Five common characteristics of these sports business enterprises include naming a company ("team") with a city, university or geographic adjective. This deludes people in that city (or region) into adopting the company employees ("players") as de facto local heroes or heroines, despite the reality that only a few of the players ever lived in their company's service area before signing a contract to play [sic].
An example of such a city-based adjective would be Portland, as in Portland Trailblazers. An even more obnoxious marketing strategy development involves re-naming a venue, e.g. Seattle's KingDome, with a clumsy corporation name like Safeco Field (!!).
Second, CSB ("team") owners promote a logo-often some type of mascot-to encourage local identification with their hapless employees ("players"). One Seattle university team uses an Alaskan dog (husky) as its logo and mascot; a company in frigid Detroit, Michigan, defying all logic, uses a tropical mammal (Lion).
Third, CSBs always develop a non-competitive structure to protect their market by preventing new teams from joining and by discouraging new leagues from forming. Oddly, Congress supports this strategy with a notorious anti-trust exemption that violates every legal and business principle of free enterprise and competition which we hear ad nauseum during each national election campaign. In the case of colleges and universities, the NCA[sic]A, for example, regulates times and conditions for recruiting high school athletes; of course, recruiting violation scandals are routine by-products of this college-based industry.
Fourth, CSBs sell advertising and broadcasting rights, and license the sales of logo products. There need be no discernable relationship between the sport-like activity and the product; as long as revenue can be extracted for the team, the league will likely license it. This leads to interesting speculation: maybe someday there will be NFL colonoscopes and Notre Dame stethoscopes in physician offices; or Denver Bronco shears in barber shops and WNBA curlers in hair salons and spas. Players mimic this greed by prostituting their names (in a game called endorsements) to sell aftershave, autos, and insurance policies.
As the New York TIMES recently wrote of this phenomenon:
Pondering the Ultimate Sky Box
By FRANCIS X. CLINES New York TIMES, December 15, 2008
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