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Case | HBS Case Collection | February 1999

Sports Agents: Is There a Firm Advantage?

by Stephen A. Greyser and Brian R. Harris

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Abstract

Focuses on the decision of a young tennis player on what kind of agent to have as his representative. The choice is between someone in a large sports management/marketing firm and an independent agent representing a small number of individual athletes. Outlines the roles and duties of agents and sports management firms.

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Management; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Structure;

Format: Print 7 pages EducatorsPurchase

Citation:

Greyser, Stephen A., and Brian R. Harris. "Sports Agents: Is There a Firm Advantage?" Harvard Business School Case 599-038, February 1999.

About the Author

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Stephen A. Greyser
Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

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More from the Author

  • Chapter | The New Era of the CCO | 2018

    The Trust Imperative

    Richard Edelman, Stephen A. Greyser, E. Bruce Harrison and Tom Martin

    CHAPTER SUMMARY: Successful relationships depend on trust—trust between spouses, trust between parent and child, trust between enterprises and their stakeholders. This chapter focuses on the factors that build trust in organizations, as well as the forces that can diminish or destroy it and the role of enterprise communication in managing these forces. The chapter includes a discussion of the most relevant findings from the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, a bellwether of measuring trust and relationships between a company and its stakeholders. This is explored in detail through a case where General Motors dealt with a serious recall crisis translated these concepts into the reality of managing a global enterprise in a trustworthy manner.

    BOOK ABSTRACT: The role of the chief communication officer (CCO) in today's enterprise has dramatically changed over the past 30 years. Once focused on getting news out to media outlets, today's CCO has become an integral part of any enterprise-company, corporation, governmental, and nongovernmental entity. Today's CCO is responsible for internal and external communication; with creating and implementing communication strategies that help mold enterprise mission, vision, value, and character; and with building enterprise reputation through stakeholder engagement. As a part of the "C-Suite," the CCO must understand not only the psychology and sociology of the business, but also the role that she has in informing the C-Suite and the CEO what internal and external stakeholders are thinking and how this may affect corporate image in terms of credibility, confidence, trust, relationship, and reputation. In short, the new CCO must understand both the science and the art of communication and apply that knowledge to advancing her enterprise's goals and objectives through a faster and ever-larger-reaching set of media.

    Keywords: Trust; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Communication;

    Citation:

    Edelman, Richard, Stephen A. Greyser, E. Bruce Harrison, and Tom Martin. "The Trust Imperative." Chap. 3 in The New Era of the CCO: The Essential Role of Communication in a Volatile World, edited by Roger Bolton, Don W. Stacks, and Eliot Mizrachi. New York: Business Expert Press, 2018.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at HarvardPurchase Related
  • Article | Journal of Business and Policy Research | December 2016

    Corporate Sponsorship in Culture—A Case of Collaborative Marketing by a Global Bank and a Major Art Museum

    Ragnar Lund and Stephen A. Greyser

    This paper examines cultural sponsorship from a partnership perspective. It studies the collaboration between two international institutions, a bank and a museum, and their value co-creation with customers and audiences. This in-depth case study of a sponsorship collaboration between a global financial institution (UBS) and a multi-site museum (Guggenheim) evaluates critical aspects of resource integration between the partners with implications for the theory and practice of service innovation. For the bank, the partnership with a major art institution gives access to cultural, symbolic, and social resources that can add value to and differentiate its services. For the museum, the partnership supports its international expansion in terms of audiences and acquisitions of art from regions of the world previously underrepresented in its collection. The partnership also helps to expand the network of museum partners and potential donors. The study contributes to the understanding of co-marketing partnerships between commercial actors and arts organizations and explores critical elements of resource integration in terms of complementary resource mobilization and internal integration.

    Keywords: sponsorship; co-marketing; partnerships; international marketing; arts marketing; relationship marketing; financial institutions; museums; resource integration; Marketing; Partners and Partnerships; Financial Institutions; Arts;

    Citation:

    Lund, Ragnar, and Stephen A. Greyser. "Corporate Sponsorship in Culture—A Case of Collaborative Marketing by a Global Bank and a Major Art Museum." Journal of Business and Policy Research 11, no. 2 (December 2016): 156–177.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsPurchase Related
  • Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2016

    More Effective Sports Sponsorship—Combining and Integrating Key Resources and Capabilities of International Sports Events and Their Major Sponsors

    Ragnar Lund and Stephen A. Greyser

    Organizations in the field of sports are becoming increasingly dependent on sponsors for their value creation and growth. Studies suggest that sports organizations (rights-holders) often fail to exploit the full potential of such sponsorship partnerships. The aim of the case study reported here is to explore key dimensions of value creation in sponsorship relationships from the perspective of a sports organization. The case study was constructed on the basis of interviews with an organization in the administrative structure of European football, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and its major international sports event, the European Championships (EURO). Interviews were also conducted with two of its sponsors and five independent experts. The interviews were conducted beginning in 2003, over the four EURO project life cycles starting in 2000, with a primary focus on the tournaments taking place in 2016. We explore different types of sponsorship relationships based on their direct and indirect value creation function for the sports organization and propose key capabilities that are required for the sports organization to successfully integrate, coordinate, and combine resources with its major sponsors. Key capabilities that are explored in this context are collaborative, absorptive, adaptive, and learning capabilities. The ability of sport organizations to share and absorb knowledge from their partners and to integrate this knowledge into their planning and management processes was critical. The study shows how knowledge-sharing routines supported resource integration between sponsorship partners. There are few in-depth case studies on sponsorship management from the perspective of sports entities.

    Keywords: sponsorship; "sports organizations,; case study; Europe; business relationships; collaborative marketing; value co-creation; relationship portfolio management; Value Creation; Cases; Marketing; Sports; Sports Industry; Europe;

    Citation:

    Lund, Ragnar, and Stephen A. Greyser. "More Effective Sports Sponsorship—Combining and Integrating Key Resources and Capabilities of International Sports Events and Their Major Sponsors." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-139, June 2016.  View Details
    CiteView Details Read Now Related
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