In the NCAA hierarchy, there’s D1, the lucrative, high-profile envy of schools across the country, D3, the niche for well-known liberal arts colleges attracted to its no-scholarship policies, and D2, the...uh...well, D2. Or, in ClipsSpeak: Papa Bear, Baby Bear, Mama Bear.
Issues of unethical behavior are concerns not only for academic endeavors in higher education, but also for NCAA athletics departments. Authors involved in research of ethical behavior in higher education suggest the need for research regarding NCAA violations, with specific emphasis on illegal recruiting inducements in collegiate athletics (Kelley & Chang, 2007). This is due in large part to growing public suspicion and criticism of ethical behavior at universities (Knight & Auster, 1999). To discover the source of these criticisms, researchers of unethical behavior in higher education assert that external pressures placed on university employees often encourage ethical lapses (Goodstein, 2002; Howe & Moses, 1999; Kelley & Chang, 2007). Some university employees simply place their personal and professional needs before ethical behavior in the higher education workplace (Agle & Kelley, 2001; Howe & Moses, 1999). Though reasons vary for ethical lapses, researchers posit that discovering the motivation of ethics violators can lead to preventive measures of unethical behavior. To determine such measures, the nature of the ethical breaches must first be established (Hill, Kelley, Agle, Hitt, & Hoskisson, 1992), and then examined according to whom and where these ethical lapses occur (Anderson, Louis, & Earle, 1999; Goodstein, 2002; Iyer, 1999; Kelley & Chang, 2007; Morgan, Korschgen, & Gardner, 2001). The purpose of this study is to identify who commits major NCAA violations—specifically major recruiting violations—to facilitate application of research principles to discover the reasons for ethical violations of NCAA legislation.
At bottom, hothouse parenting is the response of adults, fathers as well as mothers, to tremendous uncertainty and anxiety about what the next generation will need to thrive in the new economy. They know the rules have changed. Having been knocked for a loop themselves by new technologies and often the need to retrofit themselves to the economy, they assume their children are facing the same prospects. Their solution is to intensify parenting, to start at or near birth with classes and programs to equip their child with as many skills as they can cram in, in the hope that at least some of them will provide a ticket to success. Because landing on the right side of the yawning economic divide is so critical, they judge the stakes so great that each child is essentially in competition with all the others. The sense of competition encourages parents to do all in their power to create an advantage for their own child. Affluent parents hover and clear the path for their kids, making demands of teachers, administrators and coaches. The less affluent might vie to have their child singled out as special by being designated a genius, or an “indigo” child. Or they might seek neuropsychological testing to have their child declared “differently abled” and accorded academic accommodations that typically come down to taking their tests without time constraints, most importantly the SATs.
This paper analyzes the 2006 World Baseball Classic (WBC) as a promotional strategy by Major League Baseball to further its global branding pursuits. According to Paul Archey, MLB’s senior vice president of international business operations, the purpose of the WBC was to “build a platform where the best players in the game could play on behalf of their countries and get baseball better global exposure.”
It is indeed a great personal and professional pleasure to be able to recognize and endorse the inaugural issue of the Journal of Sport Administration & Supervision as well as to share a sincere expression of thanks and appreciation to its founder, publisher and editor. This journal joins a select few other journals (The Applied Research in Coaching and Athletics Annual; International Journal of Sport Management; and Sport Marketing Quarterly, for example.), in providing authors opportunities to share current, significant, timely, readable and understandable research and conceptual articles for those scholars and practitioners within sport management profession.
After years of planning, Major League Baseball (MLB) staged an international baseball tournament known as the World Baseball Classic (WBC) from March 3-20, 2006. Formally approved by MLB owners in 2004, World Baseball Classic, Inc., is a company created by MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) labor union to operate the WBC tournament, which is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation and is supported by professional baseball leagues and players associations around the world (MLB.com, 2006). According to Paul Archey, MLB’s senior vice president of international business operations, the purpose of the WBC was to “build a platform where the best players in the game could play on behalf of their countries and get baseball better global exposure” (Lefton, 2006).
When Colby and I hatched the idea for this journal, I only thought I knew what to expect.
In 1987, John T. Talamini penned an article in the May issue of the journal Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology. Using a self-developed social problems framework, Talamini (1987) addressed socially-relevant issues within Major League Baseball (MLB) illustrating that “[b]aseball ... like other human activities is Janus-faced” (p. 65). Talamini (1987) argued his analysis was sociologically relevant because, up to that point, baseball was lauded for its structural aspects and few discussions were entertained outside of the popular press regarding the negative attributes of MLB. The structural aspects of MLB so widely admired included: 1) the rules of the game resembling a moral philosophy; 2) the object of the game representing order and stability; 3) the league’s organization having a low tolerance for deception and unbiased statistical gathering; and 4) the harmonious social dynamics and rituals involved within the game (Talamini, 1987). Finally, Talamini (1987) challenged the popular perceptions that baseball players were “participating solely for the love of the sport and often, in team sports, as sharing a spirit of powerful group morale,” while off the playing field, they were “humble, selfless, and exemplars of conventional virtues” (p. 65).
The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions of student-athletes concerning the coaching competency of men’s basketball head coaches at the Division II level in the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCAA). This article would likely be useful to intercollegiate athletics department personnel, particularly athletic directors and other personnel who evaluate coaches within an athletic department. This article would also be useful for college and university presidents to which the athletics department personnel are responsible. The most important individual who would benefit from this article would be the head coach. This article would allow coaches to apply the four dimensions of coaching competency to their own coaching situation as well as create a foundation for evaluating how their student-athletes might perceive them.
Scholarship in the organizational sciences is replete with studies that focus on how organizations use scarce resources to generate organizational outcomes (Crook, Ketchen, Combs, & Todd, 2008). In fact, the allocation of resources is a significant challenge confronted by firms of all kinds (Cheng & Kesner, 1997). Given that intercollegiate athletic departments often operate under financial constraints, marketing directors naturally face these resource allocation challenges when dispersing marketing dollars to various sports (Greenwell, Mahony, & Andrew, 2007). The decision for many athletic marketing directors involves a choice between the desire to focus limited marketing dollars only on those few sports that generate revenue to maximize the financial return and the desire to promote athletic teams equally out of a desire to be fair. From a study of athletic marketing directors in NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics, Greenwell, Mahony, and Andrew (2007) discovered that the majority of respondents preferred the former strategy of resource allocation and cited maximized financial return on the dollar as their main motivation for that allocation strategy. However, such strategy inevitably leaves some intercollegiate sports with limited or no marketing support in some cases.
Recently, Ben and I were working on a major project, and after presenting the final concept to the individual with whom we were working, he leaned back in chair, threw his hands up, and quipped, “How did you guys figure this out?
The purpose of this research was to review, revisit, and expand Talamini’s social problems within Major League Baseball (MLB) in such a way that it leads to theory-based recommenda-tions regarding how to address those problems. Talamini’s categories, which include gambling, player/managerial violence, spectator violence, cheating, crime, and greed, are reviewed and ap-plied to social problems in MLB since the original publication in 1987. To better understand so-cial problems and deviant behavior within MLB, the original categories are connected to specific deviance theories to better understand causation of deviance. Theories are then organized accord-ing to Shoemaker’s proposed integrated model, which classifies causes of deviance on the struc-tural, social-psychological, and psychological levels. Relating Talamini’s social problems catego-ries to sociology of deviance theories, then organizing them according to Shoemaker’s proposed integrated model aids in better explaining MLB deviance. Recommendations are made, based upon the model, to sport management practitioners, students, and scholars regarding how to ame-liorate the aforementioned social problems.
Forbes reported that the 10 richest male and female athletes made a combined $600 million in salary, prize money and endorsements, including men’s professional golfer Tiger Woods who alone earned nearly $100 million in sponsorships in 2008 (Badenhausen, 2008; Thomaselli, 2008). Interestingly, many top athlete endorsers make considerably more money as endorsers than as athletes in their chosen sport. For example from June 2007 to June 2008, female professional golfer Michelle Wie earned $12 million in endorsement money but only $39,000 in prize money. Similarly, former professional basketball player Michael Jordan made $45 million in endorsements, despite not having participated in his sport for many years (Badenhausen, 2008). Some athletes endorse a multitude of products (e.g., National Football League quarterback Peyton Manning, Woods, and female racecar driver Danica Patrick), while others limit themselves to products associated with their sport (e.g., women’s professional basketball player Candace Parker) (Janoff, 2008). Recently, many have speculated the value of athlete endorsers to a brand’s image, particularly given the negative publicity surrounding such incidents as (among others) the marijuana incident of men’s Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and the steroid scandal surrounding Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez. These factors beg questions as to whether, and if so, under what circumstances, athlete endorsers become effective in brand marketing. Why are some celebrities only able to successfully endorse a limited range of related products, while others can endorse a wide range of unrelated products? How does one determine the most effective combination of celebrity endorser characteristics and product brand types? An integration of the endorser and brand literature offers insight into this phenomenon.
While coaches are constantly making evaluations about their athletes, student-athletes are also formulating assessments about their coaches’ personalities and behaviors. These perceptions of coaching competency could alter student-athlete performances and could offer important insights into valuable information needed to improve this relationship (Cratty, 1983).
Given resource constraints in marketing budgets of athletic departments, many intercollegiate athletics marketers often face a difficult choice between marketing all sports fairly and marketing only those sports that would provide the highest return on investment of marketing dollars. In many intercollegiate athletic departments, the resource constraints are so impregnable that managers often are forced to rely on a host of volunteers to accomplish the daily operational tasks. This case study explains the creative efforts made at one university to incorporate student volunteers when marketing, promoting, and selling tickets to collegiate baseball. This case provides examples of how intercollegiate athletic marketing directors can capitalize on student help to greatly enhance the outcomes for fans, students, and other stakeholders in the athletic department.
The purpose of this paper is to examine elements of successful athlete celebrity endorsements. The paper addresses why some athlete celebrities can only endorse a limited range of related products, while other athlete celebrities can endorse a wide range of unrelated products. Optimum combinations of athlete/product endorsement match-up are also discussed, and a rubric for addressing this match-up called the Endorser Sexpertise Continuum is introduced.
The purpose of this study was to identify the frequency and severity recruiting infractions of NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institutions according to their locations and conference affiliations. This study examines the influence of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) structure on issues of athletic compliance related to the recruitment of student-athletes. Furthermore, this study also addresses a crucial step of curtailing future ethical misconduct in higher education institutions that commit recruiting violations by identifying the rules violators on the institutional level (Kelley & Chang, 2007).