Assessing organizational attributes contributing to marketing excellence in American professional sport franchises

While an abundance of research exists on the topic of professional sport marketing, little, if any, has been directed toward identifying predictors of franchise marketing success or, perhaps more importantly, measuring excellence within this organizational unit. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of this investigation was to identify key indicators for success or excellence as defined by Peters and Waterman within marketing divisions of American professional sport franchises. The results have enabled the authors to develop a paradigm with which to assess strengths and weaknesses of various dimensions within a professional sport franchise’s marketing operations. These findings have profound implications for team management as not all franchises are fortunate enough to produce winning team records and thus are challenged to explore other options for achieving marketing excellence.