So, some of you should know by now, I am majoring in Sport management. Therefore, three of my classes all revolve around sports. For the next couple of hours, I will be telling you some of the things that I learned in one of those classes...........

Roots of sport management structures...
•Club system
•Leagues
•Professional tournaments

THE CLUB SYSTEM
•England
–Birthplace of modern sport and sport management
•18th century.
–Development of sport clubs with limited membership.
•19th century
–Continued club evolution with standardizing of rules, settling disputes, and organizing.

•Races drew broad and diverse audience
–No admission charged
•Local club system initially
–Racing existed for entertainment only, not financial gain. prestige is more important.
•Rail system allowed horses to compete nationally.
•Desire of owners to breed and train fast horses and the increasing complexity of gambling lead to more complex club system.

The jockey Club
•Established around 1750
•Settled disputes, established rules, determined eligibility, designated officials, regulated breeding,
and punished unscrupulous participants
•Organized, sponsored, and promoted local events
•Met need for a strong national governing body to establish rules, standards, and a mechanism for resolving disputes.

The modern Olympic games
•International club event (little resemblance to ancient Olympic Games)
•First Modern Olympics in 1896.
•Founder Pierre de Couber'n, inspired by English revivals and Victorian notions of character building and peace movements through sport, introduced concept of amateur Olympic Games every four years.

Present day club structure
•Commitment to serve broad membership and manage elite sport enterprise
–No longer local, now international
•Clubs organize youth teams and academies, adult recreational leagues, and social events for members.
•Large builtin memberships and loyal fan bases.
•Characterized by nonprofit status and exclusive membership.
•Evolution from European club system to U.S. league system.

Evolution of leagues
•Baseball was first sport to adopt league system
–Cincinnati Red Stockings: First pro team
•Some teams in the league paid and some did not—created controversy
•1871: Creation of National Association of Professional Baseball Players
•Importance of “breakeven” financial interests of individual clubs

William Hulbet
•Czar of baseball
•1876: Took over management of National League of Professional Baseball Players
•Believed stability would only be achieved if teams were run like businesses
•Teams should compete against each other and not collude
–Understood that without strict rules forcing honest competition, collusion would occur.
•Owners must take some financial risk:
–Abandoning seasons early to prevent losses in short term eroded longterm faith of public
•Owners must field competitive teams to be profitable.
•Integrity of baseball was suspect as long as the players honesty was questionable:
–Gambling prohibited and ticket prices raised.

Early success of national league
•Excitement of pennant race
•Honoring of contracts (reserve system)
•Favorable media attention
•Appealed to fans loyalty and pride in their cities
•Early form of revenue sharing
•Rules that distributed talent

Leagues today
•Successful contemporary commercial sport leagues depend on consolidated league play with strong centralized control and regulation
•Audience has changed
–Public's perception of honest effort resides more with the players than with ownership structure
•Single-entity structures: MLS, MLL, AFL

Professional sport tournaments
Professional Golf
•Early golf professionals were instructors and caddies.
•Professional leagues failed to capture public interest or attract golf professionals.
•Attempts to generate gate revenues at tournaments failed.
•Stability of tournaments was achieved when prize money was put up by companies and corporate sponsors.

Fred Corcoran: Father of golf tournaments
•Golf tournament was medium through which celebrity, politician, manufacturer, charity, town, or product could gain exposure
•Used athletes and golf tournaments to sell advertising space to the public
•Bing Crosby and Bob? Hope created charity golf tournaments in proam format for WWII fundraising

Postwar tournament success
•Good business = Tax deductions
•Charities encourage volunteers = good publicity
•Golf equipment manufacturers fund golfer association and arrange tournaments using prize money as player payments reduces costs of? player representatives
•1950s press change policy and begin naming tournament sponsors not location = free publicity