Sport as a business Essay

1. Introduction
Sport as a hobby or leisure time activity for most people. It is also increasingly established that sport is also a business (Chadwick & Arthur, 2008). The emphasis on this research will be focusing on the football industry. Important transformation took place in the sport of football.
Generally, football clubs were originated in England since the year 1850s and the most of European clubs are about 100 years of age. The game attracted spectators and players became financially compensated and clubs then developed into business practices until then just sporting associations. In some certain extent business has always been a part of sport. In 1980s there has been a large economic development in the sport with an involvement of sponsors and other business institutions. In the last decade's business in football has grown enormously and clubs have commercialized largely.
Football industry is now an international business professional competition is now established, players are transferred all over the world and the European Championship finals and FIFA World Cup finals are top in media events with television broadcasting all over the world. Football was said to be the most popular sport globally (Richelieu, & Desbordes, 2008). And the currently very challenging economic times there's a continued revenue growth in European football, illustrating the continued loyalty of supporters and the continued appeal of football to sponsor and broadcasters (Deloitte,2010).
The finances of professional football clubs have increased massively and attitudes have changed, the fans among others have experienced important changes in the cultural organization of the sport (Giulianotti, 2002). There is a change of culture and some traditional are lost among clubs that have commercialized. Many of the supporters have shown their discontent and have contested the fast changing state of modern football.
I chose this topic because of the passion I have for sport of football, especially the art of the game on the pitch itself, also the culture and management practices that surround the sport. As a result, looking back, working on this research was an interesting and enjoyable journey.
1.1 Objective
The main objective of this research is to applied commercialization of football clubs with different types of fan influence are investigated. The main purpose is to identify whether there are differences in commercialization strategy between football clubs that are owned by supporters and football clubs that are not owned by supporters. The second aim is to investigate what result this has on the satisfaction of supporters.
1.2 Research question
I. Which factors are affection commercialization strategy between membership clubs and non-membership football clubs?
II. Which different brand strategies are used by membership football club and non-membership football clubs?
III. How is the different strategy type related to the success of both football clubs?
IV. How does the commercialization strategy have on supporter satisfaction?
V. Is there difference in branding strategies between membership football club and non-membership football clubs?
VI. Do the commercialization strategies in both football clubs affect the club more than the result on the field?