Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Creative Components Dissertations Spring 2019 Professional sports teams & the community: a comparative case study of two professional basketball teams Hans Brase Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/creativecomponents Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, and the Sports Studies Commons Recommended Citation Brase, Hans, "Professional sports teams & the community: a comparative case study of two professional basketball teams" (2019). Creative Components. 144. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/creativecomponents/144 This Creative Component is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. 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For more information, please contact [email protected]. 0 Professional Sports Teams & The Community: a comparative case study of two professional basketball teams Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Creative Component By: Hans Brase Committee Members: Russell Laczniak, Meghan Gillette, Tim Borich April 10, 2019 1 Table of Contents Purpose & Inspiration: 2 Mitteldeutscher Basketball Club (MBC): Background 3 Basketball History 5 New York Knicks: Background 6 Basketball History 8 The Businesses: MBC 9 NY Knicks 10 Community Efforts: MBC 11 Kinder+Sport Basketball Academy Night of Baskets & Prevention Activities at Schools AOK Youth Camp MIBRAG School Sport Project NY Knicks 18 Celebrating Diversity & Empowering Communities Recognizing Heroes Stewarding Youth Education & Mentorship Junior Knicks Conclusion: 25 Bibliography: 29 2 PURPOSE: All organizations are unique in their individual goals and aspirations. However, often is the case that organizations within the same industry share perspectives and overarching themes regarding how they go about achieving their perspective goals. In my paper, I will be comparing two professional basketball organizations that from first glance have very little, if anything, in similar besides the fact that they are both professional basketball teams. Through my research and personal experiences, I aim to answer the question of whether or not two professional basketball organizations are more alike in their community engagement and involvement than we would assume based upon their differences in size, financials, and locations. I hope to show that while different in so many ways, the end goal of building a brand through community outreach is possible regardless of whether it is with a small town basketball organization in Germany or one of the biggest sports franchises in one of the biggest cities in the world. I define community engagement as the process of working hand in hand with the people of your given community in an attempt to improve the well-being of individuals and the subsequent entire community. I will look to achieve these aforementioned goals by use of a case study analysis method. By using this method I am comparing two basketball organizations and their community engagement efforts, one of which being a smaller market team in a developing league and the other being a very well established team in a very well established league. INSPIRATION: I came up with this topic for many reasons. First and foremost, I am a professional basketball player for one of the teams mentioned in my paper, Mitteldeutscher Basketball Club. Thus, my first-hand experience being a part of the club and in volunteering in the community as 3 a player has given me valuable insight as to the power and value that community outreach has. On the other side of the spectrum, my girlfriend works as a fan development and community relations manager for the New York Rangers of the NHL. Hearing her daily responsibilities and first-hand impact that she experiences with the community outreach of a franchise giant such as the NY Rangers, I felt this was the perfect comparative case study. Because of my unique position to have insider information and contacts within both my basketball club and the colleagues of my girlfriend at the NY Knicks (both NY Rangers and NY Knicks are owned and operated by MSG Sports Company and both operate together in the MSG business offices), I felt as if I had to take on this project. MITTELDEUTSCHER BASKETBALL CLUB (MBC): BACKGROUND The Mitteldeutscher Basketball Club, MBC, is a professional basketball organization in the town of Weissenfels, Germany. The town is located in former East Germany and is roughly 30 miles Southwest of the large German city of Leipzig, population of over 500,000 people. The town of Weissenfels itself is much smaller, with an estimated population of just over 40,000 people (40,874 when calculated at the end of 2017) located within the 43 square mile town limit (Statisken-Sachsen Anhalt.de). During the 1900s, the town’s primary industry was shoe manufacturing until the final factory closed in 1991 following the opening of the 4 wall separating East and West Germany. Since then, food processing has become the largest industry with a nearby meat processing plant being the single largest employer of the people of Weissenfels. The Mitteldeutscher Basketball Club has a rather short basketball history, being founded and first joining the top professional basketball division in Germany in 1999. The team plays its home games in the Stadthalle Weissenfels. The arena has a spectator capacity of 3,000, the smallest in the league, and averaged just under 2500 fans per game for the 2017-18 season based upon the league website (Easycredit-BBL.de). Constructed in 2002 the arena is said to have cost just over 8 million euro (present day value of approximately 9.1 million US dollars) (Weissenfels.de). The Stadthalle, literally translates to ‘town gym’ in German, serves as a multipurpose arena, being a home gym to not only the MBC basketball team but also the local floorball team (sport is described as being a type of floor hockey on an indoor surface). Alongside the floorball team, the arena is also used as a location for a multitude of different functions ranging from hosting concerts and boxing matches, to being used as a physical education gym for the local middle and high school. 5 MBC BASKETBALL HISTORY The MBC Wolves play in the German Basketball Bundesliga, BBL, which is the top professional basketball league in Germany and considered one of the top domestic leagues in Europe. MBC joined the BBL in 1999 but has seen inconsistent results multiple times resulting in relegation to the lower league. The relegation structure of the league began during the 2006-07 season. It works much like the European soccer relegation structures with the bottom two teams relegating down, Germany’s second-tier professional basketball league is known as the Pro-A, while the top two teams in the Pro-A are promoted up to the BBL the end of the each basketball season. Although the team has often struggled, during the 2003-04 season the team won the FIBA Europe Cup, an international league competition, but simultaneously struggled in the BBL, finishing the season 12th out of the 15-team league. Even though the team had such success during the championship season, the organization was in financial trouble and was forced to dissolve, dropping down to the Oberliga, Germany’s third-tier professional basketball league, for the following season. The season that followed, the 2004-05 season, the team won promotion to the Pro-A and remained in the second-tier league until its promotion 6 back into the BBL after winning the Pro-A during the 2008-09 season. The team was twice more relegated to the Pro-A for the 2011-12 and 2016-17 seasons; however, in each case was promoted back up to the BBL in the following seasons, where the team has remained since the beginning of the 2017-18 season. The BBL has grown in the number of teams since the league has 14 teams when MBC first joined during the 99-00. The league grew to 15 teams for the 03- 04 season and then to 18 teams for the 09-10 season, where it remains to this date. As an organization, MBC has not qualified for the playoffs, comprised of the top eight teams at the end of the regular season, since it went to two straight playoffs in their first two seasons in the BBL, 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons. However, since the 2000-01 season in which they finished 7th out of 14 teams, MBC has only finished in the top 10 of the BBL once, finished 9th out of 18 teams during the 2013-14 season, and has yet to finish higher than 6th place since first joining the BBL in 1999. NEW YORK KNICKS BACKGROUND The New York Knicks, formerly known as the Knickerbockers, is a professional basketball organization located in Manhattan, the most densely populated of the five boroughs that make up New York City. With a population of over 1.5 million people, Manhattan, New York is one of the most densely populated areas in the world given its modest size of 22 square miles (NYC.gov). According to travel+leisure.com Manhattan is home to three of the world’s top 7 ten most visited tourist attractions in Time Square, Central Park, and Grand Central Terminal (Travel+Leisure.com). The island of Manhattan is often considered the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world. This is determined based upon many factors such as Manhattan being home to the two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization in the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE, and the NASDAQ. Manhattan is also home to the United Nations headquarters, international news headquarters, some of the most expensive real estate in the world, as well as being the setting for countless books, television shows, and movies.