Best Practices for Sports Teams

The Idea
"The Corporate Executive Board" for sports teams: offer best practices research to professional sports team General Managers and/or Directors of Operations to deal with strategic problems in hiring, marketing, venue management, government relations, corporate relations, operations and other issues.

Origins

Tom Monahan, CEO of the Corporate Executive Board and my former boss, had this idea years ago but never executed on it.

How It Works

Sports teams pay a membership fee and get access to strategic studies as well as an archive of past studies. The membership at large determines the hot topics such as "Marketing During the Recession" or "Strategies for Salary Caps" or "Best Practices for Working With Architects for New Venues." The membership includes attendance at one of several annual meetings around the world at which the company would present the research and sports team executives would network with each other.

Resources Needed

Consulting experience, a core of "charter members" to get the program started, possibly sports management education or experience.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage (If Any)

This type of program operates on a network effect: once enough sports teams of various types are members, it is hard for a competitor to gain a foothold because it is always more attractive for a new member to join the larger group with the well-managed team GMs as its clients. Otherwise, the new member does not get the advantage of expertise from the industry leaders.