Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Assessing Sports Business Opportunities

Trying to understand the concept of a generic sports business opportunity through a traditional PEST business analysis raises inherent problems.  Much of the success of any particular sports business is dependent upon decidedly local and specific factors.  Without specificity as a filter, it becomes difficult to illustrate the PEST concept for the factors which affect sports businesses in any kind of consistent presentation.

What we can do is assess the factors involved in a PEST analysis more broadly.  For example, any sports business has to consider political factors.  Those factors can include issues such as tax referendums for stadium issues, watchdog groups that have anti-sports biases, or feuding politicians who may agree or disagree about the merits of an issue but more importantly let their disputes prevent compromise or clear decisions.  There probably isn't one great gold standard source that we can identify which would serve as a guide, because as the saying goes, politics is local, and sports politics even more so.  The sources that would support this theory are local as well.

Economic factors in the marketplace aren't always as strong a predictor for the success of a franchise as are how well the organization is run and whether or not it succeeds in its field of play.  Plenty of franchises have started well with glitzy roll outs in dicey economic times, only to fold or move because their fan base wouldn't support a losing team.  Other franchises have continued to persevere to record levels even in the most affected cities of one of the worst recessions in recent history.  Indeed, it's hard to see how a franchise can win Stanley Cup championships and sell out a 19,000 seat hockey arena when so much of the city looks like this:


But Detroit has done it, so any source taking a wide look at economic factors would suggest that a franchise would have a difficult time in Detroit, but the Red Wings have proved to be a local exception.

Generic socio-cultural factors are probably a little more easy to assess on a broad basis.  We can probably speculate that a hockey team, for example, is going to have a harder time in a region where a franchise in the sport has failed previously, regardless of the cause.  Even when franchises have been well-run and invested in growing the sport at the youth level in an attempt to create an organic fan base, that fan base has not always responded at the primary level of business.  We can also determine whether cities and markets have failed to enthusiastically support franchises even when the franchises win or have historic ties.  But these factors are still local rather than global, and thus the sourcing for these factors is local as well.

When it comes to technology in sports, there are all kinds of sources that can review different offerings such as advancements for distribution channels for sports, investments in venues or devices that can be used to enhance the in-stadium experience.  But ultimately the operators of any individual franchise have to understand how the devices work for their particular organization.  Though there is a standard of best practices in the industry, not all practices work equally in every sport or for every team.

So in the end, the point here is that there are plenty of sources that can help people looking to create an opportunity in sports understand the qualities, possibilities and limitations of that opportunity, but there aren't many one-stop shops, and there certainly aren't any one-stop applications of the counsel.  Ultimately, to do a proper PEST analysis for a sports-based project, those in charge of the project are going to have to understand a lot about themselves and what they offer first.

Photo Reference:
Marchand, Y., & Meffre, R. (2011). The ruins of detroit. London: Steidl Publishing.



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