The modern sports world would not be possible without the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship. Despite their massive influence on the development of global sport and sports markets, entrepreneurs and innovators in the sports business world have been underserved in the literature. As early as 1988 sport historian Steve Hardy pointed this out in a pathbreaking call to arms and analysis of entrepreneurship in sport. Despite Hardy’s urging, it is only recently we have begun to see a literature emerge that examines this important area of sports business and sports business history. In this volume, we have collected together papers that explore people who have been pioneering in an important aspect of sports innovation, ownership, design and marketing.
In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, sport in the English-speaking world underwent its own industrial revolution, as historian Tony Collins (2014) points out. It was transformed from a recreational pastime, with a small number of local promoters in the early 1800s into a hugely popular, mass spectator industry that commanded the interest of millions by the late 1800s. Michael Oriard (1992) contends that in the United States the emergence of American football at Universities coincided with a mass print media which worked together to hype the sport and encourage ever increasing interest. Major professional sporting leagues appeared in the USA, England and Australia before 1900 and in many other countries in the developed world soon after. Major facilities were needed to house the thousands of spectators that major events and competitions began to attract.
For many years, sport historians have written about entrepreneurs who through their business acumen and willingness to take risks contributed in various ways to the emergence and growth of one of society’s most important and popular modern institutions. The earliest survey texts on sport history, including such well known books as John Rickard Betts’s, America’s Sporting Heritage: 1850–1950 (1974), John Lucas and Ronald A. Smith’s, Saga of American Sport (1978), Benjamin G. Rader’s, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Spectators (1983), William J. Baker’s, Sports in the Western World (1988), Betty Spears and Richard A. Swanson’s, A History of Sport and Physical Education in the United States (1988), Dennis Brailsford’s, British Sport: A Social History (1992), Bruce Kidd’s, The Struggle for Canadian Sport (1997), and Wray Vamplew’s, Sport in Australia: A Social History (1994) all included some information on notable entrepreneurs who contributed to the development of sport.
Entrepreneurs have also had their stories told in varying degrees in more specialized anthologies and monographs on the history of sport. American sports entrepreneurs in particular have received space in such books as Peter Levine’s, Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience (1992), Michael Lomax’s, Black Baseball Entrepreneurs, 1902–1931 (2014), David K. Wiggins and Ryan A. Swanson’s (eds.), Separate Games: African American Sport Behind the Walls of Segregation (2016), Robert Burk’s, Much More than a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball Since 1921 (2001), and Elliott J. Gorn’s, The Manly Art: The Lives and Times of the Great Bare Knuckle Champions (1986). Entrepreneurs have also been covered in articles and book chapters. More importantly, some entrepreneurs have been fortunate enough to attract their own biographers. For instance, John Fair provides a fascinating story of one of the most famous entrepreneurs in the fitness industry in his monograph Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffmann and the Manly Culture of York Barbell (1999). Peter Levine furnishes an astute analysis of one of baseball’s greatest entrepreneurs in his A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport (1985). Larry Lester analyses the very impactful career of perhaps the most important entrepreneur in Negro League Baseball in his Rube Foster in his Time: On the Field and in the Papers with Black Baseball’s Greatest Visionary (2012). Murry R. Nelson furnishes important insights into the life and career of a basketball legend in his Abe Saperstein and the American Basketball League, 1960–1963: The Upstarts who Shot for Three and Lost to the NBA (2013). Guy Reel delves into the remarkable life of boxing entrepreneur and media mogul Richard Kyle Fox in his The National Police Gazette and the Making of the Modern American Man, 1879–1906 (2006). Jeff Davis provides an intimate portrait of one of professional football’s most influential entrepreneurs in his Papa Bear: The Life and Legacy of George Halas (2006).
In spite of the aforementioned works and others, the fact remains that relatively speaking academicians have not focused as intently on sport entrepreneurs as they have other topics. For whatever reasons, scholars have generally avoided examining in depth the careers of men and women who have marshaled their skills, utilized their creativity, and took advantage of personal connections to further develop and popularize sport through business ventures and initiatives. In essence, academicians have not generally heeded the advice of sport studies scholar Stephen Hardy who many years ago in his essay in the Journal of Sport History “Entrepreneurs, Organizations, and the Sport Marketplace: Subjects in Search of Historians” (1986) urged more in-depth scholarly studies that merged sport and business history. This collection of essays attempts to address this obvious gap in the literature by providing an analysis of fourteen entrepreneurs who carved out successful careers in sport through a combination of foresight, business skills, and bravado. Like all collections, it was not feasible nor realistic to include the stories of every sport entrepreneur that has ever walked the earth. Instead, we have chosen to highlight the careers of both better known and more obscure entrepreneurs representing a variety of sports and countries who are representative of key innovations that have shaped the development, sustainability and growth of the global sports industry.
Included in this collection are biographies of Albert Goodwill Spalding who revolutionized the sporting goods industry in the latter nineteenth century after a career in baseball and baseball management. He was instrumental in attempts to spread baseball around the world and in bringing British champion golfer Harry Vardon to tour the USA in 1900. Similar to Spalding, the Slazenger brothers were also significant innovators in developing a modern sporting goods industry. Later examples of product innovators include Phil Knight of Nike and Bob McKnight of Quiksilver.
Other contributions focus on innovative sports leaders such as Effa Manley, the first woman to play a significant role which she did in Negro League Baseball in the USA. Conn Smythe, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and head of the National Hockey League is another example. More contemporary examples include Roman Abramovich who turned wealth earned after the end of communism in the Soviet Union to ownership and innovation at Chelsea Football Club in London, England, which he made one of the dominant clubs of the Premier League. Other direct investors in sport include Wang Jianlin from China who similarly converted wealth from a broad range of products into investment in Chinese and global sports brands. Mark Cuban, who made his initial foray into sports through acquired internet radio broadcasting rights, is one of the most innovative American entrepreneurs who owns, among many other brands, the Dallas Mavericks franchise in the NBA.
Mark McCormack revolutionalized player brand management as well as the establishment of regular sports events. Tex Rikard was one of the early sporting event promoters perhaps best known for the Jack Dempsey – Gene Tunney boxing matches in the 1920s. Bill Veeck pioneered the gimmick to extend interest beyond pure fans of baseball. These pioneers began to shape an industry that became much larger than competitions between teams or individuals. Roone Arledge took event promotion to new levels as he transformed the ways in which sport was covered on television.
In our final contribution, by Rick Burton, profiles Michael Luscher, founder of start-up apparel company POINT 3 Basketball. Luscher developed what he called DRYV technology which integrates a towel-like fabric into moisture wicking athletic apparel. The result was basketball apparel that allows players to wipe their wet hands and face while playing. It is an innovation no other athletic apparel company had brought to market. Like Spalding, Knight, McKnight and other, Luscher’s innovation has enabled athletic performance, both at elite and recreational levels to advance.
Entrepreneurial innovation has driven the sports industry for 150 years. Innovation has been led frequently by those who saw into the future and ways in which the sports marketplace could evolve and change. There are other key players we should mention. Hugh “Huge Deal” McIntosh in Australia brought African-American cycling champion Marshall “Major” Taylor on tours to Australia as well as promoting the Jack Johnson versus Tommy Burns world heavyweight boxing match to Sydney in 1908. Tex Rickard picked up concepts that had been used by McIntosh. Adi Dassler, head of adidas, was the first to provide products directly to athletes in order to promote his brand at the Olympic Games beginning in 1936. His innovations, and those of his son, Horst, were adapted by Phil Knight as the athletic apparel sponsorship market grew exponentially between the 1970s and 2000. This collection, we hope, will expand our knowledge of the role of particular entrepreneurs in shaping our SportsWorld. Many more examples exist and our aim is to inspire more studies as we better understand key innovations in the global sports industry.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).