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- All Subjects: sports
- Creators: Department of Finance
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
The sports universe has been around for over a century and yet the at home sports viewing experience has seen little change. Even though our society has seen monumental innovative, technological advances, watching sports at home has not undergone any changes and may soon find itself a thing of the past unless something changes. When the COVID-19 pandemic arose, a problem surfaced of revenue loss and decreasing fan retention leaving teams and leagues stumbling for solutions. RYZE offers a never before seen product that can revolutionize how sports fans watch and engage in sporting events. By taking the lucrative concept of “battle passes” from the video game industry and placing it in the sports industry, RYZE hopes to increase overall fan revenue, retention, and engagement. A clear market size and wide range of potential customers, RYZE looks to help fans stay engaged while also earning prizes. With competition ranging from fantasy sports to virtual reality, RYZE has competitive advantages that give it potential to become a sports fan’s go to product when thinking about their favorite team. RYZE has gone from a propelling question to a bright idea and then to a prototype along with a full pitch deck and hopes to engrain itself in college athletics, MLB, and other professional sports leagues.
This project dives into the journey of our entrepreneurial startup with the Founders Lab Thesis Program. In the global sports business industry, we knew that there was something missing. While conducting market research, there was little data and information about sustainability initiatives that engaged sports fans, especially in college sports. Not to mention, there was no sustainability information provided on any existing platforms that sporting teams use for ticketing and advertising. So, for our startup, we decided to create a website called SustainSports which gives fans the opportunity to inform themselves about sustainability initiatives at sports events (https://sustainsports.webflow.io/). These fans can also earn points and rewards for practicing sustainability activities at home. In short, SustainSports serves as an educational, interactive, and informative website that connects users to sustainability initiatives, community activities, and exciting rewards, while encouraging users to continue such environmentally-friendly practices in their daily lives. In chronological order, this thesis paper will examine the process we took to create SustainSports and demonstrate our efforts that properly allowed us to defend it one academic year later. From meetings with renowned sports enthusiasts and professors to interviews with ASU students and sports fans, we have listened to and taken in diverse perspectives to understand the perceptions of sustainability in the global sports industry. When we realized that there was a significant gap between sports and sustainability - both important elements of American society and culture - we knew a change needed to be made. Hence, SustainSports came to life, offering users a fresh opportunity to be more aware of their sustainability surroundings, while simultaneously enjoying the sports they know and love.
Specifically, this paper focuses on the Arizona State University Sun Devils football team’s year-over-year results from 2006-2016 and uses this dataset as a comparison against multiple academic and financial measures from the university. This paper also attempts to define what a university's “brand” is and discuss the effect that these teams have on a student’s experience at the university. Based on these findings and results, we attempt to draw conclusions surrounding this information on if there are certain correlations between football success and university indicators and how strongly these indicators affect the university and its brand.
This thesis seeks to analyze the changes in how current stadiums are being funded, the public’s reaction to and perception of those financing plans and what the future might hold. Research showed that tax dollars are increasingly unpopular and that teams are moving away from using public money to fund sports venues. Gathered for this report, survey data of 815 Arizona State University students supported anecdotal evidence that people within a community are relatively unhappy with the idea of their money being used to partially subsidize wealthy sports organizations’ infrastructure. Altogether, recent evidence suggests that multi-use facilities funded in majority by private wealth are more popular and generate greater economic impact for the municipality than earlier in history, when heavily subsidized venues allowed teams to take advantage of local government and created fan mistrust. Additionally, sporting organizations can increase value to their consumer by incorporating additional commercial properties into the venue and by collaborating with the public regarding the financing structure of the venue.
Abstract
Noah Zweiback
The 21st century has brought significant changes to American consumers through technological advancements, social medias, and changing public sentiments. The sport industry in particular has been largely unable to capitalize on these changes due to the traditional nature of sports.
Keyball™ is the new 21st century sport specifically designed to have the greatest spectator appeal in this modern age. With focus on athleticism, parity, theatrical/emotional engagements, and community impact, Keyball™ aims to create a fan experience that is not achievable by other professional sports leagues. By design, there is high skillset carryover from other sports, ensuring tremendous talent will always be available, and fans of many different sports will find Keyball™ attractive to watch and follow.
The professional sports industry has been dominated by only a few players for the past century. Due to the traditional nature of sports, innovation is hard to implement in professional leagues. Tackle football is A. incredibly dangerous, causing broken bones, torn ligaments and tendons, and serious brain damage (concussions, CTE) at high rates. B. Football is low scoring and C. the pace of play is very slow. Basketball by nature A. overwhelmingly rewards height or verticality. It also B. lacks physicality and C. parity (NBA level). D. The foul system is flawed and easily exploited, dampening the end of games.
Keyball™ is positioned to A. be much more violent than basketball/soccer/baseball, while being significantly safer than tackle football. In addition, B. the speed of play is much faster than football, similar to a soccer/basketball live play style. C. Keyball™ is high scoring (like basketball, unlike football and soccer) and features much more dynamic/exciting scoring opportunities than traditional team sports. Keyball™ D. unifies the highly entertaining skillsets of soccer players (foot skill) with basketball/football players (explosiveness & hand coordination). E. Keyball™ has inherent double meaning that alludes to gambling (Keyball™ Wager) yet still promotes charity, selflessness, and American values (capitalism, sportsmanship, teamwork).