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Given the ubiquity of charitable organizations and the events used to solicit donations for a cause, many charity-based organizations are continually looking for ways to expand their fundraising efforts. In this quest, many have added endurance sport events to their fundraising portfolios. Anecdotally, we know that building long-term and meaningful relationships with current (and potential) donors is critical for a nonprofit organization’s success. However, there is a paucity of research regarding whether these charity sport events serve as relationship-building mechanisms (i.e., ‘brandfests’) to assist in developing attachments to the charity. The purpose of this mixed-methods investigation was to explore to what extent a charity sport event served as a brandfest to foster a sense of identity with the charity. For this particular case study, the charity event had little effect on participants’ relationship with the charity.

The commitment of volunteers is critical to the effective organization and delivery of community-based sport. This paper examined the development of organizational commitment amongst volunteers in relation to several organizational factors and personal characteristics. Using data from a 3-wave longitudinal study of volunteer administrators (n = 328) drawn from 52 randomly selected community-based sport organizations, organizational commitment was examined in relation to a range of variables including personal characteristics (sociodemographics), behavioral commitment, volunteering benefits, structural attributes (organizational size, budget), and process characteristics operationalized as perceptions about committee functioning. Using hierarchical regression analysis, the study found evidence of a directional relationship between perceived committee functioning and organizational commitment. Organizational commitment was also predicted by age group, occupation, years of organizational membership, and time spent on administration. The study demonstrated a temporal relationship between committee functioning and organizational commitment and concluded with a discussion of practical implications and recommendations for further research.

College athletic directors face the difficulty of setting a price for goods and services they provide to the public. One complementary good provided as a part of major college sports events is game-day programs. This paper estimates a demand function for football programs using 11 years of data for an NCAA Division I-AA college. Least median of squares (LMS), a new outlier-resistant estimation technique, is used to refine the model and provide a more useful estimate of the demand function. The revenue- and profit-maximizing program price is found and compared with prices actually charged throughout the sample period.

To learn more about the governance of sport organizations, this study explored what meaning board members of national sport organizations (NSOs) attach to the concept of “strategic capability”. In so doing, the inquiry also identified factors considered to constrain or enable board strategic function. This paper draws on a body of knowledge developed over 38 years on board strategic function, primarily from the commercial setting but also from the emerging body of work in the nonprofit and sport governance setting. Located within the interpretive research paradigm this study engaged a range of different qualitative methods including cognitive mapping and visual imagery. Working across two NSOs in New Zealand, four elements were generated that served as reference points in mapping out the meaning of a strategically able board. These were categorized as the need to have capable people, a frame of reference, facilitative board processes, and facilitative regional relationships.

Critics of intercollegiate athletics in the U.S. have identified many negative consequences for universities, individual players, students, and other fans. In this paper, we take a cultural perspective to explore both the positive and negative consequences of college athletics. First, we show how athletics function as cultural forms that carry cultural meanings and argue that many of the meanings carried by athletics reflect cultural ideologies of the wider society. We then enumerate and discuss many of the positive and negative consequences that have been attributed to athletics at societal, organizational, group, and individual levels. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis for current reforms, arguing that the cultural significance and positive functions of university athletics represent formidable barriers to reform.

Associate/Assistant athletic administrators from Division I (139 males, 123 females) and Division III (130 males, 123 females) universities of the NCAA responded to a questionnaire consisting of (a) items eliciting background information, (b) perceived and preferred mentoring functions measured by the Mentor Role Instrument (Ragins & McFarlin, 1990), (c) perceived barriers to mentoring measured by Perceived Barriers Scale (Ragins & Cotton, 1991), and a scale of satisfaction developed for the study. Factor analysis yielded three facets of satisfaction: Work Group, Extrinsic Rewards, and Intrinsic Rewards. The results of MÁNOVA showed that an equal proportion of males and females had experienced mentoring relationships, and mentored individuals were more satisfied with work than their non-mentored counterparts. Respondents from Division I received significantly higher salaries, and they were more satisfied with their extrinsic rewards than the respondents from Division III. Finally, correlational analyses showed positive but weak relationships between mentoring functions and the satisfaction facets.

This study investigated how boards of national sport organizations might enhance their strategic capability. Utilizing an action research method and focusing on the case of New Zealand Football (soccer), findings established that greater board involvement in strategy advanced the board’s ability to perform its strategic function. Further findings determined the importance of shared leadership between the board and the CEO, the complex interplay in balancing this relationship and the need to integrate strategy into board processes.

This article discusses agency problems in sport organizations in which the same individuals are involved in both the management and control of decision making. We focus our analysis on the case of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by reviewing the behavior of selected IOC members with regard to the bidding process for the Olympic Games and the resulting reform attempts made by the IOC in an effort to address issues of corruption. After a review of examples of corrupt behavior on the part of IOC members, agency theory is introduced to discuss IOC reforms and provide some suggestions for future reform. We propose incorporating other stakeholders (in addition to the IOC members), such as corporate partners, media conglomerates, and other members of the Olympic movement (e.g., athletes, coaches, officials), into management and control functions. More specifi cally, it is suggested that these stakeholders comprise a board that oversees the operations of the IOC (similar to the IOC’s current executive committee) and be given the ability to remove and/or sanction IOC members who act self-interestedly to the detriment of the Olympic movement. Thus, by delegating the control function of decision making to a board and the management function to internal agents, greater accountability for all organization members can be achieved.