John A. Fortunato

NFL Agenda-setting: The NFL Programming Schedule: A Study of Agenda-setting

In 2006 the NFL instituted substantial changes in the television programming schedule, including Monday Night Football moving to ESPN, NBC televising games on Sunday night with a flexible schedule component, and games being televised on the NFL Network. The agenda-setting theoretical model claims that media exposure and the emphasis of certain attributes of the topic can increase the public salience of the topic and those emphasized attributes. In sports the proper programming schedule can do more than transfer topic salience, but, in fact, help influence the behavior of audience viewing that translates into revenue for the networks and the sports league.

Agenda-Setting Through the Television Programming Schedule: An Examination of Major League Baseball on Fox

ABSTRACT The core concept of the agenda-setting theoretical model is the transfer of topic salience from the media agenda to the public agenda. Sports leagues need to have their games properly positioned in the television programming schedule to assist their transfer of salience effort and help maximize their national popularity. A sports television programming schedule can be improved with an understanding of the fundamental structural and individual factors that influence audience media exposure. This article contends that the Major League Baseball on Fox programming schedule can be improved through three suggestions: (1) increasing exposure by having more games on the Fox over-the-air broadcast channel that is available in approximately 32 million more households than the Fox Sports One cable channel; (2) having games at a consistent placement in the programming schedule to increase viewers’ awareness and enhance that program and channel being a part of their repertoire to capitalize on their initial ritualized viewing; and (3) allowing all Major League Baseball teams to appear more often on Fox and Fox Sports One, eliminating regionalized broadcasts, and implementing a flexible schedule to provide more meaningful game matchups to capitalize on the audience’s advanced degree of instrumental viewing.

CBS Promotion of Future Programming During the 2011 NCAA Tournament

The simple goal of television promotions is to increase viewership of future programming. The promotion of future programming during sports telecasts is valuable primarily because promotions can air during the game. The purpose of this paper is to provide a network perspective of its promotions strategy by identifying how often CBS promoted its future programming, which type of future programs CBS chose to promote (established or non-established), and how CBS implemented the prominent promotional techniques identified in the literature during its coverage of the 2011 NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. The findings show that 21% of total promotions were during the game, 42% of total promotions by CBS were for non-established programming, and genre compatibility was the most used technique with the Masters Golf Tournament being the most promoted future program.

Sports Leagues’ Game Exposure Policies: Economic and Legal Complexities

ABSTRACT Sports leagues have developed an economic business model where they sell national media rights on behalf of all of the teams and the teams sell media rights in their home territory without competition. To protects a home teams territory, leagues blackout some games in certain geographic regions. Recent policies include blacking out local teams games on league-wide satellite and Internet-based digital media packages. To obtain access to most of a local teams games fans, thus, need to purchase a subscription to a regional sports network. These territorial arrangements that restrict game exposure have been construed by some as anticompetitive, leading to limited choice and increased prices for consumers. Sports leagues contend these restrictions are necessary to protect individual team broadcast revenue and ensure competitive balance. The recent Laumann v. NHL and Garber v. MLB lawsuits questioned whether leagues broadcast policies were more harmful or beneficial to consumers and if assigning exclusive regional broadcast territories violated United States antitrust laws.

Analysing the dynamics of crisis leadership in higher education: A study of racial incidents at the University of Missouri

The following article analyses the crisis involving racial tensions at the University of Missouri in 2015 that ultimately contributed to the departure of the university president and chancellor. This case amplifies the importance of organizational vulnerabilities from both an historical context and a national‐issue context. As supported through this analysis, crises that reflect these vulnerabilities of an organization can lead to increased scrutiny and may produce greater negative consequences. Drawing upon both the public messaging surrounding this crisis and the existing literature on crisis management and crisis leadership, university leaders should have been proactive in cultivating a more inclusive racial environment and should have more effectively used communication to improve relationships with an important constituency group, particularly given the institutions core values, the history of racial tensions at the university, and the rising racial tensions following incidents in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.

The FIFA Crisis: Examining Sponsor Response Options

A crisis not only affects the organization that engaged in the improper act, but its stakeholders as well. While there are many studies that analyse response options for the organization involved in the crisis, there is little research focusing on the strategic response of stakeholders. This article uses the crisis involving FIFA as its focus and how its sponsors, an essential stakeholder group, responded. While no companies terminated their sponsorship, sponsors did issue statements that indicated the severity of the crisis and encouraged FIFA to engage in corrective action. FIFA engaging in corrective action is the best outcome for sponsors as they can maintain their partnership and continue to accrue the promotional communication and business benefits of this sponsorship.

Business-to-business sponsorship opportunities: Examining UPS’s functional congruence with the NCAA

Abstract Business-to-business themed sponsorships can be powerful marketing platforms, giving companies the ability to demonstrate and communicate their performance capabilities. Having a functional congruence, when the sponsor has a participatory role in the event, is a unique advantage for some sponsors. Demonstrating a functional congruence addresses a critical distinction between business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing approaches identified in the literature, with business-to-business buying decisions more focused on brand reliability. This article examines how United Parcel Service (UPS) executes its business-to-business themed, functional congruence sponsorship with the NCAA. It focuses on the logistical services that UPS performs in putting on the NCAA college basketball tournament. This cooperative indirect customer marketing approach shows how UPS uses the popularity of the NCAA Tournament to communicate its brand theme and brand capabilities. A case study of an actual business-to-business themed sponsorship provides a practical example that makes the overall understanding of business-to-business marketing more complete.

Major League Baseball and African American Participation: Is Free Television Part of the Solution?

Major League Baseball (MLB) continues to address the challenge of African American participation in a sports environment with increasing competition for talent and spectators. The variable that MLB most controls is how it markets its games. This essay suggests MLB needs to provide more games available on free, over-the-air television because of low cable penetration into the African American community.