This Week’s Sports Business Case Studies: Suns, Bears, Penn State hockey, relegation

As a proud Harvard Business School alum, I am partial to case studies as an instructive tool to understand dynamics in management, innovation, investment or attention.

Each Friday, Ill select a few recent stories case studies, really published by The Athletics team that might yield insights about what works (or what doesnt) inside of organizations, surrounding athletes and impacting their success (and our fandom).

Dan Shanoff, Managing Editor, Sports Business A case study in ...

errors of enthusiasm Patience .

If I could boil down one thing that separates winners from suckers in the NBA, thats it.

The winners have it, and they prey on the chumps who dont over and over again.

The Phoenix Suns are just the latest, and most extreme, in a long line of examples, and its left them in a position where moving the franchises all-time leading scorer is about the only card left to play.

Read the entire case study here .

A case study in ...

hiring Poles ran his search through Microsoft Teams.

Everything was there : the calendar, candidate experience overviews and background information.

Upon the conclusion of each interview, the members of Poles interview panel (team president Kevin) Warren, (chairman George) McCaskey, Matt Feinstein (director of football administration), Jeff King (senior director of player personnel), Ted Crews (chief administrative officer/special adviser to the president and CEO) and Liz Geist (executive vice president of people and culture/chief human resources officer) were asked to grade each candidate.

Poles set a 1-9 scale: 1 being a major concern and 9 meaning excellent.

A variety of factors were considered: passion, football intelligence, vision, problem-solving, independence, communication, growth mindset, self-awareness and, of course, a plan for quarterback development.

Read the entire case study here .

A case study in ...

mismanagement The Athletic has spoken to multiple sources, all on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, to chart the ins and outs of their 2024-25 season and one thing has become clear: relegation was a foregone conclusion before a ball had even been kicked .

It was like a slow-motion car crash this summer, explained a first-team source.

Thats the only way to describe it.

Its knowing something (relegation) is going to happen but you cant do anything about it.

Read the entire case study here .

A case study in ...

power dynamics [Nico] Harrison reported directly to [Mark] Cuban when he came to the Mavericks in June 2021; the then-owner envisioned bringing in a relationships guy to meld with his years of experience making basketball decisions.

Even after Cuban sold his majority stake in the team, the billionaire tech founder painted a picture in which hed continue to work alongside Harrison to make the franchises most important calls.

But after the Doncic trade occurred, it became clear which one of the two had the decision-making juice .

Read the entire case study here .

A case study in ...

what money can buy Hockey at Penn State was defunded in 1909 and suspended during World War II.

It took 3,000 signatures on a petition in the early 1970s to revive the club program, which won six ACHA national titles and 512 games with Joe Battista as coach.

An $88 million commitment by Buffalo Sabres and Bills owner Terry Pegula in 2010 helped spark the birth of a Nittany Lions team that is now two wins from a national title.

Read the entire case study here .

A case study in ...

branding The sophomore sensation and the people around her have been preparing for this possibility before she started college.

Watkins signed with Klutch Sports Group as a junior in high school and has been building her brand portfolio ever since.

As a Los Angeles native, it has always been part of the plan to use her influence to elevate her community a previous partnership with Lids allowed her to design a hat that highlighted her neighborhood of Watts and choosing to attend USC allowed her to remain in the same spotlight.

Read the entire case study here .

Thats just reporting from The Athletic from the past few weeks alone .

Check out (or follow) The Athletics Sports Business section for more than 100 business-related stories published every week, including fascinating deep-dives like the ones above.

Back next Friday with more case studies.

(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.