PROTEUS JOURNAL ISSN/eISSN: 0889-6348 Reputation Management in the Indian Premier League: A Case Study on Chennai Super Kings Dasika Chaitanya1, Neeraj Manivannan2 & Yash Rangarajan3 1MPSTME, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, India 2MPSTME, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, India 3MPSTME, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, India 1 [email protected], [email protected], 3 [email protected] Abstract: Good reputation creates a positive image of the organization. The Indian Premier League (IPL) contributed 11.5 billion INR to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The 6.3 billion USD IPL ecosystem provides significant scope for research. The research aims to explore the concept of corporate reputation for sports teams in general and IPL in specific. The researchers have analyzed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as a team to unearth the effect of various drivers of corporate reputation on the reputation of sports franchises, based on a total of 213 responses and secondary data analysis from Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), Times Internet and IPL official websites. The researchers applied filters to ratings, subsequently added different weights to opinions of CSK and non-CSK fans, and calculated a scaled mean rating for each factor using a weighted average factor method to estimate its impact on the corporate reputation of CSK. The findings of the research indicate that team spirit and consistent on-field performance team captain have the most significant impact on CSK’s reputation. The key beneficiaries of this study will be sports franchise strategy planners and decision-makers, stakeholders. The researchers have proposed a scorecard that will enable the stakeholders to understand the relative strength each factor has on the corporate reputation of the team. Keywords: Reputation Score card, Indian Premier League, Team Ethos, Player Orientation, Player Retention, Team Success Introduction Corporate Reputation is a premier intangible asset that determines organizational success. The sustenance of a good corporate reputation leads to the creation of greater value to the stakeholder. Organization equity and financial strength are greatly enhanced by ensuring favorable reputation amongst stakeholders. (Fombrun and Shanley, 1990.) Good reputation creates a positive image of the organization. Reputation is now a significant factor in business, including sports. Reputation is the concept by which the sports club creates a pretty picture of itself. It is something that the organization shouldn’t neglect as it can quickly turn into a negative reputation. The reputation of the sports club impacts its fans and this is reflected positively on social media and the club’s fan pages. Good reputation creates a positive image of the organization. The effect of organization reputation and satisfaction revealed an outstanding organization reputation can increase the intrinsic valuation of a firm and increase its market share and impacts the customer base. (Hong and Jang, 2009) Studies show that individuals project a higher measure of faith and trust onto well-reputed sports organizations (Shank and Bravo, 2010), increase their loyalty towards those Volume 11 Issue 7 2020 http://proteusresearch.org/ Page No: 33 PROTEUS JOURNAL ISSN/eISSN: 0889-6348 organizations (Czarnitzki and Stadtmann, 2002; Walsh et al, 2009), engage in positive word of mouth activity (Walsh and Beatty, 2007) and demonstrating a close affiliation with the organization by purchasing merchandise products (Walsh et al, 2009). Existing reputation measurement scales developed in the fields of marketing, management, and ignore characteristics specific to sports teams’, such as team performance and team tradition (e.g. Walker and Kent, 2009). The role of reputation in predicting the consumption behavior of sports fans remains to be explored (Walker and Kent, 2009). A Spectator-based Sports Team Reputation (SSTR) method was developed by considering the two parameters: reputation built on a collective level and through interactions between a sports team and spectator experiences (Jang et al, 2015) Scope: The main focus of this research effort was the creation of a comprehensive framework by which the reputation of sports teams, specifically CSK, a cricket franchise playing in the IPL, can be analyzed. The study involves identifying the most relevant factors affecting corporate reputation in the aforementioned cricket franchise by using a blend of analytics and weighted average factor method for indicator recognition. The project covers the assignment of a score to each factor based on which the relative effect of each factor on reputation is tabulated. The study is limited to an extensive spectator study within India itself and the subjects studied are all Indian nationals. The project can be used as a blueprint for reputation measurement and factor determination in all existing cricket franchises in the world. Some calculations, assumptions, and selections were made as a consideration of the authors’ method and approach. This study is based on the first eleven years of the IPL tournament, which focuses on the years from 2008 to 2018. All the data that has been included in this research study was extracted in March 2019, prior to the start of the twelfth edition of the tournament held in 2019. Need and Relevance: Throughout its history, cricket has been a highly exclusive game, played only among ten to twelve countries for the first hundred and thirty years of its existence. It, therefore, had limited reach and scope, catering to a gentlemanly audience class with a limited need for international teams to manage their reputation. Standardized teams and supporter nationalism coupled with exemplary player conduct while representing their nations ensured that the reputation of international cricket teams was always effervescing around a high standard. The advent of T20 leagues and franchise cricket thirteen years ago (2007) in a cricket- crazy nation like India crated a need to measure the corporate reputation of these teams, since the spectator demographic is neither entirely elite nor is the support even remotely dependent on just geographic and locational factors. While studies have been previously conducted to study various aspects of corporate reputation, there are a limited number of them on sports franchises in general and cricket franchises in specific. New studies can be conducted in the area of sports team management to analyze the impact of team ethos, owner influence, spectator orientation, player impact, and team success on the corporate reputation of sports franchises. The impact of each of these factors and the extent to which they influence sports team reputation can be analyzed in greater detail over an 11 years from 2008-2018. Further, the research will attempt to identify if a particular factor has a more pronounced effect on reputation than another factor, and present a scorecard of factors that affect sports team reputation, in decreasing order of their effect on the same. Volume 11 Issue 7 2020 http://proteusresearch.org/ Page No: 34 PROTEUS JOURNAL ISSN/eISSN: 0889-6348 The researchers believe that, in an age where live sports draw increasing viewership both as gate crowds and via television broadcasts, the management of the reputation of sports franchises is a neglected area. This work is an attempt to pinpoint, assess and improve performance within the factors that affect corporate reputation within the context on CSK, and use the insights to build a reputational model that can be replicated across all sports franchises. Cricket has evolved drastically with countries starting their own T20 leagues with foreign players turning up to represent these teams. The advent of T20 has commercialized the sport, with huge investments poured into franchises in the form of sponsorships. The researchers believe this paper will be of utility to sports planners, franchise investors, team owners and marketing, reputation, and social media managers working for sports franchises all around the world. CSK - A short summary CSK is an IPL franchise based in Chennai, India. Having won the IPL thrice, it is the most successful franchise in the tournament’s history. They hold the record of most appearances in the playoffs stage (nine) and in the final (seven). Apart from just being successful, CSK is also one of the most popular franchises, mainly due to the presence of former Indian cricket team captain M.S. Dhoni. CSK is a model of consistency, and they emphasize on ‘playing the game hard but fair, and within the spirit of the game. Cricket is referred to as ‘The Gentleman’s Game’. The International Cricket Council recognizes that playing hard, but playing fair is an important aspect while playing the sport. The ICC thus has an award known as the ‘ICC Spirit of Cricket Award’ that recognizes the contributions made by an individual or a team to play the sport in a dignified manner. M.S. Dhoni, the CSK captain, is a recipient of this prestigious award. The IPL also followed suit and the organizers have tried to get the teams to play within the ‘Spirit of the game’. After the spot-fixing scandal rocked the tournament in the sixth edition in 2013, the organizers have made it a point for the teams to pledge allegiance to MCC’s Spirit of Cricket. The teams pledge to play hard, but play fair and within the spirit of the game. During its first edition in April 2008, the IPL had pledged its allegiance to the MCC's Spirit of Cricket campaign, and it has been reaffirming it each year. This is done during the Opening Ceremony that is held prior to the commencement of each edition of the tournament with the captains called onto the stage to sign the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ bat. The IPL also has a ‘Fair Play Award’ that is given at the conclusion of each season to the team with the best record of fair play. After each match, the two on-field umpires, and the third umpire, score the performance of both the teams out of a total of 10 points.