The broad objective of strategic management is to enable an organisation to assess its strategic position, so it is able to provide its customers with a product or service they will value. This study attempts to use this broad objective to examine the Sports Administration Department at the University of Natal, Durban to identify issues that will assist it to reach a wider number of students. The Sports Administration has, over the last ten years, seen a reduction in sports participation. This occurred at a time when the number of students at the University had grown substantially. This resulted in a need to examine the complex dynamics taking place in the Sports Administration's operating environment, for it to be in a position to address the needs of the students it is established to serve. This study indicates that strategic management principles, which apply to a business organisation, can be applied to the setting of the Sports Administration to identify the needs and wants of its customers, to address the concerns of management and to make recommendations that will assist the Department to provide an improved service to students. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

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 (Ph.D.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on May 27, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. S.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisors: Dr. Aubrey Kent and Dr. Jerome Quarterman, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Sport Management, Recreation Management, and Physical Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 14, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 49 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of British Columbia, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-308).

D.Com. (Sports Management) / Sport as a phenomenon has been part of different cultures throughout the ages, and in literature various authors emphasise the significant role it played and still plays in people's lives. From a cultural-historical perspective, sport as a time-filling activity therefore forms an important foundation for the development of sport as an industry. The possibilities of using leisure as an industry have been considered from early times. Participants in sport, magnates and the public sector made an important contribution to the development of sport, although everybody also benefited indirectly from this. In the examination of sport as a business, sport is measured against the standards set for a business, and from this it is evident that sport meets these requirements in all instances. In the light of these facts, it is necessary for sport to be managed like a business. Management and managerial behaviour are defined in a theoretical foundation, but particular attention is devoted to concepts in sport with a view to providing an own point of view. As a result of this theoretical foundation, a base is created for drafting a curriculum for a course in Sport Management. Various models and points of view are discussed and suggestions on the ideal contents of such a curriculum are made. The B.Comm. degree and certificate courses in Sport Management at the Rand Afrikaans University are used as a model. The fundamental personal traits of sport officials and students of Sport Management are examined in the empirical study. Various psychometric tests and questionnaires are employed, enabling the creation of an instrument in future research to screen students and sport officials. As a result of this research, certain recommendations are made with regard to further research, drawing up a curriculum for Sport Management and measuring personal traits of sport officials.

On February 15, 2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was arrested for assaulting his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City (Bien, 2014). Four days later, a video surfaced via TMZ, which showed Rice dragging an unconscious Palmer out of an elevator at the casino. In June, the NFL held a disciplinary hearing with Rice, and on July 24, the league suspended Rice for two games. Fast-forward a month and a half, on September 8, TMZ released another video, which showed Rice punching Palmer in the face inside the elevator at the casino back in February (Bien, 2014). That same day, the Ravens terminated their contract with Rice and released him from the team, and shortly thereafter, the NFL suspended Rice from the league indefinitely. The public outcry over the assault video generated a national conversation around intimate partner violence unlike anything seen before (Blow, 2014). Rice's assault arguably became the most publicized incident of domestic violence since O.J. Simpson, and therefore, it is important to analyze the media narratives surrounding it. As McDonald (1999) noted, media coverage of domestic abuse committed by male athletes may "offer some of the most visible cases of domestic violence available for public consumption," functioning "as significant sites where larger cultural understandings of domestic violence are constructed, contested, and struggled over" (p. 112-113). With the purpose of discovering how journalists construct particular understandings of domestic violence that (re)produce dominant ideologies, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of multiple mainstream media sources, including national newspapers, local Baltimore newspapers, online sports news, and women's magazines. Additionally, because the entire Ray Rice assault case—from his initial arrest until he appealed his suspension—occurred over a seven-month timespan, it was important to map the (re)construction of the assault over time. Thus, I isolated five important time frames for analysis, broken into one-week intervals, in order to examine the initial framing of each event. The research questions that I sought to address were as follows: 1) Do journalists give voice to domestic violence victims, or do they continue to silence the voices of victims and support the hegemonic structure of oppression? 2) Do journalists discuss the larger cultural problem of domestic violence, or do they continue to treat domestic violence as an individual issue? 3) As new information is released and different events unfold, does the narrative change, and if so, what is the instigating factor? That is, how do different objects of reference construct particular understandings of domestic violence and possibly change the narrative? In answering these research questions, I argue that, after Rice's initial arrest and through his two-game suspension, many journalists conformed to previous patriarchal narratives that have consistently blamed the victim, excused the perpetrator, and ignored the social problem of domestic violence. In doing so, journalists continued to reinforce dominant ideologies that silence the voices of victims and support the hegemonic structure of oppression. Although several critical narratives emerged after Rice's two-game suspension in July, it was not until TMZ released the second assault video in September that the narrative drastically changed. There was a clear shift in coverage after the release of the second assault video, as many journalists began critiquing tone-deaf narratives that have consistently blamed victims, excused perpetrators, and ignored the social problem of domestic abuse. With this, journalists began talking about domestic violence in a much more sensitive way than ever before. Although this discourse is crucial to changing the national conversation surrounding domestic violence, several problems still exist. First, it took a video of domestic abuse for most of these discussions to emerge. In regards to victim blaming, it appears that much of society—and certainly the NFL—does in fact need to see it to believe it. Second, even after the release of the assault video, football remained more important than domestic violence to many fans and journalists. While many fans continued to support the running back on social media and at Ravens games, many journalists focused on the game of football more than Rice's assault. Third, a majority of the critical narratives that emerged throughout the Ray Rice assault case focused on the league's (mis)handling of the assault. While these narratives are certainly important, they shift the focus away from the real issue—domestic violence. Fourth, although critical narratives surrounding domestic violence finally came to the forefront after the release of the second assault video, the number of articles that actually discussed domestic violence as a cultural problem were few and far between. Fifth, in order for these critical narratives surrounding domestic violence to emerge, Palmer's physical body had to be continually revictimized, and she was stripped of any agency she once had. Thus, although critical discussions surrounding domestic violence emerged during the Ray Rice assault case, there are still many issues surrounding gender and power that must be discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 12, 2017. / Includes bibliographical references. / Joshua Newman, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Arthur Raney, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Michael Giardina, University Representative; Donna Nudd, Committee Member; Brian Graves, Committee Member.

M.Comm. (Economics) / The financial involvement of the public sector in bidding for and hosting major international sporting events has taken various forms, including guarantees of events, sponsorships and direct government expenditure. The primary argument for the substantial use of public funds in the hosting of major events focuses on the ability to generate economic benefits for the public that exceed the costs involved. The scarcity of public funds in the public sector has led to growing scrutiny of allocation of public funds to support sporting events. The dissertation assesses whether or not the overall impact of major sporting events can justify the public funds used. The socio-economic and other impacts of different events, in both developed and developing countries, based on their experiences in hosting different sporting events as well as South Africa’s own experience, have been evaluated in this study. It is the contention of this dissertation that although major international sporting events ostensibly have positive economic spin-offs for the host country, this does not appear to be supported by evidence. Given the weak evidence or lack of evidence that major international sporting events can produce net benefits, it is not clear what motivates countries to fiercely contest for hosting rights. This dissertation therefore questions whether the hosting of major international sporting events is pursued for pure economic reasons.

M.Comm. / South Africa are the proud hosts of the FIFA 2010 Football World Cup™, and deservedly so. A significant effort has been placed in winning the bid and continues this continues to be the situation as construction and infrastructure are being put in place for event. Time is fast becoming limited, now with just less than three years to go, proper development is essential. Outside the rush and pressure to be ready for this event and the economic benefits that that are attached, the opportunity exists to divert some of that momentum into something that will last way beyond 2010 – sustainable youth development programmes and football clubs. This entails that grassroots development and youth football development programs are structured and sustainable in order for well-rounded, well-developed players to graduate from it for many years to come. This study set out to ascertain the extent to which business management principles are applied in the management of football, as well as to explore the availability and applicability of policies and programmes provided by government and the national federation. The exact population size was extremely challenging to determine, largely due to insufficient and non-centralised record keeping by national and regional administrators. A sample size of 30 (n=30) that was geographically representative of Gauteng, was drawn. Researcher-administered interviews, with questionnaires, were used in the investigation. Meaningful insight was provided in the fact that only 33% of the respondents were aware of the White Paper on Sport and Recreation South Africa and indicated that there was a degree of alignment to it. The study highlighted the fact that while this document, and other policies regulating and supporting sport and sport development nationally are available, the respondents indicated a general lack of knowledge of these tools made available by the South African Department for Sport and Recreation and its partners. The National Federation, SAFA, devote little effort to football development programmes and while strides are being made in this regard, the increments of success are very small and potential benefits do not materialise. One further aspect concluded from the study was the lack of a clear understanding of what sport development, and football in particular, encompasses, and thus what a development programme should include. Current football programmes were found to be lacking with regard to the holistic development of players, as well as coaches, administrators and officials, in areas that extend beyond the tactical and technical aspects of football.