Researcher Heather J. Lawrence, PhD joined the IUPUI Sports Innovation Institute podcast to discuss the recently published SIJ article Applying Activity-Based Costing to Intercollegiate Athletics.

Current accounting methods in intercollegiate athletics make it difficult for leaders to assess and understand the true cost of each sport team operations. Institutional and athletics leaders often make decisions concerning sport sponsorship/offerings, budget allocations, overall program operations, and review Title IX compliance based on information that may not truly capture the cost of each sport. Additionally, intercollegiate athletics reform groups and the federal government are calling for athletic departments to report more consistent, accurate, and transparent financial data. The purpose of this paper is to respond to the call for accounting reform in intercollegiate athletics via an innovative application of activity-based costing (ABC) to one NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletics department. ABC was applied to the athletic department budget report with results showing how previously established ABC cost drivers for intercollegiate athletics (Lawrence, Gabriel, & Tuttle, 2010) and reallocation of expenses back to specific sports allow for a greater understanding of the cost of each sport.

Download the Full Paper Here: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/sij/article/view/23717/23086

Open the Infographic: Activity based costing infographic

Sports Innovation Institute Director David Pierce joined the podcast to discuss the new IUPUI research article written in partnership with Grand Park Sports Campus.

COVID-19 has impacted all areas of life, and youth sports is no exception. States and counties are publishing their own unique guidelines for permitting youth sports to return over designated phases, creating a patchwork of guidelines and dates for returning to practice and games. Governing bodies, sports facilities, and event operators are creating modifications and adaptations for participants and spectators to ensure a safe environment. The SII and Grand Park Sports collaborated to better understand how COVID-related adaptations are perceived by parents, athletes, coaches, officials, and administrators. The results provide youth sports facilities and event operators with data on how specific adaptions are received by these stakeholders who are looking to return to youth sports in a timely, but safe manner.

Twelve adaptations were identified from a review of documents prepared by states, governing bodies, trade associations, media reports, and feedback from industry and academic experts. The survey reached a national audience that represents the landscape of youth sports. A total of 10,359 people from 45 states completed the entire survey, representing at least 13 different sports.

Download the Full Paper Here: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/sij/article/view/24144/23082

Read Online Here: go.iu.edu/youthsports

Authors Brendan O’Hallarn and James Strode joined the podcast to discuss their recently accepted paper in the Sports Innovation Journal.

As sport management pedagogy has evolved, an effort has been made to incorporate popular and innovative social media technologies into classroom instruction. Academic research has suggested how the technology can be utilized to provide real-world skills for students and develop proficiency in an area where many sport management graduates find employment. Notable among the recommendations about social media use by sport management scholars is a lack of research testing the efficacy of these tools in improving curricula. The current study relied on the recommendations of Sanderson and Browning (2015) to use the social media site Twitter to create online partnerships, testing both the results of the in-class project and the perceived benefits of such an arrangement through end-of-semester surveys with student participants. While the survey data show a true partnership may be difficult to realize – particularly during a single semester – the benefits of such an assignment were clearly articulated.

Download Full Paper: journals.iupui.edu/index.php/sij/a…iew/23830/23039

Authors Michael Naraine and Liz Wanless joined the podcast to discuss their recently accepted paper in the Sports Innovation Journal.

The sport industry has become increasingly more complex with the expanse of digital technology such as fiber optic internet access, 5G wireless communication, and blockchain, just to name a few. These advancements have shifted the amount and variety of data produced and available for analysis by sport organizations. Yet, sport organization front offices remain well behind other industry segments in regard to handling, processing, and analyzing the volume and variety of data to advance business objectives. In this brief, the authors introduce the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) to sport management. While AI, as a concept, has been discussed for more than 50 years, this article provides a definition and overview of its historical trajectory for sport managers. Concurrently, the article also identifies the value proposition for AI capability, notably the natural language processing across four customer-centered domains. Integration challenges are also addressed for sport organizations as they seek to increase their digital competence, achieve competitive advantage through technical innovations, and ultimately become more efficient in a data-driven world.

Download the Full Paper: https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/sij/article/view/23898/23075