One concept you may learn about in sports management education is integrity in sports. One of the most important aspects of sports is honesty, essentially meaning following the rules, and having integrity within the sport. However, ever since athletic competitions first began, people have been doing whatever they can to bend those rules and gain an advantage, because the goal of winning often comes with prestige and rewards.

Nowadays, it comes with money and fame. So, it has been the responsibility of the different sport organizations to try and protect the integrity of their games, and try to seek out those cheaters. Unfortunately, the tools for cheating have become far more sophisticated over the past 40 or 50 years.

Doping Dilemma

One part of this is the evolution of the doping industry within professional sports. Whether it be taking anabolic steroids or EPO to increase red blood cell count and improve performance in endurance events, or technological doping, such as inserting a miniature motor that can’t be detected into a bicycle. Over the last few decades, it has been an epic battle for the people who are trying to protect the value of these sporting events. They’re doing their best to create tools for tracking cheaters that are as sophisticated and effective as the tools the cheaters themselves are using.

One interesting milestone came in the early 2000s when cycling, which was one of several global sports generating a lot of interest, was singled out as one of the most rampant offenders of the doping world. The “Michael Jordan of cycling,” Lance Armstrong, was accused of doping by a number of his competitors, who were understandably tired of spending years losing to someone who was cheating. For them, the options were to cheat and be able to continue doing what they loved, or to not cheat, and most likely fail and eventually have to stop competing.

There were a lot of things riding on these events. This whole doping industry was exposed over a number of years and multiple investigations, and it ultimately painted a far more nuanced picture for the general public to understand. It showed them that it’s not necessarily about who’s good or evil, it’s more about the pressures athletes face to perform at the highest level. And it allowed them to see that the system was set up in a way that you had to either give in to the broken system, or not participate.

The hope is that events like these have helped pave the way for a purer industry that more people can respect and appreciate. There was a time in the early 2000s when the vast majority of people who took the podium at the Tour de France were doping—something in the range of 90% or more of them. So hopefully, the result of these investigations and the actions of the people who truly care about the sport have led to a much cleaner and safer industry.

Ideally, it’s an industry where people can compete knowing that their success is a product of both their talent and their grit, and not because they’ve found a way to skirt the rules. This would create an environment that provided much better role models for kids who want to someday compete at the highest level.

Unethical Behavior in Sports

There have been many examples of poor behavior in sports. We’ve had Olympic athletes who have been stripped of their medals due to drug use. We recently had Russia being sanctioned out of the Olympics because of a state-sponsored doping program. There are many opportunities to see where sports can go awry. At Baylor, for example, there was rampant sexual misconduct happening, and a lot of key people within the program helped to cover it up. They also didn’t support the victim, and it really blew up in their face, rightfully so.

Winning at All Costs

As you can probably see, sometimes with athletic competition, winning can become so important that the cost no longer matters, and we lose sight of some of the important social aspects that we value in life and society. This is why it’s so important to focus on positive reinforcement and programming, or it may really wreak havoc on the system. Young people need to be taught that winning isn’t as important as playing the game with integrity.

You can learn more about this topic and other sports management concepts by exploring online sports management education.

More kids are consuming more things because it’s competitive. If Joey has it, Johnny has to have it. And that’s what they’re telling mom and dad.

There’s another piece of this business that’s $5 billion. The other piece of this business is something that developed over the last five to seven years. It was the fastest growing segment in travel and tourism. It’s called youth sports tourism.

See, the towns ran out of money after the 2008 financial crisis. One of the first things they cut is the free Little Leagues and things like that, so the parents took over. They started creating travel leagues. When I say “travel,” what do I mean? I mean they’re hopping on planes, trains, and automobiles, and are traveling all around the country.

Youth Global Sports Is Very Profitable

Who’s making money on that? Hotels, restaurants, planes, trains, and automobiles, as well as gas companies. Who else is making money on that? Right now, because of the $7 billion that has been assessed to pour into youth sports travel and tourism, towns that are strapped for cash are investing all of their money into creating these youth sports complexes to host these tournaments. They figure that the tourism money can flow into their little towns. They don’t have a pro team. “Come to our little town. Have a great time, eat in our restaurants. We’ve got great day care.” They set up a whole thing for them. It’s a whole business.

Who else is making money? When kids get hurt, it’s terrible, but they have to go to the doctor. Youth sports medicine is one of the most exploding fields of medicine there is. You know, I tore my rotator cuff a few years ago. You know what else? I had to go to rehab. So there’s rehab involved in that, too, right? I thought I’d see a bunch of old people – it was kids. They’re all kids in rehab – sports medicine, rehab. So they got smart. “We need to prevent these injuries.”

When you only play one sport, you only develop one piece of yourself. Playing all kinds of sports, like I did, or running around in the woods and the rocks and stuff, you fully develop your body athletically. It’s normal development. Nowadays, Nike and all kinds of other organizations have created training, which basically means, “I show you how to jump and land different ways. I show you how to fall different ways.” Things you used to learn as a kid, normally. But because you’re only playing one sport and specializing, now you don’t. They’ve created this whole business around training kids, which is no more than developing your body properly.

Who else is making money? Oh, the pressure the kids are feeling, right? I stand on the foul line. I see my dad’s face. What am I going to do? Sports psychologists. What does this sound like, by the way? Kids are practicing all year round, 365 days a year, same sport. Traveling all over the country, sometimes to other countries. Getting hurt, therapy. What’s this sound like? It sounds like professional sports.

Professional Sports Management vs Youth Sports Leagues

Where does professional sports really make money? Television, the Little League World Series. The expansion from one game a year (which was very cute), to every single game with three people in the announcing booth – full statistical analysis of every single kid.

It’s not just Little League Baseball, it’s every single sport. There are entire networks devoted to youth sport. They’re making money. Well, who’s making money? Not the kids.

Sponsors are making money. Networks are making money from the sponsors. When’s it going to happen that some parent’s going to wake up and be like, “Hold on a second, that’s my kid.” That’s the evolution of all professional sports. There came a time when the athlete woke up and said, “Yeah, I know I’m playing a game, but you’re all making money here.” Who controls youth sports? Well, the NCAA controls most of the major college sports. The commissioner of the NFL controls the NFL. There is no governing body. It’s the wild west. This is the next frontier in the last frontier. It’s absolutely pure.

Sports Management Education: Understanding Sponsorships

When I go sell a sponsorship, I research the guy. I want to spell out a youth sports sponsorship:

I research the guy and I say, “Hey, I see you’re a big Yankee fan.”
He’s like, “That’s right. I’m a Yankees fan.”
I’m like, “You got box seats, don’t you?”
He’s like, “I’ve had box seats for 30 years.”
I’m like, “I know you do. You’d never miss a Yankees game.”
He’s like, “I’d never miss a Yankee game.”
I’m like, “Is that the most important game of the year to you, when the Yankees play?”
He’s like, “That’s the most important game.”
I’m like, “No, it’s not.”

The CEO is like, “How dare you tell me it’s not the most important game?”
I’m like, “It’s not.”
He’s like, “What’s wrong with you, man? I told you I’ve been a 30-year season ticket holder.”
I’m like, “Yeah, but I know your son plays soccer and he’s in junior league. Every Saturday in the fall, they play.” I’m like, “That’s the most important game.”
And he’s like, “Yeah, that is.”

There’s so many parents who feel the same way, who are having the same experience. So, youth sports is this incredibly common and exciting, relatable experience. And it’s pure. It comes without so many of the difficulties and baggage, and controversies. It’s the next frontier.

Sports Management Education: The Future of Youth Sports

Has it been too influenced by the superstructure of professional sports? Has it lost what creates the most interesting athletes to begin with? Think of the kids in the favelas of Brazil who are just kicking a can. That’s where they learn to freestyle. That’s why the best soccer players come from Brazil. What about the kids who play street basketball in the cities of the Unites States? That’s why unsupervised, unstructured, no league – they’re the best basketball players in the world and so on.

Where should youth sports go? What’s the right way to raise an athlete? What’s the social purpose of sports? Is it to have fun, to learn to be a good citizen, a better human being? Or is it to be good at it, to be a pro, which means a vehicle of wealth?

It ties all together. Youth sports to the NCAA, to the pros, to all the businesses that want to find value in the ecosystem. That’s the chart. We just don’t think of it that way, but that’s the chart. Nike knows it. Gatorade and Coca-Cola knows it. It’s a circle. It’s not a line that ends. It’s all tied together.

The question is, as far as sports as a transformative power, whether this stays commercial or whether it moves social impact. Can the two coexist? Was Huizinga right, that play and profit are essentially at odds and always will be? Maybe they don’t have to be and maybe there’s a way to get the benefit of both. We’re starting to hit a breaking point on a number of fronts – leagues and teams, college sports, and youth sports.

Sports. Why do you like it? What does it really mean? How do I know when I’m watching a sport or am I watching a business? What is this thing to you? To understand that coldly, analytically, with no moral center. Put your ethical lens on it. Put your moral lens on it, but understand first. Then, you can do great things with it commercially and socially.

Tom Richardson tells us that the evolution of digital media has created new opportunities in the marketplace. There are lots of new kinds of employment opportunities and lots of new kinds of jobs that just were not in this business as recently as five or 10 years ago. The way global sports organizations communicate with their fans has evolved quite dramatically over the last 20 years. Previously, there wasn’t a lot of interaction. Now, it’s a completely different story. There are an enormous number of ways for organizations to actually speak to their fan bases.

The world of digital media includes your website, your email list, your presence on different social media platforms, your own podcasts, etc. A few direct examples would be any of the league websites like NFL.com or MLB.com. In the case of podcasts, for example, the UFC recently launched a proprietary podcast called UFC Unfiltered. All kinds of owned media are really changing the market. Another example that should be added is the NFL doing a proprietary fantasy football platform. All of the activity in a fantasy platform is now essentially owned by the NFL, which was never true in the history of the business before.

When Facebook posts are made and tweets are actually put out, that’s the kind of value they really like to drive because it’s free. It’s really easy to do if you can think of creative things to distribute. Ultimately, it’s a very interactive relationship that’s essentially 24/7, and it’s relentless. There’s a lot to be done on a day-to-day basis. As a result, a lot of new jobs have been created in these sports properties. Most leagues and teams did not even have social media departments five years ago. Now, they’re arguably one of the most important departments in the company. Sports management education highlights two sides of social media. You have the creative side as well as the business side, and there are opportunities in both.

On the creative side, there are the actual creation, conception and execution — activation of the content itself. On the business side, there are the actual planning, distribution and monitoring of the content that is delivered. That’s a very important aspect of league and team business right now because of its global reach, its 24/7 nature, and because of the amount of data that can be produced, which is extremely valuable to the rights holders. There are also a lot of opportunities in the areas of digital creation, video production, audio production, etc. There are more things being created now than ever before in the history of sports.

Online sports management education also points out the numerous opportunities in the world of digital marketing. It’s no surprise that there are an enormous number of agencies in this business helping properties and rights holders figure out what they do in digital media. A lot of the brands use agencies to help themselves. So, there are opportunities in sales, and in business development, and in analytics, etc.

Finally, there are a lot of opportunities in the world of analytics because all of these activities in digital media are producing an enormous amount of data, and all of that data needs to be collected and gathered. It needs to be analyzed and interpreted. It needs to be arranged for consumption by the sports management that wants to review it. Sometimes, it’s called the “presentation layer.” So, analytics departments are growing quite rapidly as well. Between social, creative and analytics, there are all kinds of new opportunities for young people looking to build careers in this business.

A great example of an individual who utilizes these four P’s in a great manner to represent the brand vision is Maria Sharapova with her candy line, Sugarpova. This is an interesting unheard candy, but it’s possibly unheard of because it is representing what the brand adheres to. If you go on the Sugarpova website, you’ll see about them. What they want to get forth is that their brand vision is to be a premium candy company.

If that’s their brand goal in terms of being a premium candy company, she would want to utilize all four of the P’s to represent this brand vision. She utilizes her product to be a premium candy company because they are premium candy. They’re very well-made, and in terms of how she prices them, they’re actually very expensive. She doesn’t necessarily want to down price these candies because even if she did and the everyday consumer could buy a piece of candy they wouldn’t possibly want that from an organizational standpoint because it doesn’t represent the brand vision, which is a premium candy.

In terms of place, in terms of where you can actually buy the candy, you cannot buy it at Walmart. You cannot buy the candy at CVS. You’re actually only going to find the candy at high-class stores, at premium stores. This could be online. This could be at her shop, but you’re likely to find these candies at a premium store.

All of these things are representing the brand value in accordance to online sports management education. If you can do this as a sports organization, or in Maria Sharapova’s example, if you can do this as an athlete within global sports and utilize certain P’s to represent the brand vision, then you can better exemplify what your brand speaks toward. You can better build a relationship with your consumer and especially the consumer who wants what the brand offers. This would highlight effective sports management and brand vision throughout the organization.

The marketing mix is very important to sports organizations and sports management, and what we’ll see in sports management education and online sports management education is that the marketing mix is made up of what we know as the four P’s. The four P’s are product, price, place, and promotion. Each sports organization is going to utilize a different combination of these four P’s. They’ll each have a different product, a different price, a different place, and different promotions to attract any given target segment. This is true of local organizations as well as global sports.

It’s really important to utilize the four P’s to represent your brand. Within any given sports organization, you don’t want to focus entirely on product quality. What you want to do is focus on product extensions. Perhaps one of these product extensions could be what the brand is. The more you can market your brand to a given target segment, the more consumers will be able to interact with that brand.

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.

The venue is a really important place for consumers. Not only do they spend a lot of time there, but it’s a direct representation of any given sports organization. What sports teams have done in the present time, according to online sports management education, is try to represent their brand through the given venue.

This can be seen through different examples, whether they want to just have a kind of fun, playful atmosphere. There’s a minor league baseball team specifically named after a Simpsons episode. Anytime Homer Simpson plays a game in any one of the Simpsons episodes, he’s known to play for a team called Isotopes. There is a minor league baseball team that has named itself the New Mexico Isotopes and it actually utilizes its field as a way to kind of showcase The Simpsons. The venue has a number of different Simpsons characters all over the venue, and it’s a way to kind of represent their brand, not only as a baseball team, but it’s a way to represent the brand that speaks to the idea that they are a fun team — that they’re a fun fan team that’s willing to interact with the fans through various different types of fun gimmicks.

Sports Management Using the Venue for Brand Emphasis

There are a number of different examples of how sports teams can utilize their stadium to represent their brand. The New York Mets are a great example with Citi Field. Their Citi Field venue is constructed and looks almost identical to what was Ebbets Field. This was an old New York team that would go and play at the Ebbets Field, so the New York Mets are able to construct a field almost as a kind of memorable way to remember Ebbets Field. It doesn’t mean that we are an old-school New York team. It’s more so emphasizing the fact that the New York Mets are a New York team, and that speaks to the brand. The idea of constructing the stadium after Ebbets Field really speaks to the idea of honing in on their New York side of the brand.

Venus can help the community kind of come together because they share some collective meaning in terms of what the brand means to them. If they want to represent themselves as New Yorkers and they want to go to a Mets game, they want to feel that the Mets can allow them to see themselves as New Yorkers. When they go to the venue and they see Ebbets Field, it reminds them of old school New York. And it kind of re-emphasizes this whole idea that, “I’m a New Yorker visiting this New York historic site.”

It’s interesting that the Mets within Citi Field also have a dedication as the Jackie Robinson rotunda where the number “42” is there. It allows certain members of the community (the African-American community specifically), to kind of feel a connection with the Mets that they can say, “the Mets truly represent something that I value,” which is the whole idea of an important player that’s very relevant to my history.

As to what consumers would want in any given ballpark, it’s going to depend on the sport. Sports management education explains, for example, a football game is going to be a lot of consumers directly paying attention to the football game. It’s all filled with action, but there are only actually eight full-time home games so consumers only get a chance to go to one stadium eight times throughout the year. Whereas with baseball, for example, there are 162 games in the season and therefore 81 home games. In fact, baseball might not be as action-packed as would a basketball or football game. You have 81 different chances to go to a sporting event and there’s kind of some downtime throughout. What you’ll see is that football stadiums are not as likely as baseball stadiums are to offer community events. Baseball stadiums offer a social setting because the sport and the season allow it to have these types of social gathering opportunities.