Managing legitimacy and uncertainty in professional team sport: the NBA's draft lottery

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the complexity of – and conflicts inherent in – managing sports leagues at both the league and franchise level.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on changes to the National Basketball Association's (NBA) amateur entry draft, which has attempted to balance the need to preserve league parity and reduce the incentive for teams to deliberately lose games in order to improve draft position.

Findings

The discussion reveals the conflict between league and team goals. In addition, using Oliver's strategic decisions as a framework, the findings also illustrate how sport league commissioners have to balance pressures from both the internal and external environments.

Originality/value

This paper expands our understanding of how leagues manage institutional pressures, and how these pressures impact the team, leagues, and the decision makers involved.

Citation

Soebbing, B.P. and Mason, D.S. (2009), "Managing legitimacy and uncertainty in professional team sport: the NBA's draft lottery", Team Performance Management, Vol. 15 No. 3/4, pp. 141-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/13527590910964928