Start-ups have become important catalysts of innovation in sport. Despite their organizational agility and experimental capacity, sport start-ups remain constrained by scarce resources, low legitimacy, and limited access to innovation infrastructures, making it essential to understand how they engage in collaboration with external actors. This study examines how sport start-ups experience collaborative opportunities and interactions with established actors in their ecosystem. Theoretically, we draw on the open innovation literature in combination with theories of organizational learning. Methodologically, the study is based on qualitative interviews conducted between May and August 2025 with 15 executives of sport start-ups in Italy. Data were analyzed thematically through a collective qualitative analysis strategy. The findings demonstrate that collaboration with external actors is both necessary and risky for sport start-ups. Furthermore, the study shows that Italian sport start-up executives continually navigate power asymmetries as well as bureaucratic and institutional complexities in their interactions with external actors within their ecosystem. Collaborations therefore appear ambivalent for sport start-ups. While they are crucial for access to resources, skills and legitimacy, they are also a source of vulnerability if the relationship with the external actor is unbalanced or slowed down by institutional logic that is incompatible with the rapid pace that characterizes start-ups. This study indicates that meaningful analyses of open innovation in sport must consider the institutional complexities and bureaucratic constraints shaped by national innovation systems and national sport models.
This study examines whether altitude differences between teams influence game outcomes in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football. Drawing on the literature on home advantage, team performance, and environmental effects in sport, we conceptualize altitude as a geographically determined and unevenly distributed component of home-field advantage. Using data from 14,874 games played between 2001 and 2023, we analyze how the altitude difference between home and away teams affects both win probabilities and point spreads. We estimate probit models for game outcomes and ordinary least squares (OLS) models for scoring margins, controlling for team quality, stadium capacity, and year-fixed effects. We find that home teams playing at higher altitudes than their opponents' native location have a statistically significant advantage. Specifically, teams with a positive altitude spread exhibit a 3.69% higher probability of winning, as well as an average 1.5 to 3.0 point spread advantage. This advantage is particularly pronounced when the altitude difference is extreme. These findings highlight the role of environmental conditions in shaping competitive outcomes in sport. The results have implications for scheduling, travel planning, acclimatization strategies, and competitive balance, while contributing to a growing literature examining how the natural environment influences performance in sport.
National sport organisations (NSOs) play a critical strategic and regulatory role in the Australian sport system. Despite this, there is limited system level evidence on how their strategic priorities, and the institutional logics and complexity those priorities reflect, have evolved over time. The purpose of this study is to examine their evolution across three decades. The analysis draws on a dataset of 281 strategic plans from 83 Australian NSOs spanning 1998-2025 and applies topic modelling, a machine-learning technique for text analysis. Results show that NSOs have pursued 17 distinct strategic priority areas, with Elite Performance & Pathways the most dominant (9.0% overall share of strategic priority content), followed by Participation & Memberships (8.6%) and Policy & Governance (8.4%). The areas experiencing the greatest decline are Federation Administration and Competition Delivery. Conversely, Collaborative Governance and Community & Inclusion register the steepest gains and are now among the most prominent priorities. Strategic priorities were subsequently mapped to four institutional logics (Performance, Commercial, Social, and Professional) for longitudinal analysis. Analysis of these logics shows that their relative prevalence is highly dynamic, with recent convergence bringing the four logics into closer balance, thus indicating increased institutional complexity. Theoretically, this study advances understanding of institutional complexity in sport by providing field-level evidence of a shift from restrained to volatile complexity. Practically, the study provides sport executives and policymakers with system level benchmarks, highlights the governance risks inherent to an increasingly complex strategic environment, and illuminates how Australian NSOs are keeping pace with shifting societal expectations.
This integrative literature review (IRL) aims to analyze existing research, which critically assesses manifestations of toxicity in the esports environment (i.e. griefing, trash talking, racism, and others). Following the five-step integrative review process and employing the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methods (TCCM) framework, a systematic search across academic databases identified 46 relevant documents. The review maps the theoretical, contextual, and methodological foundations of existing research on esports toxicity. The findings reveal that research on toxic behaviors in esports remains conceptually fragmented and methodologically emergent. Qualitative approaches dominate the field, particularly interviews and ethnographic studies, while quantitative and mixed-method designs remain comparatively limited. A total of 39 theoretical lenses were identified across the dataset, but one third of the studies lacked explicit theoretical grounding, highlighting the absence of a unified framework to conceptualize toxic behaviors in esports. A strong focus on a limited set of commonly observed behaviors (e.g. flaming, trolling, sexism) evident, while interactions between behaviors and broader governance dynamics remain underexplored. This critical review offers theoretical insights, highlighting the online disinhibition effect and practice theory to conceptualize toxic behaviors and their toxicity spectrum. It also introduces the HESS framework (i.e. human disposition, environmental dynamics, social exchanges, structural governance) as a comprehensive model to guide future research. Practical implications include the importance of targeted governance mechanisms, community-led interventions, and platform-level moderation strategies to mitigate toxicity and support healthier esports ecosystems.
Despite significant growth in women's sport participation in Australia, commensurate gains have not been made in executive leadership or elite coaching roles. Despite targeted gender equity efforts, men continue to dominate these roles. The purpose of this study is to understand how gender equity plans and targets can become performative in ways that undermine the realization of the goals articulated in those plans. Drawing on a reflexive thematic analysis of qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted in 2024-2025 (N = 39), these findings illuminate empirical insights into performative regulatory behavior. They highlight forms of regulatory ritualism, a concept that governance scholars use to explain actions that have the appearance of compliance yet fail to deliver meaningfully on regulatory aims. Specifically, gender equity plans represent documentation ritualism while gender rules and targets for women in leadership exemplify rule ritualism. These ritualistic behaviors convey organizations' stated objectives of gender equity without specific actions or mechanisms to evaluate and promote targeted outcomes, thus hindering efforts to achieve greater gender diversity. Guided by theoretical insights on gendered organizations and regulatory governance, our analysis highlights how ritualism not only fails to counteract entrenched gendered hierarchies but also facilitates forms of resistance to organizational change. After reflecting on the dynamics captured in the study, we outline how sport organizations can begin to identify and assess whether and how they are engaging in forms of regulatory ritualism. We conclude by discussing the value of insights from regulatory governance for studies of sport organizations and their management.
The purpose of this study was to explore how (or if) sport-based youth development nonprofit organizations currently prioritize strategic marketing. These organizations are committed to delivering sport in ways that align with positive youth development principles, yet there is limited research on how this distinction is communicated to key stakeholders. Strategic marketing is a potentially viable tool for nonprofit organizations to differentiate themselves from traditional youth sport providers, yet there remains limited research to guide strategy and implementation. Drawing on Andreasen's framework for nonprofit marketing, we utilized semi-structured interviews with 19 senior-level executive leaders of sport-based youth development organizations in the United States to examine how (or if) the internal administration of these organizations supported nonprofit strategic marketing. A theoretical thematic analysis was utilized to explore three components related to the internal administration of nonprofit strategic marketing: inputs, strategy creation, and internal outputs. Results indicate that smaller organizations often have limited resources, and larger organizations are reluctant to internalize key inputs for strategic marketing. Most leaders also viewed strategic marketing as a peripheral function compared to service-oriented tasks and noted difficulties developing a cohesive brand identity that could be communicated to target audiences. Social media was described as a key tool, yet "keeping up" with posting obfuscated attempts at developing a longer-term strategy. Findings inform a discussion of theoretical and practical implications, including prioritizing resources to support strategic marketing, simplifying messaging, and clarifying the broader field so that organizations can operate within a more defined brand architecture.
Social network theory posits that an individual's position within a network both constrains and provides opportunities for career advancement. The purpose of this research is to examine how chief executive officers (CEOs) in Australian sport organisations perceive the importance of social networks in their selection and career progression and to analyse differences in network characteristics by gender and organisational context. During 2021-22, data were collected through semi-structured interviews and ego-network surveys with 13 Australian National Sport Organisation CEOs (9 men, 4 women). Qualitative interviews were analysed thematically, whilst quantitative network data was interrogated through social network analysis. The findings demonstrate that CEOs perceive their networks to be of value in the selection process while also aiding performance once in their role. While 85% of CEO network ties serve strategic functions (task advice, buy-in, strategic information), there are significant quantifiable differences in individual networks by gender, insider/outsider status, and organisation type. Men CEOs maintain larger networks (average 50 alters) than women CEOs (average 43 alters), while professional sport CEOs have substantially larger networks (average 68 alters) than Olympic sport CEOs (average 39 alters). However, women CEOs cultivate nearly three times more of the strongest-tier type of relationships than men CEOs. Network composition also differs markedly between men and women. This study demonstrated a connection between social networks and executive leadership career progression in sport management. Furthermore, this research makes a novel contribution by analysing personal networks data provided directly from CEOs.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of coaches and administrators, as critical internal agents of change in high performance (HP) sport, regarding the features and challenges of moving from unsafe to safer sport in that context. Semi-structured interviews were completed in 2023 with 27 coaches and administrators of HP sport in Canada. These stakeholders characterized unsafe HP sport by a win at all costs focus, a coach-centered system where inappropriate behavior is tolerated and even rewarded, and an ineffective reporting process. These conditions are exacerbated by a perceived lack of accountability and ambiguity around reporting. Safe sport, in contrast, was characterized by open communication, mandatory and discretionary safe sport training, formalized processes, and third party/independent mechanisms. Importantly, the coaches and administrators, as agents of called-for change, described challenges that must be navigated to achieve safer sport, including the inherent risks of HP sport, different interpretations of what is un/safe, jurisdictional variations and limited capacity, in an environment characterized by resistance to change.
Sport organizations increasingly seek to integrate cause-related marketing (CrM) into their core revenue models, yet little is known about how mandatory CrM-linked fees embedded in prices influence consumer responses. Drawing on utility theory and partitioned pricing literature, we examine whether consumers derive positive marginal utility from compulsory CrM fees and how price presentation shapes perceptions and purchase intentions of spectator sport tickets. Across four experiments conducted in the United States, we test CrM-linked ticket pricing in professional sport settings. The empirical contexts include National Football League franchises, with CrM initiatives tied to both business-process causes and philanthropic causes. Data collections occurred between 2015 and 2018 and samples consist of potential sport consumers (total N approximate to 1,700 across studies). Using between-subjects experimental designs, we manipulate price presentation (all-inclusive vs. partitioned vs. hybrid pricing), CrM fee magnitude, cause type, and organization - cause familiarity. MANCOVA was used to assess differences in purchase intentions, perceived value, and price fairness, while controlling for age, education, income, and brand ID. Results show consumers prefer higher-priced offers that include a modest, clearly articulated CrM fee over lower-priced offers without such fees. These effects hold even when organization-cause familiarity is low and across different cause types. Theoretically, we extend utility theory and partitioned pricing literature by demonstrating positive marginal utility from ethical fee components in sport contexts. Moreover, we reconcile mixed findings on cause-brand fit by showing strong fan identification can offset low cause familiarity. These insights contribute to cause-related sport management literature and offer practical guidance for sport organizations.
This study examines how women college athletes understand their pregnancy-related rights and protections and how institutional communication - or its absence - shapes reproductive autonomy within college sport. Guided by a reproductive justice framework, it conceptualizes pregnancy as a site of reproductive governance shaped by institutional policies, norms, and silences within performance-oriented sport organizations. The analysis draws on semi-structured interviews with 25 women college athletes from various NCAA Division I institutions in the United States, conducted between September 2023 and July 2024 in the post-Dobbs legal context, and uses reflexive thematic analysis to examine athletes' knowledge of Title IX and NCAA pregnancy protections. Five interrelated themes were identified: institutional silence and non-communication regarding pregnancy rights; the consequences of institutional silence for athletes including fear, stigma, and uncertainty surrounding scholarship security and athletic eligibility; the prioritization of performance over athlete well-being; structural sexism reflected in male-dominated leadership and the privileging of men's revenue sports; and athletes' calls for reproductive health literacy and standardized education. The findings illustrate how institutional silence functions as a form of reproductive governance that constrains women college athletes' reproductive autonomy.
Season ticket holder (STH) churn presents a persistent challenge for professional sport organisations. Although machine learning offers considerable potential, prior studies typically rely on cross-sectional datasets or aggregate-level features, limiting their predictive utility. Drawing on customer lifetime value (CLV) theory, this study aims to: develop and evaluate churn-prediction models integrating longitudinal individual-level data, compare the performance and feature importance of multiple machine learning algorithms, and examine how disruptive events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, influence model performance. Individual-level data were sourced from a single professional sport team in Australia across six seasons (2018-2023), encompassing 118,469 STH decisions. Six machine learning algorithms were compared to assess differences in predictive performance and feature importance across varying temporal windows. Findings indicate that models trained on shorter, two-season longitudinal datasets organised around the disruption, substantially outperformed the full six-season model. The strongest results were achieved using boosted tree algorithms, with CatBoost producing the highest accuracy (0.821 +/- 0.002) and AUC-ROC (0.901 +/- 0.002) in the post-COVID period. Feature importance analyses revealed a stable set of core predictors of churn (i.e. tenure, driving distance, and late-season attendance) with boosted models showing high internal consistency. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the findings are consistent with customer lifetime value frameworks but show that the behavioural signals underpinning retention shift following disruption. Practically, the results demonstrate that sport organisations can build effective churn models using relatively short longitudinal datasets to support targeted, data-driven retention strategies.
Organizational capacity is a concept frequently emphasized by funders, resource providers and practitioners alike, however, theoretical advancements in capacity and its relationship with organizational performance remain scarce in nonprofit contexts, including sport organizations. We examine the relationships between organizational capacity, social innovation and perceived organizational performance in the context of sport for development and peace (SDP) nonprofits. Specifically, we analyze cross-sectional survey data collected during 2019 from a global sample of 161 organizations. Organizational capacity was measured through a set of behavioral-anchored rating scales across five capacity dimensions. Social innovation was measured across three dimensions using a scale designed for direct human service nonprofits, and perceived organizational performance was measured through an established scale designed for nonprofits. Structural equation modeling provides empirical support for our theorized model regarding nonprofits' capacity-innovation-performance triad. A key contribution of this study is the importance of organizational capacity for nonprofit performance and the positive mediating role of social innovation. Control variables played a minimal role in the full model apart from organizations located in Africa. Our research contributes to theory by advancing social innovation can serve as a critical process for amplifying the relationship between existing capacities and performance. Broadly speaking, our study highlights the importance of organizational capacity for any SDP leader interested in developing innovative and high performing nonprofits. Our results warrant a shift in mindset toward strategically viewing innovation as a vital organizational ability for achieving desired outcomes by translating existing capacities into organizational performance.
This paper investigates the experiences of Australian Football League Women's (AFLW) footballers with club-led digital performance monitoring, such as GPS tracking and holistic wellness surveys. Guided by feminist new materialism, underpinned with affect theory, we analyse how human and non-human elements - athletes, devices, data infrastructures, and organisational norms - co-produce embodied and affective responses to monitoring. We conducted a qualitative digital ethnography with eight AFLW footballers and four fitness staff members across six clubs. The footballers' (8) data were collected through interviews, reflexive surveys, and video re-enactments, alongside interviews with club fitness staff (4) for context. Data collection occurred between October 2021 and April 2022. We analysed these data through a feminist new materialist lens, finding that performance monitoring was a contested practice for the footballers. Consequently, the footballers perceived performance monitoring to be an expected feature of elite sport, yet reported demotivation, anxiety, and body image concerns, heightened by team-wide data sharing, limited contextualisation of metrics, and gaps in organisational support. These affective responses were shaped by the semi-professional conditions that restricted time, resources, education, and communication around monitoring. To address these issues, we propose an organisational, player centred framework - emphasising communication, understanding, consistency, proportionality, transparency, and wearability - to guide athlete focused monitoring within emerging women's elite sport settings. By integrating feminist new materialism and affect theory with our digital ethnography, our study advances theoretical and methodological directions in sport management and offers actionable guidance for the management of digital performance monitoring of women athletes.
Guided by scholarship on fandom, gendered leisure, and sports gambling, this study examines a woman's novice experience with legalized sports betting in North America. Employing an analytic autoethnography, the study documents the lead author's first-time engagement with sports betting during the 2024-2025 National Football League season and playoffs. Data were collected through structured, reflexive journaling across weekly wagers placed on two major online sportsbooks, and an iterative coding analysis led to five interrelated themes: (1) emotional volatility across wins, losses, and near-misses; (2) platform design as both an enabler and barrier to participation; (3) shifting social dynamics and inclusion within a male-dominated betting culture; (4) a learning trajectory from hesitant newcomer to confident participant; and (5) financial decision-making as an ongoing negotiation of risk, responsibility, and confidence. Findings demonstrate that while novice sports betting exposes women to emotional strain and escalating risk, it can also function as a mechanism for legitimacy and inclusion within contemporary sport fandom. The study extends gendered understandings of sports betting beyond male-centric narratives and offers empirical insight into how novice bettors navigate sports betting. Practically, the findings suggest that sportsbooks should implement novice-oriented onboarding programs that combine betting education with emotional regulation and financial risk-management tools to reduce harm while fostering sustainable engagement.
Research has demonstrated that integrated women's football teams which exist within pre-established team brand architecture create associations with the men's team in the same club. Emerging evidence also supports that fans of women's football hold unique brand associations with the women's team in comparison to men's football. The decision-making process informing the degree of differentiation within integrated club brand architecture has not been studied. This is an important gap given the centrality of marketing and sponsorship to team revenue. Through a qualitative study of the English Women's Super League (WSL) undertaken between 2022 and 2023, this research aimed to explore the brand architecture decisions made by integrated women's football clubs and adopted brand extension theory. Based on analysis of 20 interviews with industry stakeholders from the WSL, which examined how and why integrated club brand architecture influences WSL team sub-brand decisions, two key dimensions were created. First, the decision to strategically align with the master brand (i.e. recognition) is motivated by helping fans and sponsors associate the women's club with professional sport and club heritage. Second, the decision to promote novel associations (i.e. differentiation) to access new fan segments and commercial opportunities. Practically, our findings contribute to the commercialisation of women's football through an enhanced understanding of branding complexities and strategy. Theoretically, we further develop the factors that influence the tensions within pre-established team brand architecture.
An important gap in corporate social responsibility (CSR) research and practice in sport and beyond stems from a lack of measurement and evaluation. Without clear metrics, CSR initiatives often remain ad hoc, detached from an organization's core business objectives, and with undervalued social contribution, undermining both the legitimacy and potential impact of CSR. Measuring and transparently reporting corporate social performance (CSP) and its societal impact can drive a shift towards more strategic and accountable approaches to CSR in sport. This research is grounded in Wood's (1991) CSP model, which conceptualizes CSP in terms of principles, processes, and outcomes. Building on this foundation, the present study applied an explanatory sequential mixed-method design between 2021 and 2023. The research engaged CSR experts from 13 countries across three continents through two phases, with first, a four-round Delphi study with 51 experts, followed by four focus groups involving 31 experts. The Delphi process confirmed nine pillars and validated 10 external and 53 internal indicators deemed accurate for measuring CSP in professional sport contexts. Consequently, the focus groups operationalized the external indicators into a scoring framework with three levels of development: below average, average, and gold standard. These findings advance our understanding of CSP measurement in sport. The study offers sport managers the contours of a framework to measure their CSR performance, enhance transparency, and demonstrate the impact of their social programs. Future research should extend this work by developing standards for the internal indicators and by testing the framework in diverse contexts.
The purpose of this study is to examine the interrelationships between group norms related to sport fandom, team identification, and fans' physical health orientations. We conceptualize physical health orientations as an aggregate construct comprising health consciousness, health behavior, and self-rated physical health. Drawing on the social identity approach to health and well-being, this study highlights how two types of group norms related to fandom - shared drinking norms and health norms within fanbases - are associated with such orientations and how team identification moderates these associations. To this end, we surveyed frequent sport consumers (n = 1,471) from the United States and United Kingdom, and analyzed data via structural equation modeling. The results showed fanbase drinking norms were negatively related to fanbase health norms, which were in turn positively associated with fans' health consciousness and health behavior. Although fanbase health norms were not directly related to fans' self-rated physical health, team identification strengthened their positive association with self-rated physical health, as well as with health consciousness. The present study's findings advance theoretical understanding of the mechanisms through which group norms and team identification are linked with fans' physical health orientations. Additionally, we outline actionable strategies for sport managers - such as health-oriented branding and fan experiences that encourage healthier consumption and movement - to foster health-positive outcomes among fans.
The construction of safe space in the design of sport organizations and sport for development and peace (SDP) programs has been empirically investigated. Constructing safe spaces is critical for enhancing feelings of safety for historically marginalized populations, yet there remain few studies that specifically focus on safe space and Black and People of Color communities. The purpose of this study is to examine the strategies used by staff members to construct The V3 Center as a safe space and the experiences of individuals within this safe space. The V3 Center is a new health, sport, and community center in North Minneapolis serving a predominantly Black community. Utilizing the multidimensional concept of safe space that includes physical, psychological, sociocultural, political, and experimental dimensions and a participatory action research (PAR) approach, this study illustrates what strategies staff of The V3 Center use to construct safe space and the experiences of safe space by users of the facility. Data collection with 22 individuals took place using semi-structured interviews and photovoice. The findings of this study, organized around the five dimensions of safe space, illustrate how risk-taking underpins the four other dimensions of safe space and how The V3 Center ultimately seeks to produce a space that challenges systemic inequalities experienced by North Minneapolis residents, particularly Black and People of Color populations. Theoretically, this study points to the importance of the interconnections of the dimensions of safe space and risk-taking through utilizing sports that are non-traditional in certain communities.
