Sport

The recent past has experienced changes in the lifestyle of a number of Americans and other people around the world.  Economy has been doing poorly leading to the great disappointments in the Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. This led to numerous meetings in the White House aimed at marshalling the rank and identifying proper steps to be undertaken.  
The management of sports is analogous to any form of business management and even surpasses it to some extent.  It is critical to have a wider approach when dealing with college sports or at professional level.  As a result to this key importance in professional and college sports management, the study of professional sports and general sports has been advancing over the past decades (Fizel, Fort, 2004).  Antitrust exemptions have led US team owners to exert power of monopoly and joined hands to sell the league games rights of broadcasting to radio and television stations.  The same has been reflected in college sports where football coaches and some other coaches have run the clubs in a careless way thus impacting the economic standards of the clubs.  A better payment of the players and provision of training facilities seems crucial to the advancement of college or professional sports.  It was in the past that an athlete was bound to a club until the he or she is traded, retired or released.  This was especially provided for by a reserve clause that was contained in the athletes contract.  The clause made the team owners to have excess powers over the payments of sportsmen (Goff, 2005).  As a result, strike activities player unions and a call for greater freedom were incepted to change the overall management of the teams. 
Professional teams like the Old Traffords Manchester United are feeling the heat of economic recession.  It is no doubts that Manchester United is the most famous team and most important sports franchise in the world.  Following the collapse of the Manchester United sponsor, the American Insurance Group (AIG), the team experienced the heat of the recession while helplessly watching its hallowed pitch and carefully chosen red shirts with an AIG logo.  Earlier, AIG had signed a sponsorship deal with the team which would award Man U upward of USD 100 million (Brook, 2005).  The economic falls in the most respected football champions club can be blamed on several reasons.  Some of the reasons leading to the poor economical standards in the club are well known by Malcolm Glazer, the businessman who owns Man U including Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The sponsorship deal has been a secret and Man U declined to answer any question regarding the sponsorship.  The club also rejected requests from ESPN.com to take an interview with owner of the club who is a Rochester born businessman.
The economical impacts on any club will surely mean that something wrong might happen within the management.  However, Joe Norton, who is an AIG spokesman claimed that the relationship between AIG and the club still existed strongly and that the normal business was not interrupted (Koivula, 2001). 
The economic changes must impact the way sports is managed. A constant flow of finances will definitely make or build the club to be stronger.  Similarly, the step by the House of Representative to sign off on the Wall Street bailout or the stabilization of Dow Jones Index has at least some economical effect in some place.  It is not business as usual as the Philip Townsend who is the director of communications seems to put a cover on the serious economic challenge.  The ailing economy of a state or a club is it in college or a professional club has an array of setbacks which might be felt in the long term (Thelin, 2005).  This is an impression that the already existing problem might not have a great impact but might lock out channels of revenue by contracting especially from television rights.  It is evident that the most of the revenues gained by leagues come from those long television deals.  This is a common way by which most owners of teams and league executives insulate themselves against the hot economic weather.  Most clubs depend on this source, the television deals to run their normal business.  It is a guaranteed income as some call it.  The layers of insulation protecting most clubs from economic roasting include both the leagues television and other interests globally (Crego, 2003). Because of global connections, sources of income especially from television will not dry out.  Although the economic heat affects the US market, in China, Europe and Asia the business is blossoming. 
Whichever the reactions or comments denying that economic recession has nothing to do with sports, the fact remains that sports is highly impacted by economic wellbeing of clubs in both college and professional levels.  The most common outcome of economic recession is the stoppage of majority of luxuries. It is not only the economic recession which will cause this but also any form of downturn and worse financial event.  The luxury boxes will have to be minimized or closed completely following economic hardships.  It has been observed that luxury boxes are the basis for collapses in the values and profitability of franchises.  Some strategies have been set by professional team sports of getting the arenas and the ballparks back to the centers of the city (Fizel, Fort, 2004).  In addition, the professional team sports have built and taken advantage of the business community connection.  This has been done by luring high income clienteles into the stadia and boosting the gate receipts.  This also makes the advertising market richer and the money obtained from signage and sponsorship is greater. 
Clubs experiencing hard economic times like the Red Wings and the Tigers have exempted the luxury boxes and instead fixed the master suites.  The master suites resemble the seating for Gold Club premium which can be bought in blocks or one time ticket. These types of tickets are of more demand to any average fan.  These tickets allow ordinary people to enjoy luxury box- like experience at an affordable rate.  This approach has been employed by clubs in San Diego, Colorado and Milwaukee (Goff, 2005).  The evolution to redesign the stadia and marketing it to the fans will however take a very long time before it gains fruits to the sport industry.  It may take approximately up to two decades but this does not sound like bad news to other critics.  The critics argue that the plan mirrors the greed in those people who are disgraced by the Wall Street.  The critics add that, although the luxury loges of the Giants and the Jets stadium are largely sold, it might result to the personal seat license and the loges not to be resold or renewed (Norman, 2007).  It is the same thing that may happen when the people leave their home investments.  Walking away from stadium investments seems likely. 
The teams that may experience much of the effect of hard economic downturn in the US are those in the New York City.  The most probable reason why New York teams will much be affected being that the New York City is the countrys financial capital.  Economic analysts claim that up to 60,000 jobs may be lost during the downturn.  The jobs talked of here are those occupied by high income clientele.  Some solutions have been sought to cut out a niche in the already tightening market (Thelin, 2008).  In addition to the other personal seating license and the ever rising costs of tickets, a couple of teams have started pairing down to one season ticket.   At the same time, the selling of blocks of seat may prove very unachievable.  The hard economic times of club may see them very difficult to have a more stable domain legal standing. 
The naming of clubs arenas and stadia is likely to change because of the economic impact.  The franchise sponsorships will also not be spared.  The corporations constantly look at the name of the name and try to examine what is in the name of a club.  The change of name will mean fewer high paying customers.  The corporations will also tend to be meaner and leaner.  Some teams will have less profitable set rights of signage and naming.  Sports marketers agree that utmost attention should be observed in the rights of naming deals because extravagant marketing partnerships exist and hence the aspect needs reassessment.  The process of reassessment has been considered not only because of the increase in price but also the trust drawn from the sponsors (Brook, 2005).  The corporate sponsors always rethink on what they can do in the medium and short run.  They have to provide business trust to the shareholders so that the shareholders will see some sense in the investments in sport marketing. The pressure felt by the country at large, mainly originating from the economic recession, is felt even in the corporate part of America.  It is more to do than just the dollar value.  Various industries are affected by the recession and especially the sports industry has come to get a portion of the bitter pill. The corporate sponsors have changed the deals significantly (Riess, 1998).  What used to be a three year deal is currently a one year deal. 
The economic hardships may not be such cruel to professional athletes. The players will be hit most by the rollback of salaries, prize money and payrolls of teams.  This will result from the change in flow of the streams of revenue from naming rights, luxury boxes, and sponsorship and in arena adverts. The ripple effect will come to the players if the factors last for a long time.  The players contracts get diminished and this impacts the pay of the players.  This can technically be termed as offseason jobs.  Sports as a profession ends at some time and may pick in some period (Thelin, 2008).   The decrease in salary of the players acts to equalize the reduction of contracts. These controlling mechanisms work for sometime to realize an effective impact.
The fall in economy will lead to the depreciating in value of all major assets in a business environment.  Sports management is one form of such business whose franchise loses value.  The price tagged on a particular team will automatically shrink which will in turn have profound effects on the sale of franchises.  There exist the stable rich men known as tycoons who will take advantage of situation of lower prices.  They always have a misconception or rather belief that franchise financing acquisition is often difficult to come by.  The truth is that the valuation of franchise is based on the generated revenues and is usually discounted on any kind of fallout of some revenue channels (Goff, 2005).  On the other hand, the upward trend or appreciation of the values of franchise is depended on luxury seating healthy market.  Majority of franchise were squeezed in position in the US even before the collapse of various banks due to the Wall Street. 
The hard economic times definitely is felt by the general public.  Team owners in the recent couple of decades who coveted the freshly built stadia or arena had a leverage game at his disposal.  This was always aimed at rolling out the blue print for a splendid play box.  The trick worked in a funny way.  The owners would often threaten to withdraw their teams if the public had problems paying for the new and potential teams.  They would simply take their teams to a place which had more pay. It will be very hard to finance for the new stadia.  In fact even the financing of the franchise acquisition will be a problem (Brook, 2005).  The public perspective to invest in new sports will be lost and in tougher economies, the owners with great plans will need to consider the additional degree of difficulty.  The financial loaning institutions are not ready to give out assistance to the investors to develop new stadia. The fact is however that there are a lot of credits to be given to qualified people to borrow (Knight, et al, 2006).  The financial institutions may claim that there more pressing issues and the plans are less enthusiastic hence the money is not available for the projects of developing sports.
Generally, the cycle of economic hardships is vey hard to solve, it is like a cyclic occurrence affecting a large group of institutions and people.  The recovery of the recession will not either have god results on the development of sports.  The borrowers and lending institutions will be forced to add rigor in scrutinizing the whole process of borrowing and lending until they can prove that the recovery has attained an accepted level.  The teams that are a little bit safe are those that have almost been completed or those already running smoothly.  Otherwise, starters teams have to face a big problem (Thelin, 2008).  The same thing applies to college, youth or professional level teams. Another factor to put safety in the teams is timely financing plans.  It will not matter to have just financing but it will depend entirely on the planning on reasonable basis.  In fact, the already establishes leagues will experience successful running even if they do not exploit their new projects.  This is only possible through prior planning.  The teams that have their long term planning in place may not receive any serious impacts (McComb, 2007).  It has been observed that teams that have a well backup of financing rarely experience problems of management. 
An economic downturn can have a worst impact on professional athletes who sometimes are highly paid.  Others still may be cleaned out due to the effect of the recession.  These professionals are not different from the rest of us.  They are never spared when recessions come. Some keen financial planners of some teams dont claim this to be true.  They stick to a belief that the bad incidences will not happen with their teams.  They argue that their players are always kept in fixed rate investments and out of equity status.  The claim that most athletes are life gamblers and serous risk takers is taking root (Goff, 2005).  They do a lot of gambling in the field and in real life situations. 
Team owners who get collapsed by the hard economic times dont just quit and end up showing how the transactions have led to a massive fall.  When the league and the team are laid off, the official sport outfits will tend to slash the ranks. The laying off of employees due to economic recession has happened and will continue to happen. It is not totally a new thinking.  The laying off is termed as a management strategy which has to be done to make things straight.  Sports as a job does not have any risk attached because it is being managed by a local team. 
The economic downturn affects a lot of areas in sports.  The youth level sports are never spared.  For a team to progress there must be sponsors and who are trustworthy.  Some sponsors may take an advantage of the poor economic status and use the players in a manner less way. The players will be paid very poorly if they do not get a reliable sponsor.  Another issue arising from financing the clubs at youth level is the general infrastructure needed in any sports training.  Take for example in soccer, the players need balls and other facilities for training which may be hard to come by if the financial status of the club is ailing (Crego, 1998).  This is often reflected from the poor performance of the players.  Poor performance is always followed by mistrust from the fans.  The supporters will decrease in number than what may have been in the past.  The names of the clubs will lose meaning and value because the fans will always be teased of supporting a weak team (Brook, 2005).  Because of poor finances, what used to be the name to shout out loud is now said in silence.  It impacts greatly the college level sports if funds are not provided for sports.  Form training to travelling to different areas for either tournaments or friendly matches will not be possible. 
In general, the economy has a big part to play in the management sports across all levels.  From the youths levels to fully autonomous professional levels, economic impacts are felt so loud and this always leads to poor performance of the clubs or teams.  There is need however to streamline the management of sports so that the downfalls dont always cripple the development of sports.  Studies in sports science and sport management should address the uncertainties occurring during economic recession.  Through the building of this capacity sports, which is an essential element in our society can thrive.