S-commerce: Facing the Future of Sport Business

Hans Westerbeek and Aaron Smith

Chapter Chapter 1 in Sport Business in the Global Marketplace, 2003, pp 1-51 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract When did it all begin? When did sport become a business? For some commentators that moment came in the 1990s along with Michael Jordan, or even with the 1984 ‘McDonald’s’ Olympic Games in Los Angeles. For others it began as early as 1975, when International Management Group (IMG) founder Mark McCormack bragged, somewhat presciently that: ‘We’re by far the most powerful influence on sport in the world. We could turn any individual sport — golf, tennis, skiing — on its ear tomorrow. The position we hold in some of these sports is the ability to reconstruct the whole edifice.’ That was two years after Mark Spitz, the US Olympic goldmedal winning swimmer claimed to be a ‘commodity’, and five years after Ali went toe to toe with ‘Smoking’ Joe Frazier for US$2.5 million each. It was twelve years after golf professional Doug Sanders mischievously suggested to Arnold Palmer that he ‘ought to take a week off, just to count his money’.

Keywords: United States Bureau; Cultural Imperialism; International Food Policy Research Institute; Societal Transformation; Global Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-59889-8_1

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230598898_1

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