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Since the appearance of Simon Rottenberg's seminal paper on the baseball players' labour market in the Journal of Political Economy (1956), the literature on the economics of professional team sports has increased rapidly, fuelled by major changes in the restrictive rules which had pervaded these sports, themselves a consequence of battles in the courts and the collective bargaining arena. These changes have not been limited to North America, to which most of the literature relates, but also apply to Western Europe and Australia in particular. This monograph surveys this literature covering those various parts of the world in order to draw out both theoretical and empirical aspects. However, to argue that the existence of what is now an extensive literature “justifies” such a survey on professional team sports clearly begs a number of questions. Justification can be found in at least two major aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of three major professional sport leagues in South Korea to investigate the general beliefs, values, and norms influencing the institutional isomorphism of CSR engagement.

Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with three league chiefs of CSR initiatives and senior managers of related divisions to explore the general beliefs, values, and norms that are institutionalized in their CSR practices. The Gioia method of inquiry and data analysis was employed.

Using institutional theory, the current research found evidence of all three institutional pressures of institutional isomorphism that contribute to the institutionalization of CSR practices in professional South Korean sport. The data revealed that CSR has been institutionalized in these leagues through isomorphic pressures – coercive, mimetic, and normative – as antecedents to their CSR practices.

The current research identified that conforming to the institutional norms may not only act as a force causing the organization to behave in a socially responsible manner, but also to provide the organization with competitive advantages.

The authors extend the current literature in sport CSR by using institutional theory as a framework to uncover organizational CSR motives. In particular, this is the first study to provide evidence of how three isomorphic pressures work to institutionalize CSR practices in South Korean professional sports leagues.

In recent decades, significant advances have been made at both the grassroots and professional levels of women's ice hockey in North America. Yet, despite recent achievements, such as the establishment of ‘professional’ leagues, and compelling narratives of progress, athletes and league organisers still face significant challenges. The barriers women face, such as reduced access to resources and opportunity, lack of legitimacy, and league instability, and a continued reliance on relationships with men's sporting leagues, such as the National Hockey League, suggest that women's ice hockey is accommodated into the game in ways that reinforce and perpetuate systems of gender, reproducing a neoliberal notion of failure. Using Halberstam's (2011) notion of failure as the place from which reform and transformation can take place, we offer a critical reading of the (re)formation of the National Women's Hockey League and the developments in women's (semi)professional ice hockey in North America.

This study seeks to examine how a sport league, a unique feature of professional sport, influences the business‐to‐business marketing of teams participating in the sport league.

This study uses a qualitative research design based on a single case study, the UCI ProTour in professional road cycling. The primary sources consist of 27 semi‐structured interviews complemented by written sources and controlled for construct validity, external validity and reliability.

From a theoretical point of view, a sport league is a marketing channel network (a specific type of an intentionally developed business network or IDBN). Theoretical analysis also reveals that the teams' business‐to‐business marketing is positively related to the network's value‐creating system. Empirically, it is argued that the introduction of a marketing channel network has a positive influence on the financial value of the teams' business‐to‐business market but does not result in a change in the business demographics of corporate sponsors.

The study has possible sport‐specific limitations.

Business‐to‐business marketers and sport league managers should pay attention to the characteristics of the sport league as these influence the teams' business‐to‐business market. This is especially valid for sports in which teams rely strongly on sport sponsoring and, to a lesser extend, on gate revenues, television rights and prize money.

For the first time, this study examines and provides data on the business‐to‐business environment of teams in professional road cycling. It contributes to the literature of international sport marketing and professional road cycling, a sport gaining momentum in various countries and which is understudied in comparison to other sports.

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.

In this paper, Fantasy Sports (Hereafter FS) is conceptually classified as a concept of gamification for professional sport leagues. From a sporting perspective, FS is often criticized because such online activities may be at the expense of physical activities. Otherwise, gamification can ultimately lead to economic advantages for sport leagues. To further empirically analyse this supposed juxtaposition, an empirical study is presented.

In the empirical study, participation and non-participation in a sport league-related FS league are analysed and the study uses a divided sample (N = 319) for a one-factor Welch-ANOVA. FS effects on sport practice (engaging in doing sport) and usage (engaging with sport) of FS players as well as on gaining and retaining fans are investigated.

Results demonstrate that participating in gamified FS experiences increases sport usage while not harming general sport practice. Furthermore, FS participation increases consumption capital as well as sport fans' loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) towards the league brand. Building on the results, league brands should foster gamified FS applications to retain their fan base and acquire new fans.

The authors’ theoretical contribution indicates the importance of FS as a gamified application and essential marketing tool for professional sport leagues. By introducing the terms sport practice and usage, the authors bridge the traditional logic of sport consumption with innovative approaches around engagement in and with sports. The results refute the prejudice that FS leads to less physical activity due to time substitution or displacement.

Sponsorship sales in professional sport is an area of increasing attention and growing investment, but the sport management literature offers only limited research about sales strategies and tactics. As a result, practitioners and academics alike have called for investigation in the area. In response to this need, the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore sponsorship sales in professional sport.

Sponsorship sales professionals working for sport properties in the four major North American sport leagues were surveyed on a variety of sponsorship sales-related variables and factors.

A total of 92 sponsorship sales professionals responded to the study, for an estimated 15.3 percent response rate. At the time of the data collection, the 92 respondents worked in the National Football League (NFL) (37), Major League Baseball (MLB) (16), National Basketball Association (NBA) (18), and National Hockey League (NHL) (21). A series of practical, conceptual, and comparative results are presented, highlighted by turnover as a problem, the importance of activation/servicing in sponsorship sales, and the high level of investment clubs are making in sponsorship sales.

First, on “coverage,” the authors acknowledge that variations in the data can be linked, to a large extent, to reporting issues due to the nature of the study, the data, and the sample. Variations in sponsor number or training, for example, are not necessarily indicative of weaknesses in the industry, but occur because of strategic differences among properties. Second, it is important to note that not all properties had personnel respond to the study. Consequently, the figures presented in this study might be a function of the individual personnel who responded rather than a true average figure for a particular league. Third, in terms of the sample, this study deals with a very specific context in the four North American major sport leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). Thus, one should be careful in generalizing to minor professional, collegiate, Olympic, or other sport contexts.

The finding of this paper states that the turnover of sponsors may be a structural issue and is certainly related to the demand for the particular property (Seaver Marketing Group, 2010). Driven by a number of factors, including technology shifts to digital channels and increased sophistication by the sponsorship sales departments of professional sport properties, a shift in the activation and service paradigm is reported and extended to the specific context of sponsorship sales.

Results show that sport properties in the North American major sport leagues have a strong commitment to sponsorship sales by the organization (commitment of resources), by sport personnel (who support the business side), and by their sponsorship sales professionals who report satisfaction, motivation, and support from their property.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical research study specific on sponsorship sales in professional sport, thus providing direction for practice and future research on an issue of high importance to the sport industry.