The Change of Sports?

I wrote an article a while ago in regards to the changing winds of the world sports. How the sports industry is no longer a business of drafting, trading, and building the best teams. How it has nothing to do with placing the best product on the field for the enjoyment of the fans. For years teams have been placed in specific areas because of the desire by the fans for a team to cheer for, an organization to call their own. As a stated before this no longer exists, the world of sports no longer deals with wins or losses it is now all about profitability. 

Sporting leagues and even teams are no longer focused on the product, rather they are focused on investments. We are now seeing team ownerships venture outside of the world of sports, but they use their team as collateral in a sense. They use their players as the aspect that is enticing. In fact we are in sorts seeing an opposite of what happened in the late 90s early 2000s with sports. During this time large organizations like Disney and Comcast were using their business power to purchase professional teams, to use as assets. They used these teams to push their other products to increase sales thus creating more profitability for the teams. We can see this in the example of Disney where they used their purchase of the Ducks and Angels to push their movie franchises, and to bring basically free advertising to their other assets like Parks and Television. The same case is made with things like Comcast and Time Warner; it was all used to build the business side. 

But, today’s world is very different in the sports industry. We are seeing these large sports teams becoming almost in the sense as investment banks. US and global teams are buying into industries such as eGaming, foreign sports leagues, television companies, and technology organizations. We see teams like the Orlando Magic partnering with EA Sports, and the Philadelphia 76ers purchasing an eGaming team. In some cases we even see investments like the 49ers purchasing an English soccer team. The hand is extending everywhere we are seeing sports teams and leagues reaching out to invest further, gathering assets. It is because they are realizing the profitability of using their team as an asset to push for long-term potential. 

The sporting world is at a brink of total change. Yes, championships still matter, and teams love the fans, things are soon going to be very different. We will soon see sports teams acting as conglomerates. Working together to build large-scale money making organizations on the same scale as a Merill Lynch or Wells Fargo