When Sport Meets Business: Capabilities, Challenges, Critiques

Written by European professors and focusing on the specificities of European sport, When Sport Meets Business analyses the growing commercialisation of professional sport in recent years and explains how it has developed into a major global industry.

Structured into four sections, the book covers the key issues in the Business of professional sport:

The New Sport Environment – Analysing the consequences of increasing commercialisation by looking at the multi-billion dollar sports goods industry; the effects of globalisation and how commercial influences have made running one of Europe’s most popular sports.

Sport Marketing and Media – Investigating the role media and marketing has in commercialisation, with emphasis on the growth of sponsorship; media rights in European club football and the growing influence of social media in sport.

Sport and Finance – Relating to the economics of European sport: there is an investigation into the financial policies employed by European Football clubs, specifically in regards to the Financial Fair Play regulations, and the topical issue of high level corruption.

Sporting Events – Looking at additional factors that affect professional sport: highlighting the impact an Olympic Games can have on a host city and the longevity of an Olympic urban legacy.

The authors have included insightful case studies from across the continent, including anti RB-Leipzig media campaigns in Germany, financial policies at England’s Chelsea FC, French Tennis Federation corporate responsibility, Media rights in Spain’s LaLiga, the sponsorship viability for Ukraine’s Klitschko brothers and the case of Denmark’s Viborg F.F.

Suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students in sport related courses, including sport management, sport economics, sport marketing and the sociology of sport.

Ulrik Wagner, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark where he is also coordinating the BA program in Sport and Event Management offered at the Slagelse Campus. Ulrik is affiliated with the research team Markets, Organization and Behaviour, and he is a member of the European Association for Sport Management (EASM).

He has been working with research on organizational changes related to international anti-doping efforts and sport scandals, and he is currently involved in several projects that focus on sponsorships from an organizational sociology and critical management perspective. His work has been published in journals like European Sport Management Quarterly, Sport Management Review, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, International Journal of Sport Communication and International Journal of Drug Policy.

Rasmus K. Storm (PhD) holds a position as head of research at the Danish Institute for Sports Studies. He has managed several research projects on Danish elite sport, edited and co-edited four  books on sport, and has published in a variety of international sport science and sport management  journals such as European Sport Management Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, and Soccer & Society. He is regularly interviewed in the Danish media, and gives a large number of public lectures. Furthermore, he writes regularly in Danish newspapers.

Klaus Nielsen is Professor of Institutional Economics at the Department of Management, Birkbeck, University of London where he is a member of Birkbeck Sport Business Centre. He teaches research methods, innovation, business in the European Union and economics of sport. His current research areas include varieties of capitalism, innovation, social capital, elite sports and the economics of sports.

He has coordinated several research project about Danish elite sports, sports participation and economic aspects of sport. His work has been published in several books and in journals like International Studies of Management and Organization, Journal of Economic Issues and European Sport Management Quarterly.