Daniel S. Mason

Recent decades saw the emergence of a wide range of new sports. Some sports achieved remarkable popularity and entered the mainstream sport landscape. A prominent example is Mixed Martial Arts (MMA...

Research on optimal distinctiveness is situated at the intersection of institutional theory and strategic management. Using Mixed Martial Arts as an explanatory case study, we examine its evolution as a distinct market category of combat sport within the broader institutions of sport and society. We identify three intercategorical positioning benchmarks that serve as evaluative criteria for assessing optimal distinctiveness—broader societal values, values of umbrella categories, and norms of horizontal peer categories. Drawing on these benchmarks, we propose a layered strategic framework that comprises three foundational positioning strategies—excessive differentiation, moderate differentiation, and over conformity. These foundational strategies are configured and enhanced through two overarching configural strategies; moderating integration involves complementary coupling and multilevel positioning, while contextual adaptation encompasses strategic categorization and intertemporal positioning. Our findings challenge traditional conceptualizations of optimal distinctiveness by illustrating how new sports rely on dynamic, context-dependent strategies to establish legitimacy and ensure category viability.

Environmental sustainability (ES) has increasingly become a core focus of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to institutional pressures as well as the threat of climate change. Since the IOC continues to urge candidature cities to underscore ES in the bidding and planning process by asking more elaborate questions in the Candidature Questionnaire, it remains unclear how winning cities have adapted their bids to demonstrate their accountability to win the rights to host an ES Games. One approach to better understanding the discourse candidature cities use in their ES plans is to study how bid committees employ Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals—ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). To do so, this qualitative case study analyzed winning candidature files of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games (N = 16) from 1992 to present day. The results revealed one distinct rhetorical appeal, ethos, emerged more than the others that underscored the value of highlighting credibility in ES contexts. One of the most interesting findings of the study is that ethos-based arguments depend greatly on existing governance infrastructures, policies, certifications, and previous experience, external to the IOC governance process. This is a significant finding because it shows the paradox of embedded agency, while also highlighting how establishing credibility is more important to cities than merely promising results.

This address explores how we can find theory in new spaces and apply it to our own, unique sporting contexts. It first examines how urban regime theory can inform research on the governance of intercollegiate athletics, then discusses how and why some theories in sport management emerge and are adopted while others are not. Borrowing from Winston’s model of technological diffusion, supervening necessities are what allow some prototypes to transform into inventions; in the social sphere of sport management, they are the drivers of new concepts that are adopted and employed as theories in the field. However, Winston notes that within the social sphere are brakes that serve to slow their emergence. In turn, theories develop in sport management under similar conflicting pressures. It is these contrary forces that slow the diffusion of new ideas in the sport management field.

Stadium- and arena-anchored development projects continue to be significant instruments in urban redevelopment. Attention during these projects is typically focused on the construction of the new facility, with less emphasis placed on the facilities left behind, which is defined in this chapter as shadow stadia. Shadow stadia are vacated sites once occupied by major professional or amateur sports venues, where redevelopment of new stadia on that site has been deemed untenable. Some shadow stadia sites are repurposed for mixed-use development, while others are demolished or remain abandoned for years after facility use ceases. The environmental impacts of shadow stadia sites are not fully understood, as limited research exists on the impacts on neighborhoods immediately adjacent to pre-existing venues or the environmental impacts related to the loss of the venue and its events. This chapter defines and categorizes shadow stadia globally, then explores and considers conceptualizations of environmental justice via historical North American cases of shadow stadia. From these cases and in drawing from relevant literature, recommendations for environmental impacts of shadow stadia and arena-anchored urban development projects will be presented for local governments, the development industry, policymakers, community advocates, and academics alike.

The application of branding techniques has emerged as a strategy to identify, position, and differentiate destinations. Brand extensions primarily focus on leveraging a single common brand, which avoids the need for customers to be familiar with another partnered brand. One way DMOs and destination marketers use brand extensions is through the use of sport events. This study used the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, AZ (PMA) as a research site to investigate the process of destination branding by examining sport events as destination brand extensions. A qualitative case study approach was employed, with interviews with key stakeholders. Results suggest that the PMA’s overall destination brand relates to the outdoors, with four individual brand extensions identified: (a) weather; (b) resorts; (c) recreation and leisure activities; and (d) sport/sport events. Major professional sports team events did not fit as congruently as other types of events when serving as destination brand extensions, relative to the Valley’s outdoor parent brand. Results are discussed in terms of sport events’ role as part of greater destination brand range, relationship to other destination brand extensions, and using sport event brand extensions to enrich the destination brand. This study revealed that sport events in the PMA do serve as a prominent asset and selling point that influences the PMA’s overall destination brand. However, sport events are not seen as the area’s primary destination branding strategy, and local DMOs and tourism stakeholders in the PMA must create and maintain a broader and more comprehensive destination brand that showcases other notable attractions.

The professional sport industry achieved tremendous success in the traditional broadcast media age, established a multi-sided market and an effective business model for revenue growth. However, the emergence and proliferation of the new media technologies have drastically changed the media landscape, creating a much more complicated cross-media environment that unites popularity and personalization, structure and agency. Such a changing environment creates transformations within the professional sport industry, and adapting to these transformations will lead to the evolution of the professional sport industry and its success in the digital media age.