Career Development in Football

The assignment content revolves around the topic of football as a popular game in the United States, specifically focusing on the New England Patriots and its impact on careers. The summary highlights how football is not only a form of entertainment but also offers an alternative career path for students with good skills and talents. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of sports in building socio-economic value, as well as providing opportunities for young players to develop their talents.

Running Head: Sports Management
SPORTS MANAGEMENT

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Areas of Management......................................................................................................................3
 Philosophy/management style of New England Team.........................................................3
 Team structure......................................................................................................................5
 Marketing/ Sponsorships......................................................................................................5
 TV/Broadcasting contracts...................................................................................................6
 Labour Relation....................................................................................................................7
 Contract law..........................................................................................................................8
 Sports Merchandising and Licensing....................................................................................9
 Community Impact...............................................................................................................9
 Major professional sports issues.........................................................................................10
Reflective Conclusion and Career plan.........................................................................................12
Reference List................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
People of USA are showing more interest in Football in the recent decades. Based on Football
various tournaments and leagues have been organized to make it more popular and continue the
craze. Recently people are getting interested in Football not only watching and enjoying but also
to choose as a career. The professional players are coming out from various parts of the country
and new tournaments are being organized. Therefore, playing Football nowadays is coming out
as a bright career too. The biggest ever tournament in USA is NFL that is National Football
League (nfl.com, 2017). They are the biggest organizer of Football Tournament in USA
(nfl.com, 2017). It includes 32 numbers of teams from all over the country. The best ever team
who is performing well in NFL is New England Patriot. New England Patriot is professional
Football team from Greater Boston Region. This club was established on November 16, 1957
and played their first ever session in 1960 (patriots.com, 2017). They hold the record of most
number of wins in NFL history (won eight straight division titles from 2009 to 2016).
Franchisees are also getting interested to invest in the team. Being a reputed club from last few
decades, players are also showing interest to play in this team. New England Patriots have their
own values and ethics; they set short-term goals and recruit players according to that
(patriots.com, 2017). Players with excellent skills and talents are getting their chances to play for
this team. Therefore it can be predicted that Football is getting popularity and it can be chosen as
a sustainable career.
Areas of Management
 Philosophy/management style of New England Team

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The owner Robert Kraft credits the success of the team to the winning philosophy adopted by the
team. According to him everybody in the team should give priority to winning and every player
and nonpayer should contribute to winning of the games (Milton et al. 2016).
The Mission of New England Patriot is to promote a passion for work ethics. The club strives to
create training opportunities to assure that each person within the organization get same scope to
gain skills and achieve success. As per Agergaard & Ryba (2014), the goal of New England
Patriot team is to grow their business, acquire new clients and extend the presence of the
organization to multiple markets in the United States. As per Ross et al. (2015), the team follow
the management style of Belichik who is the CEO of the team. His management style includes –
1. Opponent Analysis
2. Situational Practice
3. Clock Management
4. Strategy and Tactics
5. Strength and Conditioning
6. Two-minute drills
7. Advance planning for sudden injuries
8. Matching the talents and skills of players to the roles
9. Managing emotions
10. Substituting players smoothly
11. Managing trouble outside the field
12. Keeping track on opponent moves and strategies
13. Avoiding turnovers
14. Preventing penalties

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 Team structure
The Team build up its organization structure in such a way that the focus is on the head coach.
They have built the organization around the available talent. As per Boland, (2015), the Head
Coach is given the autonomy to handle all aspects of the team. The Team follow a Decentralized
structure where several members take part in decision made by personnel. In this several
members are contributing to the analysis of the team and the team reaps the benefit of division of
labour. The members are allowed to provide input to the players to enhance their performance.
The Organizational chart – Owner- Robert Kraft, President- Jonathan Kraft, Director of Player
Personnel-Nick Caserio, Head Coach- Bill Belichick, Assistant head coach/offensive line- Dante
Scarnecchia, Offensive Coaches, Defensive Coaches and Special Team Coaches (Khawaja &
Mushtaq, 2017).
 Marketing/ Sponsorships
a) 5 Ps of marketing
Product/services- The New England Team has a brand name it has a uniform, a flag, a logo and
a mascot which makes it different from all other teams. These unique products owned by the
team make the supporter emotional.
Place - The Grounds where New England Team plays. The audience are attracted to the place by
offering concession in tickets and merchandising, providing parking, restrooms and fun zones.
Price- The price of the tickets for the game of New England Patriot is changed according to the
economy of the people, competition and frequency of the match. As per Boland, (2015), the
prices can range between $45 and $890 depending upon the seat. The pricing programs that the
team can undertake are season tickets, value pricing, price levels and promotions (patriots.com,
2017).

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Promotions- The Team should undertake promotional activities to attract audience and increase
the value of the game. The Promotional programs that the Team undertakes are distributing
autographs, shirts and hats of players, displaying fireworks when the team wins, sticking posters
of the upcoming matches, advertising in various media about the team and the upcoming
matches (Thornton, 2016).
Public Relations- The ultimate goal is to create a positive image about the team this is done by
the team with help of ad campaigns, interviews and press conferences.
Sponsorships-The New England team has several sponsors like the Gillette, Verizon, Bank of
America, Uber, American Airlines, Toyota Motor, PepsiCo and McDonald’s.
The New England Team uses analytics and Behaviour-based digital marketing. The sophisticated
marketing of New England Patriot includes producing an hour long on demand video per day
and a half an hour duration streaming video during the season. It also a mobile app and website
where personal information about the players are available, marketing through social media,
email and ecommerce helped the team to build its brand.
The of and through marketing -Of marketing means marketing of football event through
different media .Through marketing means marketing of events and products in the football
game. The sponsors displays the events, products and services through advertising campaigns in
the stadium
 TV/Broadcasting contracts
a) The various broadcasting rights are as follows:
1. Free TV- Channels providing content without any subscription.
2. Play TV - Premium channels that the viewers need to subscribe.

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3. Video on Demand-System which enables people to watch or listen to a program according to
their convenience.
b) During the late 1980s ESPN held the broadcasting rights of the NFL matches. In the 1990s
TNT network broadcasted the NFL matches. The total broadcasting contracts with all the
networks amounted to $900 million per year which was the highest broadcasting right for any
league (Edelman, 2015). The regular season games are broadcasted on CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN
and NFL network. During the 2012 NFL season some networks provided audio in Spanish
language. As per new broadcast contract of 2014 the NBC Universo began broadcasting the
football matches played on Sunday night.
 Labour Relation
a) The NEP follows the collective Bargain Agreement which enables the negotiations between
the player association and NEP owner According to the National Labour Relations Act the NEP
grants the employee's right to form labour unions. In NEP the owner do not discriminate
employees due to their employee union activity. The NEP pays a minimum wage as mentioned
in the labour law and overtime is paid after 40 hours of regular work every week. It allows a 12
weeks unpaid leave due to medical reasons.
b) Drug violation may result in suspension of the player (Maxcy, 2014). The NEP frequently
eliminates players from the team because they are old, injured and unfit. As per Roberts et al.
(2016), the team only retains players who are the fines.According to the agreement .revenues
should be distributed; health and safety standards of the players should be maintained. The
players will be given pension and medical benefits. The employees are recruited on a contractual
basis.

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c) The employees or NFL players can be fired for any season. The NEP which is under the NFL
is subject to the Americans with disability act which protects the employees against
discrimination based on sex, race, age and disability. The NEP which comes under this law must
make effort to work with the employees with disabilities.
 Contract law
a) The players are hired on contract basis for a period of 1- 3 years. If the performance of players
and other staffs are found to be satisfactory then the contract is renewed again. According to the
contract if the performance of the player is found to unsatisfactory then the management can
terminate the contract with player at any time at their will. If the player is unavailable to the team
during, practice and matches then it will result in firing the player (Hill, 2017). According to the
contract the Forfeiture of salary provision in the agreement, the Players and Club may not agree
upon the contract that authorizes the NEP to obtain a forfeiture of the salary from a player, but
salary already earned by the player cannot be forfeited except to the conditions provided in the
contract agreement (Kim, 2015). Equal facility and training will be provided to all players so that
they can be better sportspersons.
b) As per Green & Carney, 2017), contracts that can be important for the players are that the
players will be provided with training opportunity and the huge amount that is paid during the
agreement that can motivate players.
c) The Team entered into contract of sponsorship agreement with Gillette which holds the
naming rights of the stadium. According to contract with uber will help the fans reach the
stadium where New England matches are played. It will have a dedicated area for all pickup and
drop off services near the stadium (Gould & Tillett, 2014).

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 Sports Merchandising and Licensing
(a)The professional Logo of New England Patriot is as follows.
A fan suggests this logo in the early days of the club. The tri corner logo with a white
background implies the revolution of England. As per Boland, (2015), it is the replica of
American Flag too.
(b) New England patriots have their own trademark process. They use the symbols, logo, slogans
and brand values as their trademark issues. There are strict rules that no one can use those
without the permission or tie-up with the authority. Their business rules are also very popular,
they publish new products like jersey, shorts, and they allow using their logo in market
companies with proper amount of remunerations.
(c) As per Cinque et al. (2017), they also generate the biggest amount of remunerations from the
star players by public appearance, selling their own brand products, signature. Selling match
tickets and from the interest gained from the participation in the NFL tournament they also
gathers a huge amount of remuneration.
 Community Impact
(a) Besides having a good impact in the soccer field, New England Patriot has also good socio-
economic role in the society. Last year their foundation taught CPR skills to almost 3,800

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students and donated 20-25 AED units. They also helped children with serious heart disease and
carried the entire expenses for their recovery (Davenport, 2014). The Kraft family and New
England Patriots Charitable Foundation are also receiving many application from the willing for
the volunteer post. They represent the star players in the community and public welfare
programmes. From this initiative and organizing friendly Football matches, they collect revenues
and donate the entire in charitable trust (Pink, Saunders & Stynes, 2015).
(b) Every year they pledged to share a lion share in the countries charitable organizations. Every
renowned player of the team visits occasionally in the schools and colleges and share their
experiences of their career to motivate the young champions. As per Watt, Richardson & Wilkins
(2014), local business has been improved a lot by selling team’s jersey, flags, Footballs and so
on. Building contractors and structure developers are also being profited by construction of
stadiums, stalls, playing grounds.
(c) Not only this they have announced awards for students performing well in the arena of sports
and tributes to the revolutionary acts. Therefore they have a good economic impact upon the
society. In this way, socio-economic impact is also being improved in the locality (Saint‐Maurice
et al. 2017). People are investing money in business related to Football and purchasing shares
from the team.
 Major professional sports issues
(a) New England Patriot has faced a major sports issue regarding the match with Colts. They
defeated Colts in 45-7. However, the credit goes to the players of New England Patriot but many
controversies arose just after the match. According to Colts equipment manager Sean Sullivan,
the game officials for checking took out the balls used by the Patriots. The ball boys used a ball
needle to take out some air from the balls to make it easy for griping. The manager claimed this

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statement and investigation was done on the issue (Oates & Furness, 2015). The game-
suspension proved to be more prominent when the Patriots official Tom Brady destroyed his cell
phone just before the investigation. After four months’ investigation the head coach stated in a
public conference he did not know about anything regarding the under inflammation of the ball.
There was an issue regarding negotiation competition with Ray Rice also (Riley, 2015).
Therefore, these controversies affected them sometimes.

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Reflective Conclusion and Career plan
Football is being a very popular game in USA by NFL and it has a positive impact upon the
society. People are also choosing Football as a career inspired from the team New England
Patriot. I think having a career only based upon education acquired, sports is also showing some
alternative ways. Therefore students with good skills and talents in Football can chose their
career as sports. I have seen that the tournament has turned up the socio-economic value to a
high level and there are enough scopes to build a robust career. Remembering this factor,
students and young generations are also being more involved in sports which is a positive impact
upon the nation. Besides studying, students like me are getting interest in Football and thus the
hidden talents are coming out. New England Patriot’s authority inspiring young boys in the field
of Football and they are nurturing those with proper talents. In this way they are also getting
more players from the locality, which is helping them to set their goals properly. This way
collaboration between the employee and the organization is being developed. New England
Patriot is also being benefitted from this process as they have a scope to recruit new players from
the locality. It reduces the cost to buy or hire player from sub-continental regions. The chances of
gaining skilled player are more as they are guiding and providing coaching to the new players. I
have also noticed that the other clubs in the country also following this method to make new
players. Therefore my chances of making a good and robust career are increasing day by day in
the sports field. Students can also make a mind to build a professional career in Football as an
alternative to general services. Not only boys but also now a day’s NFL has also taken initiatives
to organize women’s Football. For this, they inspire teenage girls to play Football at different
stages in schools and educational institutions by providing playing kits, coaching. It is also
showing a way to make career for girls. Those who are having a mind set-up to make Football as

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a career should make regular practice to play Football. New England Patriot is giving
opportunity to the novice players and students to play Football in their academy and under their
guidance. Therefore New England Patriot, more prominently Football is showing a new way to
the country to choose their career and improving the socio-economic impact.

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