ABSTRACT
Growing up in the Chicagoland area, I spent my childhood following the hapless Chicago Cubs. As I grew older, though, and began to focus on a career working in sport, I was struck by the fact that while fluctuations in the Cubs’ won-loss record had some impact on attendance at games, it was not as dramatic as one might expect. During my early career as both a master’s student and then working for an agency primarily conducting fan/audience research around sport events, I was struck by how professional teams and college athletic departments exclusively focused on winning as a driver of revenues. This seemed misguided and myopic – there had to be more to the financial success of a sport team or organisation than winning. Or, was the Cubs situation an anomaly? Given the entirely inconsistent outcomes in competition, even for the most revered franchises over time, there seemed to be a need for a new outlook or approach. To some degree, I left industry and entered a doctoral programme to develop a deeper understanding of the team sport environment, and more specifically what caused some sport organisations to be financially successful over time, even when performance was not at a championship calibre.
