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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that motivate Korean baseball fans to support Korean Major League Baseball (MLB) players and to identify the effects of the motivations on identification and behavioral loyalty.

Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire at three Korean universities. A model was designed to see which three motivations (commitment to Korean baseball, interests in MLB and ethnic identity) affect loyalty behaviors to support Korean MLB players. In the model, the mediating effect of player identification is set to the relation between the three motivations and behavioral loyalty. The moderating effect of team identification is also set to the relation between player identification and behavioral loyalty. Collected data (n=294) were first analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis to ascertain the factor structure of the study model. Then, the study performed a structural equation modeling which finds the magnitude and significance of each causal path among designed factors.

All the effects were found to be significantly positive except team identification whose moderating effect was not significant. Interests in MLB had the greatest impact on the fan’s player identification followed by commitment to the Korean baseball league and their ethnic identity. It was also found that the influence of player identification was positive on behavioral loyalty.

This work can help MLB expand their fan base internationally, especially in Asian countries.

The cricket Indian Premier League (IPL) was set up in late 2007 and played for the first time in 2008. The IPL is probably the first time in the history of professional team sport that an Asian league has become stronger than a European one. This paper examines the IPL's first year of operation, comparing its organisation with Major League Baseball and the English Football League. The paper concludes that the IPL has more in common with Major League Baseball, although it has, in some respects, proved more flexible than both in its mode of operation.

Despite the perceived benefits of implementing virtual reality (VR) training in elite sport, arguably the most important element – the perceptions of practitioners – has been largely understudied. Therefore, the present study aims to explore practitioners' perceptions of VR training in elite football and baseball, with a focus on the important factors, obstacles, perceived knowledge and practical use of the technology.

A quantitative approach measuring practitioner perceptions via an online questionnaire was adopted. Football respondents (n = 25) represented practitioners from major football leagues across the world, and baseball respondents (n = 15) represented practitioners from Major League Baseball.

Both football and baseball respondents reported that the most important factor for implementation of VR training was improvement in on-field performance (technical and tactical); whilst cost was viewed as the biggest obstacle. Both football and baseball respondents also noted that the most likely group to receive VR training would be injured and rehabilitating athletes. Mann–Whitney U tests revealed that football respondents perceived coach (p = 0.02) and executive approval (p < 0.001) as significantly greater obstacles than baseball respondents.

This research provides novel and invaluable information for stakeholders within VR regarding what the elite organisations of different sports perceive as the most important factors for implementation, as well as greatest obstacles preventing use. This information should guide future development and marketing of VR training systems in sport.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the changing of institutional logics in an established field shapes the developmental networks of high‐achievers.

This research combines time series analysis of more than 80 years of historical data (1922‐2004) with qualitative analysis of induction speeches of 99 hall of fame players from the same period.

Findings indicate that a change in field logics from a more staid “insular” logic to a market or more business‐oriented logic coincided with changes in key players' developmental networks. In particular, the key players' self‐identified developmental relationships become both more numerous and more diverse in nature. Results of the time series analysis connect the shift in logic with the late 1950s which was an important time in Major League Baseball's history. It was during this period that, for the first time, each team had at least one African American player on their roster and each team had an average of at least one full‐time scout based in a country outside the USA – both indicators of MLB's increasingly global search for talent.

The study focuses on extraordinary career performers (versus all performers) in an all‐male professional sport where the nature of the sport and the number of organizations remains relatively stable over time.

These findings show how changes to industry level logics can affect individual level changes in mentoring and developmental networks. In particular, they demonstrate how organizations can create and remove potential developer roles as their respective logics change from era to era.

This is the first known study to explore the effect of macro level changes on mentoring and developmental networks at the individual level.

This chapter analyzes the aggregate performance of Home Run Derby competitors’ performance both before and after the Home Run Derby for the time period 1999–2013. Regression to the mean suggests that in general, those players with outstanding performances in the first half of the season will regress to the mean. The findings here are consistent with regression to the mean, and the mean performance along four key analytics is statistically significantly worse for the competitors. However, the winners’ mean performance both before and after the Home Run Derby are not statistically significantly different. Thus, the results are consistent with previous research, but the results also find so-called “winner and loser” effects in Major League Baseball.

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that organizational task interdependence has an impact on the performance of home teams in sport.

The paper uses a cross‐sectional research design. It tests the authors' hypothesis using a probit analysis of nine years of data from Major League Baseball and eight years of data from the National Hockey League.

The paper determines that the underlying task interdependence of a sport has a significant impact on the performance of a sport team.

The paper argues that sport managers need to consider organizational structure when accounting for team performance. Moreover, the structure of the sport(s) needs to be considered when making adjustments to the league(s) that might affect the competitive balance.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage scholarly inquiries to critically examine broad perspectives of marketing and business operations in the sport industry of growing economies.

A comprehensive review of literature was the primary research method to introduce the following critical questions, “what are the major challenges in the sport industry of developing economies in a globalized market environment and what to do?”.

Seven articles are selected based on their theoretical and practical contributions.

This special issue is committed to trigger more investigations into sport businesses in developing countries and ultimately advancing theories and seeking solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors influencing the audience demand for televised post-season games of the Korean professional baseball league.

The data were collected from a total of 129 games – the entire post-season games from 2008 to 2016. Two dependent variables representing audience demand for televised baseball matches, obtained from the third-party television audit company AGB Nielsen, were regressed on a series of match-related and unrelated antecedent factors associated with each match. Pooled OLS regression with wild bootstrap standard errors with 100,000 replications was applied in the analysis.

Regarding match-related factors, higher television ratings and the greater numbers of television viewers were associated with matches with greater significance, outcome uncertainty and score sum. In terms of the match-unrelated factors, the broadcast platform appeared to be the most powerful predictor of both television ratings and the numbers of viewers. Other than the broadcast platform, night matches, matches with full stadium occupancy and team values showed positive impacts on both the television ratings and the numbers of viewers.

The sales of media rights and sponsorships are the major sources of revenues for professional sports leagues, and the size of these two streams of revenues is in proportion to the size of the audience demand for television and other media. This study provides valuable insights to the sports marketers of professional sports clubs and leagues by establishing proper understanding of the determinants of the audience demand for televised sports.

The characteristics specific to each professional league and country play unique roles in determining the antecedent factors of audience demand for televised sports; this study is one of the few attempts to examine Koran professional baseball league.

This paper investigates the role of competitive balance among teams in a league in predicting attendance at spectator sporting events. It also controls for the demographic and economic characteristics of the league's markets, and changes in the number of teams in the league. The research relies on a sample that includes 707 non-major professional team seasonal win-loss records (12,956 games) from five sports, aggregated into 75 seasons to develop a model consistent with extant literature. The authors find that competitive balance and average income in the league's markets are significant predictors of leaguewide attendance.