Passion and Profit by Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger

Author:Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783658458270
Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

3.1 Commercialization Between Pros and Cons

Gerrard (2004, page 247) shows how an entire commercial cycle, a complex microeconomy, has developed around (soccer) sport: “Teams buy the services of players and coaches. Fans buy game tickets, subscriptions to TV sports channels and team merchandising. TV companies buy sports broadcasting rights to deliver games to the stay-at-home fans. Big business buys executive suites, corporate hospitality and sponsorship opportunities”.

Fans play an important role in this market process because they support commercialization through their willingness to buy and pay, not to say they drive commercialization forward (Winskowski, 2022). They are an important stakeholder group because they are visible witnesses of the attractiveness of a club or stadium, turn attending a match into a stadium experience through choreography and thus attract further visitors, making the club interesting for sponsors. This leads to a (re)popularization of soccer by increasing media attention, meaning that it is permanently reported about soccer and becomes therefore to a certain extent omnipresent. This in turn encourages young people to take an interest in the sport, the clubs enjoy great popularity and there is no doubt that sport contributes to a healthy lifestyle, especially in times of social media, when young people spend most of their day in front of their smartphones.

From a professional perspective, this development increases the pool of young players and is therefore important for talent management.

The political interest in national youth development is reflected, among other things, in the provision of the so-called Austria pot: the condition for funding is that a club nominates a maximum of six legionnaires for the team on the respective match day in a national league match. However, as this is quite a restriction for the transfer market, more and more sports clubs are waiving this funding.

There is no doubt that the growing economic interest in soccer is coming along with developments that are positive—professionalization and (re)popularization.

However, and this is the subject of intense debate, the focus on profit maximization in soccer also comes with negative side effects: the international transfer market reaches astronomical buying and selling prices, and sports clubs need more and more money to keep up with this development.

Sports clubs therefore enter a cycle: to participate in the well-paid European or international soccer competitions, they need top international players. However, they cost a lot of money, which the clubs have to raise first—this often leads to new club models such as reaching out for investors.

There are virtually no limits to the creativity with which revenue can be acquired, and fans are also feeling the effects of this: Winell et al. (2022), for example, refer to trends such as rising ticket prices or splitting the match day into match time and non-match time. This means that numerous activities are offered around the game on match days: Stadium tours, special events for birthdays, such as kicking-off the match, raffles for families, and much more. This entertainment programme is entirely in the service of the “stadium experience” or guest entertainment, which is of

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