How The Sporting Industry Deals With Activism

In the wake of such a political culture, activism has continuously became more and more prominent in our world today. I really would like to emphasize on the word prominent. When I say this, I do not mean static issues nor do I mean necessarily large, major issues in our world. What I really mean, is the amount of people participating in and actively making intentional actions in order to bring about social and political change, as well as the abundance of smaller issues has made its mark during this spark of social media. With the advent of the internet, people have the ability to show the world how they are connected to organizations or positive and negative efforts much larger than before. Their faces, names, and even how many people are collectively participating in such activist efforts, has been directly related to the advent of social media mediums like Twitter, Facebook and blogging websites. Sports activism deals with very extreme issues, considering the mass appeal that the industry has on its attention getters. So many people view sports, have a particular sport they pay the most attention too, have favorite teams and idolize certain players. These attention getters participate in obvious activist efforts and advocate for certain political change, but where I see the strongest impact towards activism, is seen within the athletes themselves. In the last few years, we’ve seen sports activism at every locus on the ideological continuum. On the right, short lived football star Tim Tebow, starred in an antiabortion Super Bowl ad. In the transpartisan middle, Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas refused to attend the White House’s Stanley Cup ceremony because he said he “believes the Federal government has grown out of control.” And on the left, Major League Baseball teams have led public campaigns against anti-gay bullying. And, of course, there is LeBron James who organized Miami Heat players into a hoodie-themed photo in solidarity with those demanding an investigation into the shooting of Trayvon Martin. James’ move best highlights the veering undercurrents. As the Bleacher Report’s Ryne Hodkowski noted, “corporate athletes who don’t say anything political are in fear of losing a big-time contract."  No matter the issue, sports is now involved. Fans now expect their sports deities to embrace that new normal, and as the big time star Lebron James shows, those deities are increasingly responding to the call.

Crowdfunding: Sports!

There are plenty of crowdfunding opportunities for film, music and design but what about sports? Luckily sites have been popping up more abundantly than ever opening up major efforts of funding within the world of sports to individuals and organizations. Crowdfunding at its most basic level, is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet. When in the midst of a global recession, with many brands suffering and most marketing budgets slashed, sponsorship and funding for sports can be extremely hard to come by and even when some is secured, it is often not quite enough. In my eyes, the most beneficial crowdfunding options in the sports industry come from the athletes themselves.  Like musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs, competitive athletes have big dreams. Unfortunately, they lack the necessary funding and sponsorships to help realize their intriguing, passionate goals. That is when crowdfunding comes into play. After some research I was able to come up with some websites that are excellent for funding athletes and teams. They are: Rallyme, DreamFuel, Pursuit, SportFunder, MakeaChamp, and Athlete.com. All of these sites were inspired in either the U.S or other outside countries to help athletes raise money for either themselves and teams to fund projects on campaigns relating to their sports. This all raises awareness and is good practice in the efforts of maintaining good relationships and strong support from outsiders. So go fund an athlete or team today and support local sports!

The Use of Social Collaboration to Strengthen Business

Social collaboration is related to social networking with the distinction that social collaboration is more group-centric more so than individual-centric. When I say the term collaboration, this does not particularly pertain to sharing information, thoughts and ideas on an individual basis, but that of which contributes to a total group effort. By definition, social collaboration refers to the processes that help multiple people interact and share information to achieve any common goal. These processes are usually found on the internet, where collaboration and social exchanging of information is made easier through the use of innovations directly related to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Crowdsourcing has been a recent topic that has allowed individuals to work together using networks and social media to reach a common goal. Well, social collaboration is just that. Within the business of sports, social collaboration in my eyes, is a small key that packs a big punch. Lots of businesses are using this to their advantage, but not enough are excelling with it. Collaboration among individuals is an appealing experience, because participation is a low investment, with the possibility of a high return. This then allows entrepreneurs in the sports world to engage and invest in new innovative ideas with the masses in order to receive feedback and push on projects and business models to ultimately reach their goal. It's a win, win situation. It gives employees a higher understanding for the knowledge of management and relations that allow industries like sports to grow as a whole. Through environmental factors, participant characteristics, structure of communication, the overall purposes discussed and adequate recourses, social collaboration can and will result in positive influences for businesses and major industries looking to continuously grow, like the sports world.