When people ask me about legal concepts in sports, I think more about how to bring the best ownership to the table and how to allow for more owners to participate in the league. Each league has different restrictions as far as ownership and sports management are concerned. There are restrictions that limit how much debt or leverage an owner can have, and even rules for who can be an owner and how much responsibility a general partner should have.

And so, the legal side of owning a sports franchise starts with team agreements and franchise agreements. These are typically complex documents, but they describe how owners have to perform within a league.

An owner needs to understand how much of a team they are allowed to own and how much they can borrow to purchase a team. Can they have limited partners? Are they allowed to have corporate ownership or outside ownership? What kind of information flows to the team owners and the league, and how does that information help owners?

The franchise agreement is a very, very interesting agreement, and it has evolved. It’s changed the way the National Football League does business as it’s tried to increase the value of its franchises.

The only way to increase the value of NFL franchises in the world of global sports is to increase the audience that may be able to buy a franchise. One way to do that is to allow for cross-ownership or to allow for owners of other sports teams in different cities to own NFL franchises. That’s a new way that they’ve tackled the issue in addition to making sports management education and online sports management education more accessible to potential franchise owners.

One crucial aspect to understand in global sports and sports management is sponsorship. Anyone interested in sports management education or online sports management education needs to understand the value of sponsorship.

A sponsorship is an agreement between a corporate organization and a given sports organization. Any given sponsorship opportunity offers an exclusive partnership deal between a sports organization or, in some instances, the sports venue and the organization. For example, when Madison Square Garden makes a sponsorship deal with Pepsi, Pepsi gets a number of things in return. For starters, Pepsi gives Madison Square Garden a financial investment.

This gives Madison Square Garden an extra source of revenue. Pepsi also gets a number of different opportunities. One example would be a product trial, so consumers now have an opportunity to only try Pepsi at Madison Square Garden.

Now, while Pepsi might be an example of something that’s widespread and everyone’s possibly had, there could be a certain pizza company that few have ever had. If that pizza company makes a sponsorship deal with Madison Square Garden, every single individual who’s now visiting Madison Square Garden has a new opportunity to try out this pizza company.

The sponsorship opportunity also offers viewership ability. Pepsi or the pizza company might have ads up all over the stadium, which will be seen by thousands of people who are coming to Madison Square Garden. This is a great benefit in addition to the product trial. Not only are visitors getting a chance to see the signs, but they’re getting a chance to perhaps consume Pepsi or consume any given new pizza company that has signed a deal with Madison Square Garden.

Something that might not be stressed enough in online sports management education is the difference between professional and collegiate sports.

Colleges have a very different business model than professional or global sports with different sports management goals. They’re trying to connect with their students, their alumni, their boosters, and the community in a way that professional teams might not necessarily be looking toward.

It’s important to remember that collegiate athletics is about building a brand and brand identity. Sports management education stresses that professional teams have to build a brand, too. Pro sports, however, build brands and brand identities in a different way.

The collegiate revenue model is about tickets and people watching, and it’s about the regional networks, or the Big 10 network, or the Pac-12 network. Those are important, but they also have to connect the athletics to the university and to their conference in a way that gets people interested in supporting the school.

I think colleges use athletics as a way to really connect with big donors and to get people connected to the university in a way that makes them feel like they’re a part of it.

In the summer of 2016, Helen Maroulis was the first female wrestler ever to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States. When she sat down and started to tell us her story, she didn’t talk about picturing things or conquering mountains. Her story was about something simple. She explained to us that a person goes into battle or a meeting with nothing other than what they have with them. She was able to say, “Look! This is what I did. This is how I was able to win a gold medal. I go into a situation and put forth the best effort that I can. I don’t think that I’m always going to win. I simply know that I’m prepared mentally and physically to do the best that I can.”

Impact of a Well-Told Story

Helen was able to tell her moving story in 30 to 40 seconds. It reached millions because a lot of people could relate to it and decided to share it. The most important thing that she could do was take a large story like winning the gold medal in Rio and narrow it down using the simplest of tactics. This is what you need to do when you’re trying to tell a story.

Important Storytelling Lessons

Everyone has a story. Whether they’re a brand, league, team, student or parent, they have a story. The most important thing that you can do is make certain that you understand the messages that people are trying to communicate to you and others. You must also use the proper medium, no matter what that is, to make certain that whoever you represent is telling their story properly in an impactful way.

One important rule is that you must actively listen when someone is trying to tell you their story. You have two ears and one mouth. So if you listen to whoever it is that’s trying to tell the story and you’re able to prepare from that interaction, you can tell amazing stories on whatever medium that you want to tell them. Today, you have so many options. You can tell their story using video, print, digital or audio. It doesn’t really matter which medium you use, but you have to make sure that you match that medium to the person who’s telling the story.

You also need to be consistent. You must make certain that you’re telling a story to the right audience, and it’s the right story that you want to tell. There are plenty of examples of people who put stories on Twitter and other social media platforms and made one or more mistakes that caused them to lose control of their message. No matter what it is that you want to do with a story, controlling the message is important.

As long as you’re consistent, anyone in your global sports organization should be able to repeat your story. You can do whatever you like as long as your story is consistent and you’re telling it to the proper audience. With social media, you can tell your story with any device that you want to use in any way that you want to use it. Whether you’re using a phone or laptop, you can build your own story and use Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat or any other platform to spread it.

Yet, the most important thing is that you need to curate the message and make certain it’s told consistently and properly. You also need to make certain that you’re conveying the right message.

Finding Storytelling Opportunities

Opportunities in storytelling exist at every level of sports management. You can find them at agencies and in teams. Athletes and celebrities are hiring their own people to help them tell their stories.

There are some really important characteristics that you can develop through a sports management education that you need to have to help them tell their stories. You have to be a good listener and able to write well. It’s also great if you can speak to the world in more than one language. You need to be able to not only tell the thoughts that you want to express, but you also need to take other people’s thoughts and put them into a form, such as video, audio or print, and make sure that the story is told consistently.

There are so many sports management jobs out there now, from entry level to senior positions, that are growing by leaps and bounds. Teams are hiring for sports management jobs, but they’re mostly hiring at entry-level positions. Given that people have up between five and seven years of experience, they’re primarily hiring senior people for story curation, digital and social media, brand building and advertising positions that didn’t exist before.

Online Sports Management Education

These positions will continue to grow. As long as you have the traits outlined, such as being a good listener and writer and a really good storyteller, you can find these jobs. You only need to remember the most important things. You need to know how to tell your story. You need to know all the tools that are out there to tell your story or the story of the company that you work for in the sports industry. An online sports management education is one of the best ways to gain access to this knowledge and these tools.

One of the interesting areas of sports analytics is dynamic ticket pricing. Online sports management education explains this as a way that sales and marketing organizations within the front office of a professional sports team can impact revenues by pricing tickets dynamically. You may ask, “Well, what does that mean?” If you think back years ago, each ticket would have a static price. If the seat was in the 20th row at center ice or center court, or the middle of the football field, the 50-yard line, it essentially had one price for all games.

Today in many global sports, tickets are priced dynamically because we acknowledge that there’s different levels of demand based on the day of the week of the game. We also acknowledge the different levels based on the time of day that the game is being played and the opponent, including the star players that are coming in from the opposing teams. We even acknowledge the different levels if it’s an outdoor game based on the weather and the weather conditions.

It’s really important that we recognize that certain tickets might be worth two or three times as much under favorable conditions. If the Boston Red Sox are coming to play the Kansas City Royals and they’re playing on a Sunday afternoon in July, that ticket is going to be worth a lot more than if the Miami Marlins are coming in to play the Kansas City Royals on a Tuesday night in April. Those are the kinds of things that we can now capture.

Sports management education teaches us that there are algorithms and methods through data analysis. Looking at history and past history sales as well as ticket sales and pricing, we can assess what the relative demand is going to be for each of those games. We have mechanisms much like the stock exchange does so that we can price those tickets at a variable level. Sometimes teams will impose certain rules so that the tickets don’t float freely, but nonetheless they will vary. They’ll vary according to whatever parameters the team wants to permit them to vary based on the demand.

There are really two things happening here in global sports. One is we’re talking about how people consume sports. The sports ecosystem is really all oriented toward how people consume sports. And some of it is “live” and “in person” in a traditional way: that’s going to the stadium, or in some ways, going to a bar or a restaurant, and hanging out with other people. Some of it is consuming it just on your own and much closer to home.

The future of the esports ecosystem really is in, let’s use a buzzword, connectivity — meaning that all the things that are out there that make up this sports ecosystem, whether it’s live at a venue, whether it’s on the way to the venue, if it’s in your home, wherever it is that you are consuming sports — that’s where the future of this ecosystem is.

It’s no longer just about being in one place. It’s about being in one place and having access to everything everywhere.

Online Sports Management Education

During your sports management education studies, you need to focus on connectivity whenever possible. It’s important because the sports organization that you work for some day will rely on the sports ecosystem to thrive.

Why is there a sports business program? Why can’t you just get a business degree or get an MBA and go into sports business? Why should there be a special sports business program? There better be a good answer for that question or else there shouldn’t be any sports management programs. And the way I teach sports management is to first understand the difference between sports and sports business.

The question you must answer is, “What is sports?” Why is this business different from any other business? Why won’t they pack a stadium of 50,000 people to watch two guys close an insurance deal? Why do people make irrational, disproportionate expenditures on sports, on their teams, on their sneakers, on Muscle Milk, on all these kinds of things? What is it about sports that requires a whole separate program because it’s a different thing?

And I will tell you. It’s because it is a different thing. Sports has specific properties. It’s a cultural form that didn’t start out as a business, but it’s become a whole ecosystem of business because of the cultural form. It’s not just sales, it’s not just marketing. It’s stemming from something that is intrinsically human.

Every one of us, believe it or not, by virtue of being here as this species of mammal, actually likes sports in a way that’s almost critical to our survival. That’s why we have a sports management program. If you think about it that way, you will be able to be successful at sports business. You won’t just be a person who thinks about business without understanding the underlying thing.

Fantasy sports have become a fascinating element of the global sports system, and it’s a big sports management business in and of itself. Interestingly, athletes are keenly aware that they are on different fantasy teams all over. In addition, some athletes play in fantasy sports leagues of their own. It’s sometimes with a league of the sport that they professionally play, and sometimes it’s with a league of a different sport. It’s an exciting dynamic for professional football players to know that when they score a touchdown, they are doing something for thousands of people worldwide who have them as a player on their fantasy team. These players are contributing to the fantasy participants all over. I’m not sure how much of an impact it has on people, but it is something that athletes are aware of. If you’d like to learn more about this, consider pursuing an online sports management education.

Vince Gennaro says that in the Columbia masters in sports management program they have “a very productive partnership” with FC Bayern Munich, where they’re able to take many of the broader lessons of the European sport-club model into the classroom and help the students really understand and appreciate all of the nuances of a global sports enterprise.

One of the things that Vince found interesting is in conversations with the executive board members, Rudolf Vidal, and others there’s been “a focus on bringing authenticity to the United States.” So it’s not just that they wanted to open up an office and do everything “the American way.” While there’s a level of adaptation and assimilation, Vince senses that FC Bayern Munich feels that it’s very important to have an authentic relationship back to the mothership, if you will, back in Munich.

Benno Ruwe totally agrees. He thinks that when you are going to a foreign market or when you want to engage people you are engaging people when you are telling your own story, when you are talking about your own heritage and not trying to be like any other franchise, or club, or any other brand in the United States, or just trying to replicate or duplicate whatever others are doing.

FC Bayern has got a unique story to tell. And it is a story that Ruwe feels is relevant to a lot of people in the United States and anywhere around the globe. But in order to get people to listen to you, or get them interested in your brand or what you’re doing, you have to talk to them in a language or in those little nuances so that they really understand what it is all about.

FC Bayern was founded in 1900, primarily as a football club and as a soccer club. But over time, they added a basketball team, they added a chess team, and they had a table tennis team. They had at the time a gymnastics team that they don’t have anymore, unfortunately. They have a handball team. So they’ve got a lot of different sport options that are beneficial to the community.

The nonprofit organization of the club was providing those sports to the community in and around Munich and really being active there. And soccer and football were always and are still the biggest parts of it, and they are the most important department that is being offered at FC Bayern Munich.

Ruew points out that Bayern’s story is also different from most United States franchises, which focus on one sport. A lot of players that won the World Cup in 2014 for Germany went through the Youth Academy–seven in fact–and that curriculum, that philosophy, and how they are teaching the kids at the headquarters in Germany how to play football is still present.

“This is a unique story that we want to bring to the United States. And we are trying to do it in an authentic way but still with a little adaptation to the local market. And this is what we are doing here in the United States,” explains Ruwe, “but this is also something that we are going to do in Shanghai and China, the other focus market.”

Gennaro says that when they first opened the Bayern Munich office in the US in 2014 they realized that the American market, or the American consumer, is engaging on digital media in a different way than expected and are used to in Germany and Europe. Twitter is a much bigger communication tool in the United States than it is in Germany. When they wanted to reach out to fans and fan groups in the United States, they realized that it’s not possible just to talk to them on Facebook or via a newsletter. That is not really where the engagement and the conversation are. It is really on Twitter, or nowadays, on Snapchat, and all those new social-media platforms that are popping up.

And so FC Bayern actually cut off their Facebook page from the global page and are now running their own autonomous Facebook page from the U.S. They’ve got a media department in the U.S. that is taking care of the American social media. And they also set up their own U.S. Twitter account for FC Bayern Munich and are now able to talk to fans all across the United States with this local voice in their own time zones, and picking up trends that are on social media–not only from the sports management side but also from pop culture–and really trying to engage in a conversation that is even broader than just FC Bayern Munich and sports but always referring back to FC Bayern Munich or linking FC Bayern Munich memes and themes to those trending topics.

The United States consumers expect a much more engaged approach on digital media than they do in Germany. In Germany or in Europe, it’s more like FC Bayern is reporting about FC Bayern Munich. And in the U.S., they are talking with their fans about FC Bayern Munich, and responding to tweets, and responding to Facebook posts, and really trying to get a very engaged community in the U.S. And, Gennaro states, that really is “the biggest difference when we are talking about Germany and the United States when it comes to our digital platforms.”

In the U.S., Bayern Munich still growing, and it’s getting bigger and bigger and more challenging to keep up with the conversations. But they have got a very capable team that is taking care of all of this. And it’s fun to see the interaction and the communication between the team and the fans out there. And they appreciate it.

They’ve even adapted their website in the U.S. and the app to be a U.S.-specific site. So it’s not simply the English translation of the German site. It’s specifically targeted at the U.S. market. And that’s another element of the customization that’s been acknowledged, retaining that authenticity.

Ruwe adds, “We saw a lot of even German teams picking up at this style of communication on Twitter, on social media, and a lot of fans really love it and are now following. Even if they’re from Germany, they’re more following our U.S. Twitter account than they are following the German ones, which makes us proud, obviously. But it also shows that opening the office was not only a one-way street, so it’s not only that FC Bayern is bringing something to the U.S. market, but it’s also bringing something back to the organization in Germany.” Ruwe continued to state that they are learning from the sports landscape here in the United States and from the sports audience in the United States and taking that back with us to the headquarters and discussing if it is adapted for the global audience as well.

And it’s necessary to speak in a U.S. voice on all your platforms, not only on Facebook and Twitter but also on the website, and use the platform website also to introduce FC Bayern to a not-so-knowledgeable audience. It should be kept that way. So there is also integrated information about the basketball team on it, on the women’s team, and created stories about the fan clubs in the United States.

There is actually a very engaged fanclub base in the United States, which is in constant exchange with FC Bayern. And they wanted to give them a platform where they were telling their stories, when they were founded, where they meet each other on the weekend to watch FC Bayern games. FC buying wasn’t always broadcast on major TV stations like it is right now on Fox Sports. It used to be on Gold TV or hidden on other smaller networks, and people really had to search for it, or even gather in bars and watch it.

So an entire culture really got together. And they wanted to give the fans a platform because they were promoting the FC Bayern brand long before they themselves were there. That is really what FC Bayern is doing with the website primarily nowadays. It was necessary to set up a U.S. website because the German content was not always relevant to their global audience, so this experiment in global branding and online sports management education has served them very well.

Innovation in global sports facilities happens in a number of ways. According to online sports management education, one of the ways that I think is really interesting is this concept of public-private partnerships. The cost of building sports facilities is enormous these days. We’re seeing arenas pushed between $500, $700, and even $800 million to build a first-class arena, and football stadiums in the NFL, over a billion and a half dollars. A more recent one in Las Vegas has been quoted as being $1.4 million.

The communities are participating. You might say sports and their respective sports management has got so much money, why do communities need to invest? The answer is that they are community assets and those community assets lend themselves to being public private partnerships. They’re not just used for sports, they’re used for meeting places. They’re almost like their 24-hour convention centers and this is a way that gets both the community, the developers, and the teams invested in an asset, which is transformative.