ABSTRACT
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an area of increasing importance for many corporations. Organizations in the sport industry, also, are increasingly engaging in socially responsible activities. Along with its increased diffusion, CSR has received growing attention in the academic literature (Babiak and Wolfe, 2009). Our objective in this chapter is to provide a broad overview of CSR in sport. To do so, we: (1) provide an overview of the CSR and CSR in sport constructs; (2) present conceptual rationale for the adoption of CSR initiatives; and (3) describe the essential types of CSR in sport initiatives, which we refer to as CSR in sport pillars. Our focus in the chapter is on professional sport in North America. While we focus on keeping the “territory” covered somewhat manageable, as we will address in the chapter’s final section, the manner in which we frame CSR in sport is also generalizable geographically, and to other types of sports organizations (e.g., major events; sports federations; intercollegiate sport).
