The electronic revolution has proven to be a powerful stimulus for change in business practice. As a business tool however, the Internet must endure the same scrutiny under which other business activities are placed. If the use of the Internet in business is a sound strategy, then it must contribute toward competitive advantage. The sport business industry has not been isolated from the vagaries of Internet applications. Moreover, as the industry has become more competitive, forcing sporting organisations towards unprecedented levels of accountability and business practice, the Internet has been increasingly seen as a potential 'holy grail' for sport organisations struggling for revenue (Stewart & Smith, 1999). This research is a response to these pressures. It seeks to identify Internet based opportunities for competitive advantage, and to provide strategies and recommendations for the successful use of the Internet in Australian professional sport organisations. In realising this objective, a newly developed and integrated Business Activity Model has been constructed. The model assists in the identification of specific Internet based competitive advantage strategies, and provides a theoretical framework for this research. The Business Activity Model conceptualises, for the first time, the relationships between the value chain, constituents of electronically enabled competitive advantage, and the Internet. With Australia's limited group of fully professional sports capable of sustaining the human resources and budgets necessary to implement comprehensive e-commerce strategies, the organisations selected to participate in this research represent the pinnacle of Australian professional sport clubs. Specifically, the 55 clubs competing in the Australian Football League (A.F.L.), National Basketball League (N.B.L.), National Rugby League (N.R.L.), and National Soccer League (N.S.L.) constituted the research sample and population. In concert with the 87% participation rate, sampling approached a census. A telephone-administered survey, based primarily on the rigorously tested instrument developed by Sethi and King (1994), was employed for data collection. This research employs a comprehensive set of descriptive statistics, and is bolstered by a confirmatory and an exploratory factor analysis, undertaken on one component of the data. The outcome of this research was the identification of seven practical recommendations for Australian professional sport organisations seeking to improve competitive advantage via the Internet. These recommendations were based on an inventory of the 'gaps' between the strategies proposed by the literature, and the practices of the sample, and relate to both overall Internet strategy, and specific web site applications. The development of the new Business Activity Model and the identification of key online strategy themes support and complement these recommendations. An examination of variations in the practices of participating organisations, and some comparisons against United States sporting organisations, also provides depth and context to the findings. This research provides a platform for sport managers to effectively harness the potential of the Internet, through their web sites in particular, and realise significant competitive advantages. The Business Activity Model provides managers in all industries with a tool for the detection and understanding of potential elements of competitive advantage, and incorporates all activities critical to business in the new digital economy. Seven practical recommendations for improved online performance based on identified competitive advantage and strategies fulfils the primary objective of this research. E-commerce continues to grow at astronomical rates, and with the Internet poised to become the life-blood of 21st century sporting organisations, these recommendations will assist managers in their ongoing search for competitive advantage.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "May, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-95). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Rugby, an intensely physical team game that emphasised the contribution of players of disparate skills and strengths, was ideal for New Zealand's early European pioneers. It also suited the nature of the indigenous people. Rugby club competitions and provincial matches provided a significant social fulcrum and a means of playing out regional rivalries. Arduous, but ultimately successful rugby tours to Britain and Ireland, brought Pakeha and Maori together and helped to shape the young colony's self-image. New Zealand's commitment to its national game became instrumental in rugby's steadily growing international popularity.Although rugby had significant commercial appeal, it remained an amateur sport in deference to its British originators. Nevertheless, New Zealand's hosting of the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 coincided with the development of global media networks. By the third Rugby World Cup tournament in 1995, substantial commercial interest in the game meant that a transition to a professional structure was inevitable. Rugby appealed to media conglomerates needing new televisual product that would attract subscribers to growing pay-TV networks.Although the introduction of professionalism was a major commercial success, the commercial imperatives imposed allowed rugby to be dominated by those with the most financial and player resources. As a consequence, New Zealand's traditional advantages were diluted. This generated considerable tension between New Zealand's professional game and its amateur grassroots level that has been rugby's traditional base. While supplying the game's players and supporters, grassroots rugby has been the level of the game most vulnerable to the negative impact of professionalisation.To generate the income to adequately fund the game's grassroots, it is critical that New Zealand's leading teams remain among the world's best. However, the professionalisation of rugby has made winning far more difficult than ever before. New Zealand rugby's challenge is to mitigate the commercial imperatives that place it at a significant disadvantage in the international game.

Thesis (M.S.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-36).

This study examined the applicability of the Sport Commitment Model for a group of elite, professional athletes. The model proposes that an athlete's commitment will increase as sport enjoyment, personal investments, social constraints, and involvement opportunities increase and will decrease with an increase in involvement opportunities. The influence of identification as an athlete, a determinant of commitment not included in the original model, was also examined. One hundred and eighty three professional football players from the Canadian Football League (CFL) (n = 121) and National Football League (NFL) (n = 69) participated in the study. Each subject completed a modified version of the original questionnaire developed to test the constructs in the Sport Commitment Model (Scanlan, Simons, Carpenter, Schmidt, & Keeler, 1993) during a team meeting. Internal consistency reliabilities for the final items in all seven scales were acceptable. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated marginal overall fit (AGFI = 0.757) demonstrating good construct validity and discriminant validity for each scale. Zero-order correlations between commitment and its predictor constructs were significant and in the hypothesized direction for all predictor constructs except social constraints. The correlation between commitment and social constraints was negative and nonsignificant. The simultaneous regression analysis results found the predictor constructs accounted for 38% of the variance in commitment. Identification uniquely accounted for the most variance followed by enjoyment, involvement alternatives, and involvement opportunities. Only personal investments and social constraints did not contribute a significant amount of unique variance to sport commitment. The importance and meaning of the relationships between commitment and its determinants for professional athletes are discussed, as well as directions for future research.

No description available.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in sport is an emerging area of interest among scholars, sport managers, sponsors, fans, and policy-makers (Breitbarth, Walzel, Anagostopoulos, and van Eekeran, 2015). Despite this increased scholarly attention, a gap in literature exists regarding to the effectiveness of the messages disseminated. This study investigated how sports organizations communicate CSR on Twitter by examining the effectiveness of CSR messages disseminated via Twitter by professional baseball teams. Using priming theory and Lang's (2000) Limited Capacity Model for Mediated Message Processing, this study tested the effects of priming and message sequencing on a persons' ability to recognize and recall these CSR messages. While no statistically significant relationships were found, observed results led to strong arguments about the effects of both priming and message sequencing on the effectiveness of CSR messages disseminated by Major League Baseball (MLB) teams in terms of recognition and recall. Additionally, results suggested that traditional media effects paradigms might not be transferable to social media. / Master of Arts

In general, an individual commands a salary in return for their contribution to the production process at their place of employment. In the case of a quarterback for a National Football League team, the salary he commands depends on how much the team's owner expects him to contribute to the team and how unique his talents and services are. The salary of the quarterback is negotiated between the quarterback and the team and will vary greatly depending on the relative strengths of each side's bargaining position. The bilateral oligopoly provides a useful way to view how salaries are determined. This thesis uses an econometric model to explore the bilateral oligopoly framework for determining quarterback salaries. Within this framework, there are a set of on-field performance variables (related to the quarterback and the team) and off-field financial variables (related to the team) that are used to negotiate a quarterback's salary. This paper characterizes the quarterback-team relationship by identifying those variables that effect quarterback salaries. / Master of Arts

Univ., Diss.--Mannheim, 2003.

A question asked by many baseball fans during the past two decades has been, “Do baseball players really earn multimillion dollars salaries by simply playing a game?” Previous studies have attempted to show that they go generate enough revenue for a given club to justify these exorbitant earnings. In fact, these studies show that, until recently, baseball players have been exploited by owners who have been reaping major profits at the expense of the players. Most studies utilize fan attendance to generate revenue figures in their respective regression equations. The intent in this paper is to determine if baseball players salaries are dependent solely on their ability to draw fans to their respective balls parks. Once a fan drawing power estimate is established, analysis will be made as to whether salaries are based upon this factor. Estimating the average amount fans will spend while attending games will also allow the comparison of revenue estimates with salaries. And finally, a brief investigation will determine if free agent status has any bearing on salary in conjunction with fan drawing power. Data from the 1991 baseball season, from all twenty six major league teams, for both hitters and pitchers, are included in this study. The analysis of this data was made through the two equation model perfected by Scully in his often referenced paper of 1974, where he estimated baseball players marginal revenue products, allowing comparisons to player salaries. The results demonstrate that in 1991 player salaries were not based solely on their ability to draw fans to the ballpark. Establishing a fan revenue figure also shows that, on average baseball players do generate enough revenue to substantiate salaries in the $2.0-$2.5 million range. Finally, utilizing a free agent attribute illustrates that simply playing baseball over six years will substantially increase salaries, regardless of the player’s status. In fact, the non-free agent players earn two and one half times less than their free agent counterparts but have the same revenue generating abilities. The final conclusions are the choice of the reader; the author has only attempted to collect the facts and present them for your review.