Pre-season tour

If it's good enough for Manchester United and Chelsea, it's good enough for Daily Sport Thought - this blog will soon be setting off for an overseas tour and a pre-season training camp aimed at building the brand, targetting new customers and engaging in effective PR in an international market place. Service will be intermittent, dependent on the games and training schedule the blog will face during its overseas adventures.

Twittering Aquilani

Early yesterday afternoon, amongst the trending topics on Twitter it appeared as though Alberto Aquilani of Serie A's FC Roma had actually already signed for a new club, the Premier League's Liverpool FC. A check on the major news sites (newspapers, television, specialist internet sites and new agencies) around this time failed to provide any evidence that Aquilani had switched clubs (although stories had been circulating for weeks that he would move to Liverpool from Roma once Xavi Alonso moved on to Real Madrid). This blog has already addressed issues pertaining to the wisdom of crowds, the role that social media play in predicting the future, and the use of Twitter in sport. Yesterday afternoon, all of these elements appear to have come together which poses some interesting questions: is Twitter one of the most powerful predictive tools currently available to members of the general public? If so, how should managers and decision-makers in and around sport be using it? Do sport organisations solely see Twitter as a marketing tool when in fact it is something much more powerful - a mechanism for generating an array of possible scenarios and outcomes to the challenges they face? Or is that Twitter is simply the fast medium for gathering and disseminating news? Had Aquilani indeed already signed when the Twitter stories started filtering through - hence Twitter isn't in this case predictive at all, it was just fast? Yet if Twitter really is so fast and effectively bypasses traditional outlets for news stories, then how should sport newspapers, television programmes and other content providers respond to the challenges it is now starting to set them?

Indian summer...and winter

This was reported by Sport Business ealrier on today: "The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has made a request to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to help fund India’s national football team, according to media reports. The Kolkata-based Telegraph reported that the BCCI could give a $2 million grant to the AIFF’s "Goal 2011" project - where top 25 players will be taken away from club duties for nine months - to build the national team for the 2011 Asian Cup finals in Qatar." This is an interesting initiative, especially in a country where cricket rules and football, although popular, is definitely the junior partner in the relationship. Is such an initiative (or is it a strategy) the way forward for smaller, less popular sports to gain strength and vibrancy? Is this kind of 'piggy-backing' and appropriate strategy? What are the respective advantages and disadvantages? Could it be viewed as a form of cross-subsidisation, in which case, again, is this the right way to promote sport? Or, is it a a form strategic collaboration, in which case what are some of the pertinent issues in managing such a relationship? Could it be seen as an Indian macro-level equivalent of a Spanish polideportivo, in which case what is the national strategy underpinning the link between football and cricket? From the perspective of national sporting soldarity, could it be that the proposed cricket/football link will ultimately yield a number of important lessons for other countries seeking to create an integrated sporting model or national sporting strategy?

Age of concern

Something that has been bothering me for a week or two - the subject of age in sport. Following Tom Watson's (aged 59) second place in this year's British Open at Turnberry, I asked in this blog whether golf could be considered as being the purest form of sport because it allows people of all ages to compete on a relatively equal basis. Watson's second place follows Greg Norman's (aged 53) third place at the British Open last year at Royal Birkdale. Problem is, the Royal and Ancient (the R&A) reduced its age limit for entrants to the British Open from 65 to 60 in 2007. This means that players of Watson's ilk can no longer look forward to competing in the British Open....because they are too old. Although the R&A has acknowledged that it needs to look again at the age restriction, one firstly needs to ask: are such age limits legal, certainly under British and EU law? If a 70 year old was good enough to compete in the Open (and, indeed, other golf championships, and in any other sporting competitions), would their exclusion because of an age restriction actually stand up in court? Whatever the legality of age restrictions, they do raise some interesting questions: are they for the benefit of young players (especially at the Open where starting slots are limited)? Are young players the most important focus of sport? Should they be? Or is the exclusion of older players to the detriment of specific tournaments and sport in general? Who should decide, and on what basis? Consider another scenario: in football, when a player retires, it is often accepted that they will become managers and coaches. Should lower age limits therefore be introduced so that younger athletes keep competing, allowing older former athletes a much better chance to find coaching and managerial positions in sport once they have retired?

A load of Bull

At the Centre for the International Business of Sport (CIBS), we continuing to analyse Red Bull, and what the company/brand has brought to sport:

http://www.coventry.ac.uk/researchnet/external/content/1/c4/53/26/v1247730484/user/CIBS%20WP11.pdf

There is a whole series of issues related to the role that Red Bull has played/is playing in sport; some commentators are critical of what the company has done e.g. changing the name of SV Austria Salzburg to Red Bull Salzberg; others see the company as a major financial contributor to sport through its various sponsorship deals; while the company's entrepreneurial approach to sport has attracted the attention of many people (and is the focus of CIB's work). Of particular interest is the company's strategy of developing new sports, changing the format of existing sports, and the way it repackages and then re-brands existing sports

Further insight into Red Bull's activities can be found here:

http://www.redbull.co.uk/#page=HomePage.1232021262108-1071851984

This leads one to ask: is this form of entrepreneurialism in sport a good thing or a bad thing? Surely Red Bull is to be applauded for its commitment to sport, and is an object lesson in how sport can be used to simultaneously promote specific sports while at the same time promoting the company? A classic form of strategic collaboration, and great relationship marketing? Moreover, hasn't the fresh perspective that Red Bull has brought enlivened sport, creating a fresh perspective of what sport is and what it does? Indeed, isn't the company's creation of 'new sports' simply a replication of what happened across Europe in the 19th century and the US in the 20th century i.e. corporate backing for activities in which people were already engaged in order to strengthen and develop them? Or do we need to take a different view of Red Bull? Is the ubiquity of the company and its branding too much? Isn't it commercial exploitation? When companies start changing the nature of sports and sporting contests, hasn't their involvement become too intrusive, possibly even exploitative? Should sports fans be worried by Red Bull's activities?

A final question, in the light of Red Bull's involvement in sport, what does this tell us about the role that entrepreneurship in sport could/should and couldn't/shouldn't play in sport?

Swimwear - models

Two observations today.

The first brings together several blog postings that have previously been made here: 'The Primacy of Machines' (July) and 'Suits You, Sir' (June). While the contentious debate about swimming 'super suits' appears to have been brought to a conclusion, the outcome nevertheless raises an important question:

Is there any sport in which an athlete can have primacy over technology (rather than machines), or are we now living in an age where the prevailing technological paradigm is such that it confers inevitable advantages on the athletes, teams and sports that embrace it? Alternatively stated, is sport now more about technological advantage rather than fair and open competition, and is there anything we can (or would want to) do about it?

Secondly, the nature of the following article from Time magazine, in my mind at least, invites a comparison with sport in the downturn:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1913926,00.html/

Consider the following extract: "VW is benefiting from its traditional strengths — and even some of its weaknesses. The German firm has a strong position in Latin America, where it is the leading car maker, and in China, where it is ahead of the pack despite intense pressure from GM [and also in Europe]. Interestingly, the German car maker's weak position in the U.S. market, the world's largest, has turned out to be a blessing in disguise during this crisis." On this basis could football be the VW of the sporting world? If the comparison is a reasonable one, what could sport learn from taking a closer look at the downturn in the motor industry?

Cristiano Ronaldo, Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite and the post-Keynesian economics of football

Ronaldo, Kaka and Keynes - a dream galacticos front line. The notion that this summer's transfer market has been blighted by a sporting equivalent of stagflation is addressed elsewhere in this blog. At the same time, Sepp Blatter has spoken of the need for regulation of the transfer market, while in yesterday's edition of The Guardian newspaper Matt Scott wrote about '[sport's] contribution to the Keynesian fight against recession.' All we need now is for Michel Platini to call for quantitative easing in football. Are any comparisons that one can draw between national and international economies, and the current state of the player transfer market, correct, appropriate and helpful? Can football learn anything from the way in which authorities across the world have dealt with the global economic crisis? In which case, is an interventionist approach similar to that advocated by John Maynard Keynes the best way to deal with the transfer market's problems? Or is a more laissez-faire, Friedmanite approach a better way of addressing football's difficulties? And what about quantitative easing - is an equivalent measure such a silly idea? Could a form of quantitative easing re-establish fairness, equity and balance in the transfer market? If so, who should do the easing and how should it be done?