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Video: How the Economy is Affecting Sports

For those of you who are not strong readers, here is a three part series on how the economy is affecting sports.

How the economy is Affecting Sports: Corporate Sponsors

Even if you think NASCAR doesn’t qualify as a sport, it is hard to deny it is at least a spectator event, drawing over 100,000 people to the track on average. The difference between NASCAR and other professional sports is its high reliance on corporate sponsors to support their teams, drivers, and cars, making it [...]

How the Economy is Affecting Professional Sports: “Second Tier Sports”

I was orginally planning of writing my fourth installment of the economic situation surrounding professional sports on future draft transactions in the NFL, MLB, and various other leagues. As I researched the subject I came across all sorts of material concerning what I deemed “second tier” leagues such as the WNBA, Arena Football, and NISL [...]

How the Economy is Affecting Professional Sports: MLB

Not even the nation’s wealthiest baseball franchise is immune from the economic downturn. Recently, New York Yankees’ brand new stadium has plenty of empty seats, and it’s not in the nose bleed section. It’s the seats behind and to the side of home plate, the cleverly named Legends seating.

How the Economy is Affecting Professional Sports: Owner’s/Player’s Perspective

Houston Texans owner Bob McNair sums up the situation surrounding owners and professional sports team in the failing economy. “It’s a different business atmosphere than 20 to 30 years ago. Originally, we worried about selling tickets. Now we’ve got to worry about selling tickets, about keeping media partners happy, operating stadiums, keeping fans happy in [...]

How the Economy is Affecting Professional Sports: Fan’s Perspective

When starting my research on the recent economic depression and it’s affect on the sport industry, I believe the topic would prove relatively clear cut; increased economic pressure would cause fans to buy less tickets, thus decreasing revenue for franchises. After reading a few articles, I arrived at the conclusion that my preconceived notions were [...]

Organizing for Success: Organization Theory and the Stage-Gate Innovation Process

Introduction In today’s globalized world where information flows freer than ever before, the current generation of consumers is more discerning than any other generation in the past. There are more competitors in any given industry. Companies that fail to innovate, or fail to innovate at a fast enough pace face the threat of going out [...]

Alternative Newspaper Models

In the past two parts of my series, I have examined the organizational structure of a newspaper (the Bucknellian) and the problems facing the industry. In short, the newspaper industry is losing readers to the internet, while its print advertising revenues are decreasing quickly. In order to survive, the newspaper industry is going to have [...]

The Slow Food Movement and Concluding Thoughts

The Slow Food movement began in 1986 on the historical Spanish Steps in Rome as a protest against a McDonald’s. The founders were not concerned that McDonald’s would be competitive with the upscale restaurants frequented by the upper/middle-class, but they feared the safety of little places serving local delicacies. The mission of Slow Food was [...]

McDonald’s in Beijing

The story of McDonald’s in Beijing is a little different than in Japan or Hong Kong. For starters, the first restaurant did not come for another twenty years after the McDonald’s in Japan opened. Also, the conversation turns into one concerning social space. Even truer than in Japan, Beijing consumers do not admire fast food [...]

McDonald’s in Hong Kong

McDonald’s arrived in Hong Kong in 1975. Due to strong cultural views about food, similar to those of the Japanese, the success was surprising. People questioned whether the triumph of the fast food industry meant the local culture was under siege. Anthropologist James Watson set out to find if the food chains were helping to [...]

Cultural Differences: McDonald’s in Japan

When Ray Kroc established McDonald’s in 1955 he founded the restaurant on the basis of providing customers quality, service, cleanliness, and value. The McDonald’s website still boasts these values as part of its core as well as giving back to the communities in which they do business, celebrating achievements while striving to achieve new heights, [...]

Organizational Culture vs. National Culture: The Globalization of McDonald’s

In organizational theory, culture is a commonly researched subject matter. A link is often drawn between a strong organizational culture and dominance in the market place. Culture is shaped by an organization’s unique history and situational growth. It can be defined as the values, beliefs, and expectations more or less shared by the organization’s members. [...]

Dad, what’s a “newspaper”?

 “If you would have told them 60 years ago that in 30 years they would be flat on their backs, broke, and pleading for government subsidies, they would have thought you totally demented. Such a future was simply not considered possible.” Theodore Levitt on Railroads, 1960. Even though Levitt is referring to the railroad industry, [...]

Newspapers: Have they met their final deadline? Part One

For my final paper, I will be examining the newspaper industry. The newspaper industry is currently at a turning point. New technology, especially the internet, has changed the way people receive their news. At the same time, the universal advertising-supported revenue model is becoming unprofitable. The industry as a whole has had difficulties keeping up [...]

The Long Lost Blog Post…Kiva and Structural Holes

Some prewriting that I forgot to post last time about my final paper… According to the work of Ronald Burt, it is evident that Kiva has managed to fill a “structural hole”.  A structural hole is loosely described to be disconnects in the structure of information that is shared between people and in society.  Furthermore, [...]

“Patient Zero” Found

The origins of the current swine flu pandemic have now been linked to Edgar Hernandez, a 5 year -old boy from La Gloria, Mexico. Edgar has been recovering from the Swine flu and his symptoms. His mother originally blamed the flu from unsanitary pigs in the area, however testing on these pigs came back negative. [...]

The Glowing Puppy, Ruppy

A living glow in the dark puppy? If you think this happened with the help of science, well, then you are thinking right. Scientists in North Korea cloned the first fluorescent beagle puppy named Ruppy by combining red fluorescent genes that sea anemones produce. The purpose of this normal by day, glowing by night puppy [...]

Best of Last Week!!

Okay, so since we are the last blog council we decided to break the rules and give an award to everyone   Since, we all worked really hard during these weeks of classes and blogs. So now…dim the lights…and the awards go to: Best Use of Theory- Geoff – The Facebook Effect Wittney – Amusement [...]

The Facebook Effect

When thinking of Virtual Worlds, my mind has always jumped to conclusions. World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Webkinz are some of the first to come to mind. By joining these worlds, subscribers enter into a world much different from the one we live. We can chose from a multitude of “Second-Personalities” as I like [...]

Final Paper – Sustainability in Higher Education

For my final paper I would like to further explore Colleges and Universities as organizations, and how difficult it is to change them in order to accommodate for new innovations.  More specifically, I plan to look at the effect that the “Green Movement” and sustainability have had on higher education.  The green movement and sustainability [...]

Do the ChaCha!

Haven’t you heard?! Everyone is doing the ChaCha. If you think I am talking about the popular dance butchered by drunk parents at wedding parties, then get out from under your rock! Let me throw down a hypothetical for you…You are at a bar and you and your buddies have been arguing non stop about [...]

What’s the big deal?

Lately, Twitter is all over the news. Last week, Aschton Kutcher faced off with CNN to be the first user to have 1 million followers. Oprah just joined, bringing hundred of thousands of new users with her. So what the heck is this?

Final Paper- The Specialization of the Athletic Department

The topics of collegiate athletics always raise not only questions but also controversy. Collegiate Athletics have been one of the main focus points of several faculty/administrators meetings across the country, especially during these tough economic times. So, let’s start from the beginning, collegiate athletics started in 1843, when Yale created a boat club, not much [...]