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The environmental characteristics of international football can vary significantly from one country to another. As a result, the economic and market possibilities and the objectives of each national league are very heterogeneous. This article aims to examine the differences in revenue structures amongst European national football leagues (n = 50) and cluster them based on these structures. It also investigates which revenue structure would be more effective for similar leagues, considering the previously mentioned varying environmental characteristics of international football.

The study utilises a theoretical framework of business modelling, applied in a unique way to league organisers of national championships. Data on sports and business aspects were collected from sources such as the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Financial Benchmarking Reports, transfermarkt.de and related sources for the period 2015 to 2018. K-means cluster analysis, using the Euclidean distance approach, was employed to develop clusters based on revenue sources over a four-year average.

The paper presents the characteristics and year-to-year changes of nine developed clusters. Throughout the analysis, variables such as average overpayment and inequality between player values amongst leagues were prioritised. The study's practical implications can assist league organisers in enhancing the competitiveness of their leagues, supported by short case studies that provide illustrative examples.

The novelty of the current article lies in introducing innovative variables such as the variance of player value whilst focussing on meso-level analysis, providing a fresh contribution to the existing literature in the field for understanding revenue structures and performance in European national football leagues.

This study explores the relationship between governance model – private organisations vs non-profit organisations (NPOs) – and performance in football clubs.

The study is a comparative case study of two football clubs with different governance models: Malmö FF, which is an NPO, and Bologna FC, which is a privately owned club.

The results show that both football clubs focus equally on financial and non-financial performance, and in practice, both clubs use a blend of private and NPO governance models. While supporting efforts towards financial results, blending the models appears to support football clubs' management of the tension between financial and non-financial performance and the expectation that they will contribute to local development. Thus, using a blend of the two models is not only accepted but expected.

This study is a comparative case study of two football clubs. This study furthers our understanding of how football clubs manage the tension between financial and non-financial performance expectations. This is particularly of interest in light of the increasing professionalisation of sports, especially football, and how this might jeopardise the contributions that sport clubs make to the local community.

By exploring the relationship between governance model and performance, this study shows that, contrary to expectations, privately owned football clubs focus as much on non-financial performance as clubs governed as NPOs. This study contributes to the existing literature by showing how clubs use a mixture of elements from governance models to manage the tension between financial and non-financial performance that has emerged in the wake of the increasing professionalisation of football.

Demonstrate proof-of-concept for conducting NFL Draft trades on a blockchain network using smart contracts.

Using Ethereum smart contracts, the authors model several types of draft trades between teams. An example scenario is used to demonstrate contract interaction and draft results.

The authors show the feasibility of conducting draft-day trades using smart contracts. The entire negotiation process, including side deals, can be conducted digitally.

Further work is required to incorporate the full-scale depth required to integrate the draft trading process into a decentralized user platform and experience.

Cutting time for the trade negotiation process buys decision time for team decision-makers. Gains are also made with accuracy and cost.

Full-scale adoption may find resistance due to the level of fan involvement; the draft has evolved into an interactive experience for both fans and teams.

This research demonstrates the new application of smart contracts in the inter-section of sports management and blockchain technology.

The study aims to identify critical factors that influence football fans’ support of their favorite team by examining the impact of social responsibility, brand credibility and team brand equity on patronage intentions of professional football teams.

An online survey collected data from 331 football fans of the Persian Gulf Premier League (PGPL) in Iran. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings revealed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is able to influence brand equity, brand credibility and patronage intentions. Also, brand equity and brand credibility were found to be positively related to patronage intentions. In addition to that, the findings show that brand equity and team credibility partially mediate the relationship between CSR and patronage intentions.

The findings provide valuable insights to sports teams/club managers aiming to attract new fans and retain current ones by investing in CSR and enhancing brand credibility and equity. Strategies to integrate CSR into relationship marketing and brand management are outlined.

This study empirically highlights the critical role of adhering to CSR and the effects of brand credibility and equity in enhancing patronage intentions among football team fans.

The purpose of this paper was (1) to examine the underexplored intersection of sports betting and favorite team loyalty, and (2) to assess differences in gambling behavior among sport bettors by varying levels of team loyalty.

A total of 1,555 National Football League (NFL) bettors and non-betting NFL fans were surveyed to assess media consumption across a mix of team loyalty attitudes and betting behaviors.

Statistically significant differences were found between four types of NFL fans (casual, team loyalty-dominant, betting-dominant and hybrid) as it relates to media consumption in various forms. Most notably, the results suggested symbiosis between the activities.

The symbiosis finding, though preliminary, suggests the activity provides an additional platform for consumers to connect with spectator sport. Furthermore, the act of betting, like participation in fantasy sports, appears to spur consumption of the NFL product generally. The study, however, was limited to NFL fans, did not specify the method for sports betting, nor the intensity of gambling.

Teams should not worry that betting detracts from fan engagement with the team product. Also, leagues and media providers should continue to highlight betting content as participants consume at higher rates than non-participating sports fans.

Team fandom may potentially moderate problem behavior among bettors. The betting results indicate being a loyal team fan lowers one’s gambling spend per month and largest bet compared to non-loyal bettors. However, the hybrid fan showed significantly higher media consumption levels.

Sports fans have more opportunities to interact and engage with their favorite games than ever before. However, consumers have limited amounts of time and money, and this study is one of the first to examine differences in fan interests and behaviors related to sport betting and team loyalty and the resulting viewership and consumption behavior.

Bringing together our analysis from the previous chapters allows us to lay out the various contradictions and issues surrounding ownership models that have arisen for fans of football clubs. Exactly when are most English football clubs supposed to have conformed to the normative model? Our analysis reveals that the context in which football clubs operate is that of global business and has developed in line with the practices of other businesses that exist outside the sporting arena. There is always going to be an uneasy tension between a fan ideal and something that has to operate within global contexts. However, in the modern game ideal and practice find themselves not merely in tension, but often completely in opposition to one another. Football finds itself in a position where something has to give, be it ownership models or the affective ties of the fans themselves. Fans can either continue to wrestle with the contradictions that arise from what they think their club is or fandom itself changes to embrace the context of the ownership. Given the moral injunction that is almost invariably built into the idealised image that fans have of their club, there is one question that we must always ask in the contemporary climate: How far is too far before all of this means nothing?

This research aimed to measure the influence of resource dependency (trading and/or shareholder's dependencies) squad age structure by building archetypes to identify strategic dominant schemes.

Based on the Ligue 1 football clubs from the 2009/2010 season to the 2018/2019 data, the authors use the k-means classification to build archetypes of resource dependency and squad structure variables. The influence of resource dependency on squad structure is then analysed through a table of contingency.

Firstly, the authors identify archetypes of resource dependency with some clubs that are dependent on the transfer market and others that do not count on sales to balance their account. Secondly, they provide different archetypes of squad structure choices. The contingency between those archetypes allows to identify three main strategic schemes (avoidance, shaping and adaptation).

The research tests an original relationship between resource dependency of clubs and their human resource strategy to respond to it. This paper can help to provide detailed profiles for big clubs looking for affiliate clubs to know which clubs have efficient academy or player development capacities.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

Professional sports teams employ highly paid managers and coaches to train players and make tactical and strategic team decisions. A large literature analyzes the impact of manager decisions on team outcomes. Empirical analysis of manager decisions requires a quantifiable proxy variable for manager decisions. Previous research focused on manager dismissals, tenure on teams, the number of substitutions made in games or the number of healthy players on rosters held out of games for rest, generally finding small positive impacts of manager decisions on team success.

The authors quantify manager decisions by developing a novel measure of game-specific coaching decisions: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of playing-time across players on a team roster over the course of a season.

Evidence from two-way fixed effects regression models explaining observed variation in National Basketball Association team winning percentage over the 1999–2000 to 2018–2019 seasons show a significant association between managers’ allocation of playing time and team success. A one standard deviation change in playing-time HHI that reflects a flattened distribution of player talent is associated with between one and two additional wins per season, holding the talent of players on the team roster constant. Heterogeneity exists in the impact across teams with different player talent.

This is one of the first papers to examine playing-time concentration in the NBA. The results are important for understanding how managerial decisions about resource allocation lead to sustained competitive advantage. Linking coaching decisions to wins can help teams to better promote this core product.

While much of the literature testing for shirking by professional athletes have used performance metrics, some works have quantified shirking in dollar terms by comparing salary to estimated marginal revenue product (MRP). However, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) approaches to measuring shirking by comparing salary to MRP have an endogeneity problem, as salary and contract length are determined simultaneously. We test for shirking in Major League Baseball (MLB) using an MRP approach, addressing this potential endogeneity.

This paper uses instrumental variables regression to address potential endogeneity using MLB season-level player and team data from 2010 to 2017.

Using OLS regression, the impact of an additional year of guaranteed contract on shirking is estimated at approximately $1m in 2010 US dollars, and the impact of having a long-term contract is estimated at $5m, estimates comparable to those in the literature. Using instrumental variables regression, these impacts increase to $1.6m and over $9m in 2010 dollars.

Given large, causal shirking estimates, profit maximizing sports organizations should take caution when negotiating long-term contracts. These findings also have important implications for other labor market settings where workers feel job security.

To our knowledge, this is the first work testing for shirking in sports using an MRP approach which uses instrumental variables regression to address potential endogeneity.