Stockholm university
Stockholm Business School

Marketisation, ownership and digitalisation strategies in the sport industry

The motivation for the paper ”Marketisation, ownership and digitalisation strategies in the sport industry – generic insights and future research” is to provide a deeper understanding of some of the important and trending topics in the sport industry.

Besides this, to consider the changing landscape of ownership, strategies and organisation of several types of sports in the contemporary environment, there is a need for deeper contextual knowledge of how different sport/s, leagues, clubs, associations, teams etc. own, organise and strategise at local to national to regional to international contexts.

The paper written by the Guest editors introduces the special issue Ownership, Organisation and Strategies in the Sports Industry in the Journal of Strategy and Management: Volume 17 Issue 3. The special issue on the sport industry welcomes three interesting contributions of focusing on the important themes related to the sport industry.

They include (1) digital transformation and needed capabilities, (2) fan engagement in a digital way using social media and finally (3) the relevance and relation of social capital in the organisational strategy of sports organisations.

Four generic insights are introduced in the paper. The first insight is that sports digitalisation and politicisation significantly impact the strategising, organising and networking activities of sports owners to foster value capture.

Secondly, owners’ performance duality of marketisation of their sports clubs and vested business interests unravels the paradoxes of idealism and profit-maximisation.

Thirdly, individual sports stars position themselves as an influential platform of value creation through on-field performance, social engagement and self-interests.

Finally, the fourth insight is that the dual aims of sporting on-field success and profit making of large capital-funded sports clubs endanger the autonomy and governance of sports bodies/associations and an equitable sporting competition environment.

The paper is written by:
Krishna Venkitachalam, College of Business Administration, Ajman University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates and Estonian Business School, Tallinn, Estonia

Birgitta Schwartz and Sten Söderman, Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University

Read the paper Marketisation, ownership and digitalisation strategies in the sport industry – generic insights and future research

 

Research subject
Management, organization and society

Last updated: July 8, 2025

Source: SBS

eventNewsArticle

standard-article

false

{
  "dimensions": [
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.subject",
      "name": "Global categories",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Keywords",
      "name": "Keywords",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Person",
      "name": "Person",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Tag",
      "name": "Tag",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "SBS.eng.lokala.kat",
      "name": "Lokala kategorier SBS",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "SBS.eng.lokala.kat.nyh",
          "name": "Local news",
          "entities": [
            {
              "id": "SBS.eng.lokala.kat.nyh.fo",
              "name": "Research",
              "entities": [],
              "attributes": [],
              "childrenOmitted": false,
              "localizations": {}
            }
          ],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        }
      ],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Category",
      "name": "News Category (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Label",
      "name": "Etiketter (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Label.en",
      "name": "Labels (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Keyword",
      "name": "Keywords (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    }
  ]
}