In July 2019, AFC Ajax’s chief executive officer Edwin van der Sar finalized one of the biggest transfers in soccer—that of Matthijs de Ligt, only 19 years old but already one of the sports world’s brightest stars, from AFC Ajax to Italian powerhouse Juventus FC for a €75 million fee. A few months earlier, Ajax had sold another young star, Frenkie de Jong, to Spanish champions FC Barcelona for a record €86 million. Once Europe’s most feared team, Ajax had lost its prominence to teams from Europe’s bigger leagues since the mid 1990s but gained a stellar reputation as a feeder of young talent to clubs in those leagues. Now, just as Ajax seemingly was making its way back to the highest echelons of European soccer—in the 2018-2019 season, Ajax managed to advance to the semifinal of the Champions League, Europe’s most elite club competition—the club would lose two players who played a crucial role in its comeback. Did van der Sar have the right strategy to find long-term success? Could Ajax continue to develop soccer’s next superstars—all while challenging Europe’s elite clubs?
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Case HBS Case Collection June 2020 Big Hit Entertainment and Blockbuster Band BTS: K-Pop Goes Global |
Abstract
Bang Si-Hyuk (‘Hitman Bang’) is the founder and co-chief executive officer of Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind BTS, a ‘K-pop’ band that has found unparalleled success around the globe—a remarkable feat given that most of their songs are in Korean. It is March 1, 2020. With its latest album, the band has now scored its fourth chart-topping album in the U.S. in less than two years. The band’s popularity has been extremely lucrative: by some estimates, the BTS ecosystem accounts for a staggering $4.9 billion of South Korea’s GDP. While K-pop has been dominated by three large companies—SM, YG, and JYP—since the mid 1990s, with BTS Bang arguably has created a K-pop phenomenon that is more global than any act the ‘big three’ have ever overseen. And whereas K-pop is traditionally associated with long-term, exclusive contracts between companies and their acts that pay the talent relatively modestly and give them little control, Bang seeks to foster a more balanced relationship with his superstar act. Is BTS well-positioned to sustain its success? Can Big Hit replicate that success with the select few other acts in its portfolio? And what does that say about the future of K-pop, and the manner in which music companies will manage the relationships with their talent?
Keywords: music; entertainment; media; superstars; Talent; talent development; contracts; labor economics; marketing; strategy; general management;
Citation:
Elberse, Anita, and Lizzy Woodham. "Big Hit Entertainment and Blockbuster Band BTS: K-Pop Goes Global." Harvard Business School Case 520-125, June 2020.
