CRM is a way that a lot of consumers are now understanding it almost as second nature. If I write an email to someone saying that we want to go on a vacation, I might see a pop-up ad for a cruise line. Now, that doesn’t mean that’s too invasive. It just simply means the CRM understands, in real-time, my wants and needs, and offers a solution to satiate my needs. CRM has the ability to really offer what the consumer wants and we’re seeing that a lot of consumers are clicking on the cruise ad, for instance. If they are searching for certain shoes, for example, perhaps athletic or sportswear, CRM may take that sports data into consideration, such as the type of information regarding who they are and their age group. They’ll track and triangulate the data in terms of what are this age group’s preferences, along with the search patterns before, and offer up new athletic wear for these consumers. Again, this is information that is directly catering towards the needs of what the consumer wants. It’s offering a solution in terms of what the consumer can get from it.

Organizations now are able to collect so much more data about their fans and about who these people are that are following them or who are purchasing from them. Sports management education teaches, one of the ways that information can be used is through really targeted marketing and targeted emails. An example of this might be a team who can look at a fan and say, “This person attended 10 of our 82 games last year.” It doesn’t make sense to market a season ticket plan to this person. Now, teams have data where they can look and see they have attended 10 games. They purchased two tickets to each of those and they tended to sit kind of up in a higher section where the tickets are a lower price. That allows the team and sports management to then develop a really targeted, maybe mini package or 10 game plan. Maybe they’d bump it up to a 12-game plan to try to increase the amount that person spends engaged with the team in the following season. They can do some really targeted promotions using that data, according to online sports management education.

Have you ever watched little kids before they play? Before they get down to playing, they immediately begin to say, “Ok, you’re going to do this. Then, I’m going to ask you this, and then you’re going to fall down.” They spend a lot of time figuring that out because when you know the rules, it’s safe. See, life has no rules. Life can go anywhere. There is no book. There is no certainty. In-play we make rules and the rules are supreme. Another thing about play is that it must be distinct from real life in locality and duration. In other words, there’s a beginning and an end. It takes place here; meaning on the field, on the court, or on this mountain. Life can go anywhere all over the globe. There are no boundaries.

The rules are, I know if I’m in bounds, and I know if I am out of bounds. In life, we stretch the boundaries with each other all the time. We create new laws all the time. Online sports management education tells us when I know the rules, when I know if I’m in the bounds or out of bounds, when I know this is not real life, it’s not life or death, then I am safe and I can explore the range of humanity. I can be brave. I can be the leader. I can be a good teammate. I can cooperate. I can be distraught, and I can lose. All these things can happen without the great consequences that come in real life. Huizinga says, “To be human is to have this cultural forum called play.” I would stress to you that Huizinga’s definition is a very good one for when I know I’m looking at sport.

That’s why we love these games. We love playing them. We love watching them because what we’re seeing when we see man with man or man versus nature, whether it’s a competitive element, or whether the human and athletic virtues of speed, strength, endurance, and agility are put to the test, is we’re watching ourselves. That’s why we measure things. That’s why we record things. We’re obsessed with, “Did he break the record? Did he hit the most home runs? Did he score the most points? Was this the longest game?” It’s because it’s the same thing as asking ourselves, as humans, how far can we run? How fast can we go? How high can we jump? How long can we do this? It’s fascinating to us, and we do it without the consequence of killing each other. We do it without the consequence of breaking our hearts when we fall in and out of love. Sports management education explains that’s why play is essential.

Sports is this very specific element of play. There can be scientific play or dramatic play, but sports or athletic play really shows us a lot about ourselves. It’s an amazing stage.

The one element of play that I left out is the element of play that Huizinga says is also essential. And that is that play can never be for material benefit or profit. That’s not pure play. It’s the same thing as bringing in real-life money. That is how we segue into this tension within sports management – that will always be there between the cultural form of sports and the commercial expression as well as the commercial constructs that flow from this compelling human thing known as sports. Sports and business are always at odds. There is always tension. Those who understand what sports ais and are able to use the properties of it to great commercial benefit are those who are really good at this thing.

In areas where there is a high rate of poverty, nonprofits will go in and find ways to bring equipment, coaches, and support systems to places that may never have been offered those opportunities. Sports offers an opportunity to escape to some degree.

They also try to find ways to educate the people in these areas. Education can help move someone out of that poverty or give them an opportunity that they never thought possible, simply because they’re now interacting with different groups of people.

That’s a lot of what these nonprofits do — use global sports to promote change. They provide sports as the hook, and then educate based on whatever needs arise. This means that people in these areas could potentially see new opportunities outside of what they’ve known or considered.

How do we get people to come in and participate so that we can then help to educate them? Street soccer is one example of a hook. It gives people an opportunity to come in and play a sport, but then it also gives them opportunities for mental health counseling, education, housing, and getting back into society.

Street soccer offers great opportunities to pull those people in with something that might be of interest to them, and then helping them with life skills, in some cases, for their mental needs, physical needs, or just general support.

Sports management education or online sports management education can be so much more than just sports management. Sports really are a way to bring people together, and from there, a multitude of possibilities open up.

Part of a good online sports management education includes understanding how sponsorships affect sports. Sponsorships are major sources of revenue for sports management teams and athletes, but they can cause problems.

In 2015, Nick Symmonds was a successful American athlete who dominated in global sports events. He was an 800-meter runner and an eight-time national champion. He had competed in multiple Olympic Games and was about to compete in the track and field world championships with Team USA.

His personal sponsor was Brooks Running, but Nike sponsored the USA track and field team. All the athletes had to sign a release saying that they would only wear Nike products while representing Team USA. This type of conflict isn’t something typically covered in sports management education.

Symmonds felt that it was unclear if or when he could wear his Brooks Running gear. He refused to sign the release and had to forfeit his eligibility to compete in the world championships.

Sports sponsorships are definitely something that can impact athletes in their careers if these kinds of rivalries crop up and they’re asked to represent one brand as part of a group while as individuals they’re supposed to represent another.

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.

There are a lot of different strategies that you see sports organizations use to develop relationships with fans through social media. One of those is a strategy just to elicit feedback and ask opinions. If fans feel that they want to know what I think or want to know my opinion, they’ll feel more valued. And then they’ll have a stronger tie to the organization as a result.

Online Sports Management Education Looks at Ways to Build Engagement Through Social Media

We see sometimes teams will post things where they want genuine feedback on something specific about the team, about the event experience. But then you’ll also see some just fun social media posts: “Oh, hey, who’s your favorite player and why?” That’s a simple example, but things where they’re just trying to get feedback and get that interaction with the fans. That’s one method that we would see this.

Social Media Contests in Global Sports Marketing

Another is having social media contests or inviting fans to submit content, and then the organization featuring that content on their own account.

How Sports Management Works With Social Media

There’s a gymnastics podcast that I listen to. One of the ways that they get greater engagement from their listeners is to have a contest. And they’ll say, submit a picture of yourself dressed up as your favorite gymnast of all time. And then they’ll post those on their own social media. It just helps to develop a stronger relationship and a closer relationship between the organization and the fans.

The next stage of the global sports ecosystem is immersive technology. And it goes in two different directions. One, you can be immersed in a sporting event in your home through VR. Though in regard to sports management, I don’t think you’re monetizing as much value of the fan through VR because they aren’t in your building.

However, immersive sports production and theatrical production in sports facilities and theaters that is 360 degrees are coming to both Europe and to the United States. You only have to look at the Las Vegas sphere and see what’s happening there to get a glimpse of what’s happening in the ecosystem in sports and in a live production in the near future. Online sports management education explains the benefits of this innovative combination.

For any given league, team, or athlete, these individuals will often utilize certain sponsorships to speak towards their brand. For example, if a sports team is going to represent their brand in accordance to values that are commonly used in Texas, they will want to strategically represent certain Texas values. Even if they’re being offered a massive amount of money from a certain sponsor, they might not always make the deal because of what it would do to their brands.

Another example is, if they’re being offered a sponsorship partnership with New York pizza, it’s likely they wouldn’t make that partnership even if it meant that they would get a massive amount of revenue from it. It’s because of the fact that they know that these sponsors speak toward their own brand. Teams, leagues, and athletes are likely to team up and/or sponsor with certain brands that can represent what their own brand speaks of.

With any of these sponsorship opportunities and sponsorship partners, it’s sometime very difficult to configure what the return on investment would be. If Verizon, for example, puts up a given sponsorship opportunity with a particular global sports team, it’s sometimes difficult for them to determine if they’re getting a return on investment from what they paid. For this, a lot of the times, individuals who are in charge of deciding if sponsorships are worth it, will work with the sports management, and adhere to the value of being S-M-A-R-T.

This acronym is used when evaluating your sponsorship and seeing if there is a return on investment:

S – You want to be specific.

M – Make sure it’s measurable.

A – Make sure your goals are achievable.

R – Make sure it’s results-oriented.

T – Make sure it’s time-bound in nature.

Be as specific as possible in terms of what we have placed in our partnership. We want to know exactly what we are measuring. For example, if we’re looking at the months June to August, we may ask, “How have attitudes towards our organization changed?” We are results-oriented, so we want to make sure that we know if attitudes have changed from positive to extremely positive from June to July.

We’re also dealing with the whole idea of being time bound. Being S-M-A-R-T (specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and time bound) is a great way for sponsors to kind of evaluate if their partnership is working out or not. Online sports management education says certain sponsors may be more valuable depending upon where they are placed.

If we were talking about hockey, a sponsorship that is within center ice is going to be that much more valuable because individuals from the sponsorship side know that the consumers who are watching this sporting event are seeing this more often. If it’s center ice, the camera may be going back and forth, but one thing that’s constant is that center ice logo. From the consumer perspective, individuals are likely to see that center ice logo that much more. Whereas, some type of signage that may be over in the corner may not be seen as much.

When we talk about innovation and disruption in sports, it could also be in terms of sports leagues and sports models that are actually created. One of the interesting concepts is the Fan Controlled Football League. Now, this is a very different concept that looks nothing like the legacy leagues that we’ve had for decades.

This is a situation where the fans themselves not only watch the games but actually call the plays. You may ask, “How does that work?” Instead of fans spending their money on tickets to watch or attend games, they actually can get the feed of the game over the internet, directly to their iPad or their smartphone. What they pay for are tokens, which allows them to vote on a menu of plays that are going to be called.

Think of this as an arena football game, but the difference is when your team has “first and 10” at the 40-yard line, the coach puts up four plays where you then have 30 seconds to vote on your smartphone for which you’d prefer. Based on the number of tokens you’ve bought, that gives you a total vote. That vote total gets blended in with everyone else’s to pick from three or four plays that the coach puts out there.

Embracing Fan Participation Through Local and Global Sports

It’s a different way to think about sports but think of the aspect of the fans wanting more than just a passive experience of watching. We want to participate as fans. It doesn’t mean getting on the field with your shoulder pads, but it does mean being a part of the leadership of the team and actually having an impact on plays that are being called.

Think about the ability to do this all over the world. You could be in Thailand and call plays for your team back in the United States, who is actually operating in this league. It’s a whole new experience.

What enables it is something called the blockchain. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about it as it is much talked about. It allows the capture of data, as well as presents transparency and verification to ensure each person is voting solely with the amount of tokens that they have. The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that is impacting so many things in our world, including everything from financial flows of currency to cryptocurrency. It also has a role in the sports business.

Ways to Incorporate Blockchain Into Sports Management

Sports collectibles is one promising area where blockchain can have an impact. The Los Angeles Dodgers hosted a digital Bobblehead Night supported by blockchain, where fans were able to download a limited-edition digital bobblehead. They can trade or sell them as digital assets to other fans. This could become a valuable commodity at some point.

Also, the Major League Baseball Players Association has introduced digital baseball cards that can be traded. Each MLB player will have a list of fans who owns his digital card.

Blockchain is similarly playing a role in the fantasy sports area. Some fantasy leagues are awarding cryptocurrency as prizes for winning or scoring points in the fantasy league. From a fan engagement standpoint, there are four billion soccer fans worldwide. The London Football Exchange is developing a new form of fan engagement, where tokens can get them special access to tours, receptions, discounts on merchandise, and more.

Also, many European soccer teams have partnered with cryptocurrencies in order to forge a deeper bond with fans. Fans can purchase a branded club token to join a club of like-minded fans around the globe.

Another really fascinating application is that blockchain can power a mobile voting platform for fans to offer input into certain decisions. And even in the area of club ownership, teams are exploring ways to give fans ownership in their club, utilizing blockchain as this immutable, fraud-proof method of recording and transacting changes in ownership.

An additional area is managing the player transfer market for global soccer. Blockchain can be useful in tracking and recording transfer fees for players, making it far more efficient. It could also provide a level of transparency by showing who receives the various transfer fees and what percent goes to the agent, as well as the percentage that goes to different people in the whole value chain.

Another fascinating area for blockchain is ticketing transactions. Tickets for a Super Cup match between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid were distributed to mobile phones via blockchain technology. Fans could be assured that the tickets were legitimate since blockchain is a trusted, verified source.

And yet another area where blockchain comes into play is that many athletes are jumping on the blockchain bandwagon and endorsing it. Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki is an ambassador to Lympo, a blockchain-based app that gives users rewards for achieving their fitness goals and sharing their fitness data. And in the eSports realm, blockchain is already widespread with platforms like Play to Live, which allow gamers to stream their play to fans globally and get paid for the entertainment that they provide by playing their video games.

In the sports betting area, blockchain could play a major role. The overall transaction cost of betting automatically drops because blockchain provides the functions that banks or other financial intermediaries would play. So, blockchain can lead to instant cash settlement on bets.

Blockchain Offers Opportunities For Beginners and Professionals

There are no currency conversion fees, and there’s a reduction in fraud. Because of blockchain’s transparency, it’s nearly impossible to manipulate the system.

There’s another area that’s really intriguing – thinking of athletes as investments. There’s even a way for athletes to raise capital by issuing tokens in an ICO or initial coin offering. It’s the blockchain version of an IPO that we think of in the stock market. Even amateur athletes who are disadvantaged economically, who believe in their talent level, can sell off a small portion of their future earnings in exchange for cash today. Perhaps that cash will be used to help improve their skills and enhance their future income opportunities in their sport.

Expanding Knowledge in Online Sports Management Education

The opportunities are really boundless in the role that blockchain can play in sports. There’s no question that technology is having a profound impact on sports today. It has so many ways in which it can change the game. The areas of impact range from wearable technology that will give us better data on athletic performance to neuroscience that will help us monitor the brain waves of athletes to help optimize their performance. And the 5G network that is emerging and expanding around the globe will allow a much faster transfer of massive amounts of information and data.

There are so many different ways in which technology can impact sports. Blockchain has so many different applications. It can help fans be more deeply engaged in their sports teams. It has an impact on how athletes can do initial coin offerings to raise capital for themselves as individual investments. And it could even play a role in fantasy sports.

One of the things we’re seeing is a lot of sports organizations investing in technology through accelerators or incubators in partnership with venture capitalists to really accelerate the development of technology and integrate it into sports.