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Team Success Starts with the Individual—and with Love

Many leaders see teams as collective units, but helping individual members reach their potential—personally and professionally—can open new opportunities. Ranjay Gulati looks at the philosophy of famed football coach Pete Carroll. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

What Actually Draws Sports Fans to Games? It's Not Star Athletes.

Team owners think they need marquee names or slick stadiums to prosper, but research by Karim Lakhani and Patrick Ferguson suggests that fans want something far simpler: suspense. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Mixing Sports and Money: Adidas and the Commercialization of the Olympics

Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of Adidas, cultivated relationships with athletes and national associations—with the aim of expanding his family’s sports apparel business. In doing so, he created the first sports sponsorships for the Olympics, and ultimately became a key force behind the commercialization of sports today. Professor Geoffrey Jones explores the pros and cons of the globalization and commercialization of sport in his case, spanning from the 1930s to the 1970s, “Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Consuming Contests: Outcome Uncertainty and Spectator Demand for Contest-based Entertainment

Analysis of Australian Football League data shows that the uncertainty of game outcomes has a large, positive causal effect on stadium attendance. These findings show how competitive balance is important for contest designers in general and sports leagues in particular.

Lessons from the NFL: Virtual Hiring, Leadership, Building Teams and COVID-19

The National Football League player draft this year is challenging for the league, players, fans and, in particular, talent evaluators, reports Boris Groysberg and colleagues. What can business learn? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

NFL Head Coaches Are Getting Younger. What Can Organizations Learn?

Football team owners are hiring younger head coaches, hoping to unleash innovation and fresh thinking. How's that working out? Research by Boris Groysberg and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Sports: Lessons for Managers

When people look to illustrate a great business idea or accomplishment, a sports metaphor usually isn't far away. Why Harvard Business School researchers look for teaching gold on the playing fields of the world. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

More Effective Sports Sponsorship—Combining and Integrating Key Resources and Capabilities of International Sports Events and Their Major Sponsors

This field-based study of the Union of European Football Associations and its main international sporting event, the European Championships, explores key organizational capabilities that underlie value creation and enhancement in an event’s portfolio of sponsorship relationships. Developing and employing these capabilities--collaborative, absorptive, adaptive, and learning--have positive results for the event as well as for its sponsors. When effectively undertaken and coordinated, the activities can lead to ongoing renewals of the sponsorship program and open the door for new sponsors. The study’s perspective is that of the event, unusual in research on sponsorship.