to own it.

What we’re seeing is a change in ownership structure. More sophisticated individual owners who have been successful with their own businesses are bringing those management concepts into the business of sports. So, you have people who are sophisticated financial services folk, sophisticated management consultants. They’ve owned consumer brand companies, and they are buying franchises. These are often very wealthy individuals who have made their money in a variety of ways.

But why do they want to own athletic teams? One reason is the desire to win the championship, whether it be the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup, the NBA Championship or the MLS Cup. They get excitement from doing it. Another reason is that they sometimes feel a franchise is underperforming, and they want to bring their management style to that franchise to improve its performance.

The Golden State Warriors franchise is a great example of this, a small market or midmarket team by East Coast standards, but a very successful one. They’ve recruited great players. They have a great management style. They’re obviously a dominant force in the NBA. And they’ve turned what was an underperforming franchise into an overperforming or outperforming franchise because they’ve brought management style and structure to that team.

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How Analytics Are Changing the Way We View Sports

If we look at the two types of analytics that are used in sports today, we’ve got on-field and off-field analytics. The on-field type is often referred to as athlete performance analytics. Whereas the off-field kind is often referred to as sales and marketing analytics, which really helps us understand the revenue streams and the consumer, the sports fan, who’s driving the revenue equation. So, for the off-field analytics, we’re looking at all sorts of demographic data and information about, say, our season-ticket holders, for example.

We’re also looking at the flow of their tickets. Let’s say someone buys a full-season ticket package—41 games, to see an NBA team play. They may only attend 22 of those games. So, what happens with the other 19 games? Do they give those tickets away to friends? Do they sell them? Are they sold, and then resold, and then resold again on the secondary market? If we can follow the trail of these tickets, we get a good sense of how the fan values the sport and values the season-ticket package. And these are important things that we want to know when looking at season-ticket renewals.

We also want to look at the prospects who are buying their tickets as potential season-ticket holders themselves. You can begin to see how this is just one example of a data stream that could really add to the revenue equation for a sports team.

For athlete performance analytics in baseball, for example, there are high-speed cameras and Doppler radar installed within all 30 Major League ballparks. This allows us to capture an enormous volume of data. And we know every movement on the field of a player. But we also have 20 plus metrics on every pitch that is thrown. So we have details on the velocity of the pitch when it leaves the hand of the pitcher and when it crosses the plate.

We know the location of the pitch. We know the movement of the pitch across several axes: the vertical axis and the horizontal axis. We even know the spin of the pitch—both the spin axis and the spin rate of the pitch. All of these diagnostics go a long way toward evaluating the effectiveness of a pitcher or a hitter.

We have the same for batted balls, and we also know where fielders are positioned and how they move across the field when a batted ball is put in play. All of these things give us so much more depth and richness, especially when compared to the data that’s on the back of an old baseball card, for example. These analytics really have changed the way we look at every aspect of these sports, and that’s the world that we’re playing in today.

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How Athlete Endorsements Differ From Other Collaborations

When it comes to endorsement deals, they usually tend to involve an individual who is highly sought after by companies. In a sports field, this individual is typically a star athlete, and these athletes are endorsers if they’re endorsing or supporting a particular product. This is different from regular advertising.

With regular advertising, it’s more about the brand speaking directly to the consumer. With endorsements, though, it’s the individual endorser interacting with whatever brand it is they’re partnered with. Granted, certain endorsements can take place within advertisements, but it’s important to differentiate the fact that endorsements are about the athlete interacting with the brand personally. And when it comes to these endorsements, athletes are quite a bit different from typical celebrities.

They come with a lot of fan passion. There are many sports organizations that will put forth certain athletes because they know these athletes have a massive following. Not only do they have a massive following in terms of numbers – that’s quantity — but the fans who follow them also really rely on what the athletes are offering. Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, endorses Nike. Once Cristiano Ronaldo shows off his Nike cleats, you will see a massive following his fans, who are heavily invested in what he does, go out and purchase those cleats for themselves.

With endorsements that particularly have to do with athletes, they’re different from collaborations or sponsorship agreements. With a sponsorship agreement, for example, you might say that the Michigan College football team is sponsored by Jumpman 23 or has a collaboration effort with them, but they aren’t necessarily going out in commercials and endorsing the brand.

With Cristiano Ronaldo and his endorsement of Nike, though, he will often be carrying Nike cleats around his neck or, perhaps, be utilizing Nike cleats and talking about the positive aspects of the brand. The difference with endorsements is that you’ll regularly see a given athlete endorse or talk up a particular brand. A collaboration or sponsorship is more of a partnership in nature. It’s not so interactive with the team and the product.

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How Athletes and Venues Earn Revenue

When talking about both national and global sports, the players make money first by playing their sport. Whether it’s a team sport or an individual sport, the better the performance, usually, the more money they earn. But on top of playing their game, there’s also money to be made in terms of endorsements, and products, and services, and programs that they represent and that they sell to consumers.

One of the all-time great endorsement deals is for Michael Jordan, “the air man”. He and Nike came out with Air Jordans at a time when the NBA had restricted what colors players could wear on their shoes. But Jordan’s statement with those first Air Jordans was so powerful that it led the NBA to change its policy. And now, of course, we’ve got all sorts of shoe deals with players.

Stadiums, arenas, and any sports venues earn money certainly by people coming through its gates, and the money they spend once they’re inside, but owners also earn money and generate revenue in all sorts of different ways. It used to be mostly from tickets, gate receipts, and concessions that fans had purchased once they were in the stadium, the merchandise they purchased in the stadium or merchandise that they’d purchased in a local store.

However, over time, that certainly grew in a number of different ways. Revenue for owners comes in the form of television deals. It comes in the form of basically any kind of business that the club or the franchise conducts anywhere in the ecosystem. So, we also see owners investing in areas that are sometimes indirectly related to sports, or in other areas in and around the venue.

Local real estate has certainly been one of the new things, over time, that owners have gotten involved in. And really, when you think about and look at it, what are sports venues really but nice-sized real estate deals?

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How Athletes Take Risks to Impact Social Change

One topic within sports management education is how sports affect social change. You’ll see sports used oftentimes in political agendas, and where this is most visible is with the Olympics. Now, the Olympics movement will say that it’s not about politics and that it’s about bringing people together to compete at the highest level and support one another in that endeavor.

However, we have seen that this isn’t the case. We’ve seen political posturing, if you will, throughout the Olympic games in many different ways. For example, in the 1960s, our country was going through quite a change socially, and we had a lot of racial injustice happening. It was much like what’s happening today, but in a different way. And the U.S. team had a lot of African American athletes who were treated poorly at home. But on the stage, they’re treated very differently, and so we had two amazing sprinters stand up against that social injustice.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos took the gold and the bronze, and when the American national anthem was played, they raised their fists in the black power salute, and it was extremely powerful at that moment. So, when we talk about sport and the challenges of social change, these two athletes quietly protested on a very big stage to demonstrate what was actually going on at home and the hypocrisy that was happening at that time.

What they did get was a lot of backlash. They were vilified for what they did, and it was seen as a political stunt. The IOC basically shamed them for what they did, and they were even stripped of their medals. This was a very unfortunate outcome for something that was really important to say quietly. Obviously, they hadn’t said anything, but what they did spoke volumes. So, when we talk about social change and how sports can play a role, we see a lot of backlash when athletes quietly do that.

We’re even seeing it right now with athletes who are becoming activists and standing up for what’s happening and what’s going wrong. They’re using their celebrity to have a stronger voice, and there’s a lot of backlash that comes along with that.

That’s where the challenge lies. We’re pushing the borders of what’s uncomfortable, and it’s very difficult to talk about these things. However, we have these athletes who are in the spotlight and who can stand up and say “you know what? Something’s going wrong here, and we need to have a conversation about it.”

But unfortunately, doing so causes backlash, and that’s where the challenge is. Yes, sports can be used as a vehicle for social change, and it can be incredibly powerful, but it can also hit a lot of barriers along the way because people tend to not agree on everything. Because global sports and the sporting world have such extraordinary platforms to communicate messages to the biggest audiences in the world, it becomes an opportunity to get a really important conversation started.

When Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality, he started something that we are still seeing the effects of today—not just for him as a player but also for how our country views and understands things like patriotism.

Questions of things like how our police force should be conducting itself and how people of color are treated by the majority are now being asked. And they’re being asked because this one individual, who had a fair bit of power and popularity, was willing to do something controversial, and I would argue, pretty brave as well.

You might think that the forum he chose wasn’t appropriate or that the way he chose to express himself wasn’t the best way to do it. However, whether you think these things or not, he got the conversation started, and that’s a pretty powerful and important thing.

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How Athletes Use Endorsement Deals to Supplement Income

When it comes to paid endorsements for athletes, the amount of money that each individual stands to make depends on their likeability, their talent level, and which sports league they play in. In terms of their salaries, there are certain leagues that actually have a salary cap, with the NFL being one such league. For them, it’s a hard salary cap, which means that each and every team can only pay their players up to a certain amount of money per year.

Sometimes, this kind of salary cap leads to unorthodox strategies. One interesting example of this is Tom Brady, who, with the knowledge that his team is limited by the salary cap, has voluntarily taken a pay cut so that the team would be able to pay more money to his teammates. That being said, Tom Brady also knows that due to his star power and recognizability, he has the ability to make up that lost salary with money from various endorsement deals.

It’s important to keep in mind that individual athletes aren’t bound to only having one or two endorsements; they can have as many as they want and are able to acquire. For example, Tom Brady endorses certain car brands. He also endorses certain types of beds. And if he wanted to, he could endorse whatever other products were offered to him, as well. He is a great example of how much tougher hard salary caps are on players that don’t have the appeal or acclaim to secure high-paying endorsements, as a star like Tom Brady can simply make his money elsewhere. Most players don’t have quite as many options.

You can learn more about how athletes build their brand and secure lucrative endorsements, as well as various other topics relating to sports management and global sports, with sports management education. To access online sports management education, you need little more than an internet connection.

How Athletes Use Social Media to Speak Out

One thing that has potential for great impacts on society and organizations in many different ways is athlete-driven media. We’ve seen recently that athletes are feeling more empowered to speak out about injustices and to speak out about things and causes that are really important to them. One great example of this in recent times is Olympic champion Simone Biles. Most people know her. She won five Olympic medals in the Rio Games, and four of them were gold.

USA Gymnastics, the national governing body of her sport, has recently had a lot of problems and turmoil because of a sexual abuse scandal with a team doctor. USA Gymnastics then hired a new CEO named Mary Bono, who was formerly a politician in California. This was viewed as somewhat of a curious choice. When the decision was made, Simone Biles actually took to social media and retweeted something that the new CEO, Mary Bono, had tweeted. Basically, she had used a black marker to black out the Nike symbol on her shoes when she was going to play golf. This was in response to Nike and their Colin Kaepernick ad.

Another part of this was that USA Gymnastics had lost quite a few of their sponsors as a result of the sexual abuse scandal. One of those was their apparel sponsor, which used to be Under Armor. Now, they don’t have one.

So, Biles retweeted in explanation that she thought the group needed a smarter CEO, particularly one who wouldn’t insult a popular apparel company when they were still in need of an apparel sponsor. It was a really interesting example of a sports star choosing to speak out.

In the past, because of the power structures, we never would have had athletes speaking out in this way. But now, the athlete-driven media really helps to give the athletes a public voice and a platform that others can get behind. Simone’s tweet was retweeted, talked about, and written about in several major news outlets. As it turned out, the new CEO ended up resigning only five days after getting the job, and Simone Biles choosing to be vocal had a major impact on that.

You can learn more about how athletes are able to use their platforms and social media to affect change, as well as many other concepts regarding sports management and global sports marketing, with online sports management education. This form of sports management education allows you to learn about these concepts and access these lessons without having to spend as much money or physically going to class.