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- All Subjects: sports
- Creators: Department of Marketing
- Creators: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Resource Type: Text
Description
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the Big Four Sporting Leagues of US Professional Sports. In recent years, the NBA has enjoyed milestone seasons in both attendance and television ratings, resulting in steady increases to both, over the previous decade. (Morgan, 2017) This surge can be attributed in part to the integration of "cultural recognition" initiatives and the overall message of inclusivity on the part of NBA franchises, with their respective promotions and advertisements such as television, social media, radio, etc. Heritage Nights, such as "Noche Latina," among other variants in the NBA, typically feature culturally influenced changes to team logos, giveaways, and other consumer offerings. In markets where Hispanics make up a significant percentage of the fan-base, such as Phoenix, NBA franchises such as the Phoenix Suns must ascertain the financial or perceptual impacts, associated with risks of stereotyping, offending or otherwise unintentionally alienating different categories of fans. To this end, data was collected from the local NBA franchises' fanbase, specifically Phoenix Suns season-ticket holders, and was statistically checked for significant relationships between both categories of fans and several different variables. This analysis found that only $192K in revenue is being missed through the investment of Heritage Nights, and that fan perceptions of stereotypical or offensive giveaways and practices have no significant effect on game or event attendance, despite the stereotypes toward giveaways and practices still being present. Implications of this study provide possible next steps for the Suns and continue to widen the scope of demographical sports marketing both in professional basketball and beyond.
ContributorsGibbens, Patrick Alexander (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
We were driven by the question: what is happening to the popularity of Major League Baseball? In order to answer this question we compared the league structure of Major League Baseball with that of the National Football League. We were able to speak with five former or current members of the respective leagues in order to gain some insight into how the two leagues operate. The main focus of our research was around the payroll structures of the two leagues as well as their revenue sharing policies. In the end, we discovered that Major League Baseball is becoming highly regionalized. The sport is still growing in popularity in terms of revenue and fan involvement, but it is becoming less popular on a national stage. The league is benefitting greatly from factors like the increasing importance of "TiVo proof programming" and a lack of competition. Each league is very different in its own right. While the NFL promotes a perception of competitive balance, Major League Baseball can be plagued by the negative perception it creates surrounding some of its smaller market teams.
ContributorsHeath, Cameron (Co-author) / Linamen, John (Co-author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Mokwa, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Sports teams are an integral part of a city. They attract revenue to the area around the stadium and they also give a city a sense of pride. The aim of this study was to determine what makes a team successful in the area of attendance using four factors (Bernthal & Graham; Jensen; Kim, Trail & Magnusen; Edensor & Millington; Clowes & Tapp; Greenhalgh & Greenwell; Denaux & Yalcin; Paul & Weinbach & Robbins; Levin & McDonald; Lee & Kang; Drayer; L'Etang; McDonald & Rascher; Armstrong; Ross): the history of the team, the location and population of the city where the team plays, the social media following of the team and the promotional giveaways the team uses to attract fans. Using these four factors, a comparison was made among the Arizona teams and the top performing team in attendance in the respective leagues during the 2013 season. The Arizona Diamondbacks are compared with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Diamondbacks were not as equipped as the Dodgers in any of the categories. There is a more storied history for the Dodgers, the Dodgers play in Los Angeles - a significantly larger city that Phoenix, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, they use social media more frequently and more effectively, and they offer more promotional giveaways than the Diamondbacks. The Phoenix Suns are compared to the Chicago Bulls. The Suns history competes with the Bulls, but they lack in the other three categories. The Bulls have a better location in Chicago, their stadium is located in the downtown area; they have a massive social media following and their promotional giveaways are more substantial. The Phoenix Coyotes are compared to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Blackhawks exceeded in all of the categories, while the Coyotes were poor performers in each of the four factors. The Blackhawks have a storied history, they share a stadium with the Bulls, they have a great social media following and they give promotional items away 30 of the 41 home games. The overall recommendations for the teams are to win, in order to help build their locations and make it fun to be near the downtown area, to use social media effectively and engage with their audience, and finally to provide more promotional giveaways to attract people to the games.
ContributorsDugan, Abby Leigh (Author) / Wu, Xu (Thesis director) / Matera, Fran (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
When I was unsure of what my thesis project would be, the professor of my thesis prep class, Jill Johnson, recommended that I choose a topic that I am passionate about. Immediately, my mind went to basketball and the NBA, the business and operations side of things to be specific. Initially, this research paper was going to look into market size and how those teams in a smaller market made their money and ran their teams. It was to focus on some of the more successful franchises that come from smaller markets, as well as those franchises that have been historically unsuccessful. However, the kind of data that I was looking for on market sizes was not very available. So I ended up focusing almost exclusively on the operations side of things. I wanted to see if there was one strategy for building a team that had proven to be more successful than others. I was not sure what sort of answers I would find, but I knew that there had to be some useful data that had yet to be discovered. I settled on researching the success of teams that build primarily using players they drafted versus teams that were built primarily through trades and free agent signings. I also wanted to illuminate the difficulties that front offices, particularly those in smaller markets, face when building a franchise. I chose to focus on things such as the luxury tax and betting on the wrong players. This paper went a lot of different directions before it became what it did. I want to thank all of those who helped me, particularly my director Tim McGuire, my second reader Peter Bhatia and Jill Johnson for helping me get started on the most intimidating, yet rewarding, project that I have ever been a part of.
ContributorsJohnson, Connor David (Author) / McGuire, Tim (Thesis director) / Bhatia, Peter (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Abstract I sought out a project that would be able to intertwine the topics of business law and the business of sports. After reading and researching a few different options, one combination of law and sports that stood out to me was the frequent labor disputes between NHL owners and the players' union. The main goal of this project was to examine whether or not the lockouts that were instituted by National Hockey League owners during the labor disputes that occurred in 2004 and 2012 actually left the league with a better long term financial and social landscape. Through the examination of the stakeholders that were involved in each dispute and their resulting situations, I presented my answer to the above question. In order to properly study the overall situation, I also discussed the history of sports business, the history of the National Hockey League's business landscape, and collective bargaining in sports amongst other topics.
ContributorsNix, Eric Anthony (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Kutz, Elana (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Since the 1960's, the sport of American football has maintained its stranglehold as the most popular sport in the United States. Both in viewership and participation, football has a massive lead on all other sports, but as of late many factors have led some to believe that trouble could be on the horizon. With various issues including head injuries, player protests, and television viewership decline plaguing football and its professional league, the NFL, the door could be open for another collision sport from across the pond to surge in popularity: rugby. Played in 119 countries by millions of people, rugby is currently one of the most popular sports in the world, but because of American football's dominance in the U.S. it has yet to really find its footing here; however, despite its popularity paling in comparison to football, rugby is actually the single fastest-growing sport in the U.S. Both sports share some strong similarities, and with football facing a myriad of issues, there is real reason to believe that rugby could be on the rise while football could continue to falter. By reading through articles and statistics on the subject, this thesis was divided into four main analysis topics to compare and contrast the two sports: injury problems and how they affect viewership and participation, international following for each respective sport, culture around the games themselves and how it could appeal to American viewers, and potential for growth domestically. By examining these factors within both sports, I was able to come to the conclusion that rugby's potential to take hold in the U.S. is growing, and in the coming years as American football's safety and importance continue to be called into question, rugby could one day even supplant football as the most popular collision sport in the country.
ContributorsMartin, Drew Nicolas (Author) / Lynch, John (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This study examined the brand personality types and social media practices of six college athletic Twitter accounts. Specifically, this study investigated whether certain brand personalities corresponded with specific social media practices on Twitter. The author conducted a content analysis of each school's tweets to measure brand personality and scraped data in order to collect social media practice information. Results suggest that brand personality and social media practices are distinct. Extraversion was the most common personality type among all schools. In addition, schools that tweeted less frequently than others exhibited more brand personality and used more visual media.
ContributorsDave, Simran Sangita (Author) / Gilpin, Dawn (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Pucci, Jessica (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The beautiful game is unpredictable. Arguably half of soccer is entirely out of our control, instead being determined by a simple concept: luck. But what of the other 50%? Ultimately, the goal of the rapidly-advancing technologies and analytics in on-field sports performance is to maximize the elements that we \u2014 the coaches, players, decision-makers, and analysts \u2014 truly control. Once perceived as too mathematical and systemized, contradicting coaches' intuitions, sports sciences are burgeoning in the sports arena both in applied and mainstream popularity. While the industry has its critics and is far shy of its pinnacle, its advancements and successes cannot be ignored. From the training ground to match day decision-making, analytics are embedded in soccer and sport. Technology and analytics are vastly utilized throughout sporting organizations across a myriad of sports and purposes: scouting and drafting, fan experience, ticketing, etc. However, while these areas must be addressed in discussing the success of analytics in assessing situations and reducing uncertainty, my central thesis relates to the technological capabilities and corresponding analytical tools utilized to identify, assess, and improve on-field soccer performance: match analysis. This paper's core focuses on optimizing performance in soccer players in three specific areas of performance: technical abilities and tactics, physiology, and neuroscience.
ContributorsHeckendorn, Jason Farrell (Author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Ostrom, Amy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Sports is a business. Basketball is no different. Every rule change that has been enacted in the history of the game has been to make the game more exciting because that makes people buy tickets and helps the franchise's bottom line. I delve into the history of the rule changes and submit my own rule changes to make the game more exciting.
ContributorsSaar, Eric James (Author) / Tomasch, Kenn (Thesis director) / Edsall, Larry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive consideration of the full implications of engaging in real earnings management through 1.) an in-depth literature review of selected studies concerning real earnings management, 2.) supplemental interviews to consider real earnings management from various perspectives including supply chain management, accounting and management, as well as 3.) a final framework of the considerations that must be made to fully understand the implications of real earnings management. Though the ethics of real earnings management will be discussed, no determination will be made to support or discredit its use. The methods of real earnings management are plentiful and would benefit most from being judged on a case-by-case basis before coming to any firm conclusions.
ContributorsWestgard, Kristy Kayan (Author) / Maltz, Arnold (Thesis director) / Leckey, Andrew (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12