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This study aims to investigate the impact of technologies on the knowledge transfer process. In particular, the authors aim to analyze the topic of knowledge brokers and the relationship between broker and digital tools in the knowledge transfer process in the sport context. The study developed, therefore, aims to investigate the creating of this environment for knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing between man and machine, looking to improve the planning of technical sports projects of the clubs.

This paper presents a qualitative approach aimed at analyzing how platforms and the players’ agents can be useful tools in the knowledge transfer process. The research was conducted through a survey with a structured questionnaire via e-mail to 64 managers at the head of clubs playing in the Italian Series B basketball in the 2021–2022 championship. The total number of questions administered is 21.

The results demonstrate how sports directors, for the construction of a technical sports project, in addition to learning off the pitch by interactions with media, fans, pressure management, leadership skills, positive attitude, tolerance, understanding of other opinions, background and cultures, see the athletes’ agents as the main stakeholder of the managers. The research resulted, by the clubs’ managers, in both formal learning and informal-type learning. Informal learning, by far the most frequently used and most important in the general learning process of executives, is identified in the use that executives make of information available on digital platforms and of the fiduciary relationships that management has with players’ agents.

The results demonstrate the valuable opportunities for executives, coaches, managers and clubs to strategically manage learning and knowledge sharing. Improving and managing knowledge-sharing strategies would help increase knowledge, not only of the sports directors but also of the entire club, thus improving the absolute quality of the game within the Italian basketball divisions. The authors have developed an innovative framework regarding the construction of a “typed sports technical project”, and the authors have identified a series of crucial phases capable of determining the creation of a new roster of athletes.

Offline retail stores have been working on improving their in-store customer experience; they have begun to realise the physical advantage they have over online channels. Especially sports products have a number of unique features, such as high emotional involvement or a sense of community; additionally, sports customers put emphasis on multisensory brand experience at the point of sale. This study examines the in-store customer experience (ISCX) in offline sports retail stores, taking into account the commercial uniqueness of sport.

A qualitative study (focus groups; n = 16) and quantitative survey (cross-sectional survey design; n = 238) were conducted to measure ISCX in sports retail stores.

The results suggest that the customers' in-store experience has a significant influence on customers' satisfaction with the sports retailer and their likeliness to recommend the store to friends, which, in turn, is significantly affected by customers' satisfaction with the retailer. Moreover, social responses to actors involved in the service encounter, for example, the interaction with employees, play a significant role for the customer in-store experience. Accordingly, sports customers strive not only for functional benefits inherent in the interaction with customers and employees but also for social benefits.

This study extends the knowledge by (1) replicating the ISCX scale, (2) analysing ISCX in a sports retail environment and (3) examining the influence of ISCX on the Net Promoter Score. Moreover, the findings support managers' know-how about in-store setting and help to maintain the customer relationship.

As the superiority of sports celebrities' endorsements has been questioned, the purpose of this study is to identify various types of endorsers' direct and indirect effects on consumers' purchase intentions.

Empirical data were collected from 240 useful responses to an online experiment, and research hypotheses were tested using (moderated) serial mediation analyses.

The study's findings indicate that an endorser has a positive influence on consumers' purchase intentions through their perceptions of the advertisement and the endorsed brand. A moderated serial mediation analysis finds differences in the four types of endorsers analyzed. A sports celebrity is the most effective type of endorser in increasing consumers' purchase intentions, whereas endorsements by company managers and peer consumers, while also positive, are less effective in influencing advertising outcomes. An expert's endorsement is comparable to that of a manager but not significant.

The generalizability of the study's findings is limited because of a restricted data sample, the use of fictitious endorsers and the limited number of product categories and brands analyzed.

The study systematically analyzes the behavioral influence of four types of endorsers on consumers' purchase intentions, mediated by their perceptions of the advertisements and the endorsed brand. The results of this analysis extend the current state of endorsement research, indicating that endorsements should be integrated into companies' marketing strategies and provide marketing professionals practical guidance on which type of endorser is most effective in influencing advertising outcomes.

This study investigates three issues associated with playing sports video games: the correlates of participation (and its intensity) in this type of activity, their complementarity with traditional sports and their perception as sport. Given the scarcity of data on esports participation, these results can be seen as an initial approach to these issues with regard to esports.

Sequential, two-part and regression models are estimated using a sample of 11,018 individuals from the Survey of Sporting Habits in Spain 2015.

First, the association of the correlates follows different patterns for participation in sports video games and its intensity. Second, complementarity with traditional sports is found using different approaches. Third, young people consider this activity as a dimension of their overall interest in sports.

The different association of the correlates with participation in esports and its intensity can be used to define marketing and brand investment strategies. The complementarity between esports and traditional sports should influence how the actual stakeholders in sport define future strategies to favour the growth of both industries. Finally, the increasing perception of esports as a sport should influence the future organisation of multi-sport events like the Olympic Games.

Using sports video games participation as a proxy of esports participation, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the relevance of distinguishing between participation in esports and its intensity, their complementarity with traditional sports and their perception as sport.

This paper is an account of collaborative action-based research that centered on a new NCAA Division I football program at a regional southeastern university, and the positive impacts the collaboration had on the multiple stakeholders involved in the research, which were the university’s sport management faculty, the athletic department, and sport management students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

During the action research, these stakeholders moved through a cyclical process that involved reflection, planning, action, and evaluation. Through the action-based cyclical process that was utilized, each of these stakeholders were able to learn, adapt, participate, and make positive change.

Positive change occurred with the athletic department’s marketing efforts and game day operations, opportunities for sport management students to participate and learn, and development of relationships between two departments.

The cyclical nature of this research model often leads to original hypotheses and research foci to be highly altered during various stages. Another limitation within collaborative action research can be the breakdown in communication among the many parties involved in carrying out this type of research.

While the significance of this study was initially to capture fan information surrounding a new NCAA Division I football program, the stakeholders quickly realized that the action-based research study had more to offer than producing marketing reports for the university athletic department. Inclusion of the students as equal stakeholders in this project proved vital to student learning and involvement. Having the students play such an important role throughout each cycle of the project allowed for additional networking outside the classrooms with potential employers, as well as in-depth discussions and involvement in the classroom when synthesizing and disseminating the marketing information that had been gathered.

The collaboration between two separate departments within a higher education institution was vital to the overall success of the research project. The overall intent of this paper is to provide a practical approach to collaboration among individuals working in different departments of an organization, as the findings from this research project revealed the overall success of the project was only possible through the collaborative effort and joining resources, abilities, areas of expertise, and capabilities.

This study examines the role of market orientation in the relationship between internal marketing and entrepreneurial orientation within private sports clubs.

The research is a descriptive-correlational study based on private sports clubs employees within Iran (Sanandaj). A theoretical model was developed based on the literature and tested using SPSS and PLS-SEM software.

The findings indicate a positive relationship between internal marketing and employees' entrepreneurial orientation. Market orientation has also played a positive mediating role in the relationship between internal marketing and entrepreneurial orientation.

The results suggest a higher level of market orientation in the organization can increase teamwork and, consequently, entrepreneurship development among employees. This is important in sports clubs as employees have a significant role in the success of the sports club. Club employees' satisfaction, generated through internal marketing, provides is a prerequisite for customer satisfaction. This therefore creates an environment supportive of entrepreneurial orientation in the club.

This conceptual paper proposes an intellectual capital (IC) framework dedicated to elite athletes (EA) to demonstrate the usefulness of IC on individual persons. Thus, it connects EA with the concept of IC.

The paper is inspired by the classical IC dimensions (human capital, structural capital and relational capital), which are used to develop the IC framework for EA. An exemplary case study is used to validate the framework.

It is argued that there is a need to adapt the traditional IC framework for EA. Therefore, this paper proposes a specific IC framework consisting of natural capital, sports capital and media capital.

This paper deals with EA and the sports industry, but should be extended to other sectors where aspects such as image and celebrity represent significant intangible resources.

The proposed IC framework can help EA and their managers to better understand how IC value is created.

This paper extends the IC concept to other fields of application, i.e. EA, and thus individual persons.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consolidate knowledge and benchmark the progress being made across the 32 International Federations (IFs) in the Summer Olympic Programme.

Design/methodology/approach: A website content analysis, analytical hierarchy of information, and social media research was conducted to triangulate the barriers and drivers of environmental sustainability (ES) progress. This data was then analysed to empirically substantiate the findings of previous methods by exploring potential drivers of IF ES progress and communication and refining the ranking of IF ES progress.

Results and findings: World Sailing is by far the most advanced IF in terms of ES progress, followed by World Athletics. Only 4 out of 32 have any sort of strategic ES plans. Only golf, surfing, football, sailing, and hockey have received any academic attention. There is a significant lack of understanding of environmental practices across sport, and their drivers/barriers. There is limited accountability with regards to ES progress and activities throughout the Olympic Movement. This has resulted in uneven diffusion of environmental activities.

Originality: This paper is a new contribution to sport management and ES literature. It provides a benchmark of understanding for ES in the Summer Olympic Programme for the first time using a hierarchy of information to ground results. The exploration and comparison of the perspectives of separate sports adds to the paper's originality.

Despite to useful relevance to better understand how group-level identity develops, few studies have explored the identity theory in the esports field and, in particular, considering the impact of a fan's role identity. The current study aims to explore esports fan role-identity vis-à-vis the relationship with the sponsor and the sponsee so as to understand the effects on their behavioral intentions.

Using a sample of 356 esports fans who attended the 2021 FPF eFootball Open Challenge, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) analyzed the psychometric properties of the constructs and a subsequent Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) examined the effects of fan identity on two types of behavioral intentions and sponsor–sponsee relationship.

Results indicate that fans who highly identify with esports have the highest attachment to the event and tend toward having a positive word-of-mouth intention. Esports fans who have a higher brand identification reported a positive attitude toward the event's sponsor brand and tend to purchase its products. Moreover, the study findings also provide evidence of the bidirectional interaction between the way in which fans attach with the esports event and its sponsor brand, leading to greater reciprocity in their identity formation.

This study helps to understand how the fan identity process can enhance its fate and develop mutually, building role overlapping identity in the esports sponsor–sponsee relationship. Complementarily, it supports of how the marketeers and managers must analyze the importance of being a fan to the individual in order to understand how its self-identity can shape the future behavior.

Football exists and evolves in a dynamic ecosystem, displaying a massive and multidimensional influence on most contemporary societies, and football has grown into a significant industry with a plethora of stakeholders. This research is the first to comprehensively identify the key industry stakeholders and their distinct value, from the individual club perspective, and to conceptualise and test their interrelationship toward the development of a corresponding framework of club benefits.

The study applied a multilevel approach to collect and verify qualitative data. It initially developed a preliminary conceptual framework, which was first validated by an expert panel and was subsequently extensively tested in the Cyprus-specific context, which offered fertile ground for such a study. The empirical stage rested on 41 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with very high-ranking individuals from the top nine football clubs, as well as with key industry stakeholders.

Though the examined industry is partly in line with international norms, it is also highly affected by unique characteristics that alter the various stakeholders' role, producing (even negative) value of varied typologies that is directly linked with the industry's financial, sporting, cultural and social conditions.

The research ultimately presents scholars, practitioners and policymakers with a systemic and comprehensive understanding of the individual club stakeholder value offerings, delivers a tested framework as a tool for social and business management and prescribes future avenues for research, governance and practice.

Extant studies on the subject are either partial or focus on individual stakeholders and evidently lack requisite scientific comprehensiveness. The current research bridges this significant gap in knowledge by exhaustively identifying the key industry stakeholders, explicating their relative social, economic or other value in the individual club perspective and developing a value-based stakeholder framework.