SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY

Graduate School of Business

Name: Voltaire P. Pineda
CONCEPT PAPER
I. Working Title
Sports Marketing: Commercial Value of Lengthy Sports Tournaments in
Comparison with Sports of Shorter Tournaments

II. Background/Rationale
It has been observed through the years that sports create heroes, rivalries, and
products as well as services…thanks to the power of Marketing and that’s not all.
Sports also create revenues. In the United States alone, it was stated (Victoria
Chang & George Foster 2006) by Sports Business Journal and Sports Business Daily:
From Start-up to industry Bible, the sports business industry was one of the largest
and fastest growing industries in the U.S. It was estimated to be $213 billion, twice
the size of the auto industry and seven times the size of the movie industry.
In the Philippines, The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) for example with
three conferences every year, The Philippine Cup, The Commissioner’s Cup, and the
Governor’s Cup have produced revenues from its current state than it was 44 years
ago. Basketball in the Philippines is like a religion. In his column Breakthrough, The
Philippine Star (Elfren S. Cruz, Nov. 6, 2016) he mentioned the similarities between
sports and organized religion in a striking way. Consider the vocabulary associated
with both: faith, devotion, worship, ritual, dedication, sacrifice, commitment, spirit,
prayer, suffering, festival, and celebration. Stadiums and arenas resemble
cathedrals where followers gather to worship their heroes and pray for their
success.
Sports also create fans. From a marketing perspective, they are the consumers
or the target market. A study in 2006 by Colleen C. Bee and Lynn R. Kahle –
Relationship Marketing in Sports: A Functional Approach, they mentioned that
teams, leagues, athletes, marketing corporations, and fans have relationships with
one another that depend on successful relationship enactment. According to Kevin
Gwinner 2008, Journal of Sports Management, researchers have theorized that
identifying with a group is done partly to enhance self-esteem by aligning oneself
with groups (or individual) that have positive qualities. Thus, one can strengthen
one’s self-esteem by emphasizing the positive effects of the group to which one
identifies, while minimizing any negative aspects associated with that group (or
individual). The same author along with Brian V. Larson & Scott R. Swanson in 2009
wrote in their article Image Transfer in Corporate Event Sponsorship: Assessing The
Impact of Team Identification and Event Sponsor-Fit, published by the International
Journal of Management and Marketing Research, stated that sociologically, sport
teams are groups to which individuals relate. A spectator is said to be highly
identified with a team when they perceived a “connectedness” to the team and
feel that the team’s successes and failures are also his or her successes and failures.
Take the case of the Olympics, Asian Games, Southeast Asian Games, the
National Basketball Association (NBA), the English Premier League (EPL), the
Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), Philippine Volleyball League (PVL), and the
on-going Australian Open just to name a few. Most of this tournaments run for
several weeks, some even months and they have created a lot of impact to the fans,
the generation of revenue, and to the sporting industry as a whole.
From this, we can come up with a study that lengthy sporting events or
tournaments create a better commercial value compared with other sports that
have a shorter tournaments.
III. Statement of the Research Problem and Objectives
What are the factors that will lead to the addition of commercial value to
lengthy sports tournaments? Many sports organizers with limited marketing skills
knows that time is of the essence which means a powerful marketing strategy, with
the right application, timing, and execution has to be implemented and followed
strictly if they intend to survive against the competition. Will applying Michael
Porter’s five forces worked for them? Organizers of the quadrennial sporting event
says that the Olympics is the greatest show on earth and from the point of view of
a marketer what can he or she do to increase value of their organization?
Objectives
1. To determine which of the five variables projects real commercial value.
 2. To determine the impact of Television Viewership in terms of numbers.
3. To determine the impact of Endorsements and Sponsorship deals on
athletes in Top Leagues.
4. To determine the impact of Athlete’s Salary in Top Leagues.
5. To determine the impact of Social Media Presence.
6. To determine the impact of Number of Professional Leagues.

IV. Significance of the Study

It has been noted that countries that dominate in the field of sports are the
one’s that are economically progressive. First world countries like the United
States, Great Britain, France, China, Japan, and South Korea usually leads in medal
standings in the Olympics, Asian Games or SEA Games, and other international
tournaments and hardly do we see developing countries leading the tight race
therefore, given the right marketing strategy, this study aims to promote sports as
a viable business venture, teach current and future marketing practitioners, sports
enthusiast the importance and value of sports in one’s economy and how it
develops discipline and character to every individual.

All five variables will be tested and quantified. Marketers will be informed on
the importance of all variables while scholars can also explore more contributing
factors that will lead to improving the commercial values of sports tournaments.

For the future generations, this study aims to inspire, equip, motivate and fill
the gap as well when all variables were combined because this will give them a
better understanding the importance of values of sports.

V. Research Methodology

A survey questionnaire will be distributed among possible respondents

preferably business people, entrepreneurs, sports enthusiast that has the tendency
to go into sports business. Both descriptive and inferential statistics is
recommended for this kind of data analysis. Correlation test may also be used
depending on the advice of the statistician.