Sport Marketing Association conference helps dispel myth of … – Sports Business Journal
As we annually detail for Sports Business Journal readers, one of us recently attended the Sport Marketing Association conference, this time held in Charlotte in late October. We even presented some of our own research on name, image and likeness, which we’ll save for another day. Instead, we’d like to focus on our collective learning from others.
As always, there were numerous academic and industry presentations plus practitioner-centric panels on topics including sponsorship, ticket pricing policies/restrictions, sport marketing, and a personal favorite of ours titled “Is Hockey for Everyone? Inclusivity of Hockey and NHL” by Ceyda Mumcu and Andreas Xenofontos (both from the University of New Haven), Ann Pegoraro (University of Guelph) and Nancy Lough (UNLV).
In their research, which focused on LGBTQ and inclusion, the authors asked, “What is the reaction to Nashville’s Luke Prokop’s coming out?” In reviewing media narratives of coming out stories, they reviewed responses to the NHL’s first openly gay player, attempting to assess if the commentary reflected an assumption there exists a resentment (or continued stigma) toward homosexuality in men’s pro sports/hockey or if there was evidence of a changing cultural context (reflecting decreasing homophobia).
In reviewing and analyzing more than 5,000 Instagram posts, the reviewers found strong evidence of a cultural shift and even observed self-policing where homophobic content was challenged and rejected. Given all the sport of hockey is dealing with (notably with Hockey Canada), this was encouraging.
Another stand-out presentation was “An Examination of Fan Attachment to Front Office Personnel” by Michael Mudrick from York College of Pennsylvania. It was fascinating learning sports fans are beginning to generate attachment to front office executives such as the general manager, director of player personnel, or, at the college level, the athletic director.
Names like Billy Beane (Oakland A’s), Daryl Morey (Rockets, 76ers), Sam Hinkie (76ers), Theo Epstein (Red Sox, Cubs) and Masai Ujiri (Toronto Raptors) were referenced in Mudrick’s work and got us thinking how future fans may grow up understanding their favorite players will only sign one contract with a team before moving on. We’re certainly seeing that in college sports, where the NCAA’s transfer portal reinforces the short shelf lives of certain players.
This temporary connectedness to a player (think how fans now invest more energy in their fantasy or Madden teams than real-life clubs), partially explains why front office executives are attracting fan followings. If we’re going to care for a player, we might as well care for the GM who drafted them.
One other area catching our eye was the SBRnet Case Study Bowl Finals, where 20 undergraduate college teams competed on a project designed by the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets’ charge was determining whether the metaverse can help increase revenue during the next five years.
Four schools (Ohio University, Indiana State, Brock University and Loras College) reached the finals with Athens-based OU, where one of us spent five great years as department chair, winning what was judged an amazing effort by every team involved.
Matt Blaszka, associate professor of sport management at Indiana State, who coordinated the competition, said, “having a record 20 schools from around North America in the 2022 case competition was incredible. Having so many different teams produced vastly different approaches. In the finals, Ohio University won behind the strength of their implementation strategies, organization and five-year plan.”
Notably, for the first time, there were two schools from historically Black colleges and universities involved (sponsored by Navigate) with Elizabeth City State University (Jason Hughes advising), and St. Augustine’s University of Raleigh (under the guidance of professor Umar Muhammad). These two teams helped SMA firmly plant a DEIA flag (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility) that built on the conference’s opening session, a Fox Sports research panel on “Revisiting the Black Market: A Post-Pandemic Examination of African American Sport Consumers.”
That keynote was followed by Flavil Hampsten, chief operating officer of Elevate Sports Ventures, addressing the importance of and challenges facing the industry when it comes to making and prioritizing DEIA progress. Additionally, SMA partnered with Sports Biz Camps, helping them fulfill their ongoing mission of changing the lives of underrepresented high school and college students through the sports business.
Each of the above efforts was clearly influenced by SMA’s diverse executive board where the president, president-elect and a key member-at-large are Black and four of the eight elected executive board members are women.
In addition to numerous other special recognition awards, the Lough Award (presented by Wasserman’s The Collective) recognized an educator and scholar who not only promotes diversity, equity and inclusion, but also publishes marketing research in areas focused on underrepresented groups in sport. This year’s winner was Mumcu of New Haven and she was recognized for a decade’s worth of ongoing work involving sports marketing to women and the LGBTQ+ community.
In wrapping up, it remains reassuring that every time we hear about the divide between academia and industry, we see our colleagues’ research feeding the strategies, tactics, and decisions of sport organizations and others engaged in the trillion-dollar sport industry. Sharing some of this work helps vanquish the myth that sport management (and sport marketing) research is far from reality and unworthy of practitioner investigation.
Rick Burton is the David B. Falk Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University. Norm O’Reilly is the dean of the University of Maine’s Graduate School of Business. They are co-authors of “Business the NHL Way” (University of Toronto Press).