On Monday, TheBusinessOfSports.com released the finalists for the inaugural “The Business of Sports Awards.” As explained on their website, the awards serve to highlight the best in sports business content: “Unlike other sports business awards that recognize the people working within specific organizations, the goal for these awards is to recognize those individuals, companies and websites that create and share the best sports business content and provide the most benefit for the rest of the sports industry.” The Sports Business Exchange team was nominated in two categories. The Sports Business Exchange (journal) was nominated for “Best Alternative Sports Business Content.” Joshua Duboff, TSBX’s Founder, was nominated for “Best Sports Business Up and Comer.” Below is a complete list of finalists in both categories:

Best Sports Business Up and Comer
-Ash Read
-Christopher Lee
-Jon Kander
-Josh Feinberg
-Joshua Duboff
-Peter V. Amador
-Amanda Miller

Best Alternative Sports Business Content
-Sports Business Radio (Podcast)
-The Row Show (Weekly web video broadcast)
-Sports Marketing 2.0 (Social network)
-The Sports Business Exchange (Quarterly online journal)
-Power Sponsorship / Kim Skildum-Reid (Webinars, white papers, and tutorials)
-Be Your Own Fan TV / Goldklang Group (Bi-weekly web video)

To see a complete list of all categories and all finalists, and to vote for the “People’s Choice – Sports Business Social Media Contributor of the Year” award, visit TheBusinessOfSports.com.

Winners will be anounced at the beginning of May.

The Spring 2010 Issue of The Sports Business Exchange is set to be released this week. Here’s a brief look at the authors, article titles, and topics.

Founder’s Message: TSBX 2010
Joshua Duboff
With one year in the rear view mirror, The Sports Business Exchange’s Founder looks ahead to the coming years.
 
An Analysis of MyFootballClub As A Brand Community
Guilherme Guimaraes
It is a case study about a British Football club that was taken over by web users and it is now run through a virtual community: MyFootballClub.co.uk.

Participation in the Olympics: Does the NHL Really Have a Choice?
Amanda M. Miller
An examination of the issues surrounding the NHL’s impending decision on whether to schedule a break in their schedule to accommodate the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Marketing Intercollegiate Athletics at the NCAA Division III Level
Cheryl Robinson
The article identifies the benefits and challenges that come with marketing an NCAA Division III college/university verse a Division I college/university.

NEW YORK—The Sports Business Exchange (TSBX) and the Journal of Sport Administration & Supervision (JSAS) today announced a partnership between the two publications that will involve cross-publication of selected articles on various sport business topics aimed at improving practices of business professionals in the sport industry.

Founded by Joshua Duboff in February 2009, TSBX is a sports business trade journal available in both print and online formats, which publishes articles on current events, trends, research, and concerns written from the perspectives of young sport business professionals.

Founded in March 2007 by Colby B. Jubenville and Benjamin D. Goss, JSAS is an online, open access, peer-reviewed academic journal designed to develop, advance, disseminate, promote, and preserve knowledge within the academic discipline of sport management by providing a research outlet that is both grounded in academic theory and driven by the needs of practitioners and the environment of the sport industry.

The TSBX/JSAS partnership evolved after Duboff and Goss identified considerable similarity and overlaps between the two publications’ core values and concluded that both publications could increase their audiences and scopes of influence with article exchanges.

“After connecting with Joshua via social media and learning more about TSBX and why he founded it, the obvious benefits of a partnership soon emerged,” Goss said.

“Joshua’s audience of young practitioners are a primary target that we seek to influence with the whitepaper versions of JSAS articles, and certainly academicians can utilize the perspectives of young professionals shared in TSBX with the next generation of entry- and mid-level managers they’re training to help them successfully make the transition into the professional world.”

 Duboff noted that he also soon saw the potential benefits of a partnership.

“I founded TSBX to give young, front-line sport business professionals a voice and an outlet for best-practice and problem-solving sharing and interactivity to help them find ways to do their jobs better, or simply put, to give them a voice where previously there was none.” Duboff said.

“Articles in JSAS are subjected to the rigors of a scientific peer-review process to determine their academic quality, so I felt that sharing the contents of quality academic research with TSBX readers would only add a positive dimension to our publication.”

Duboff added that JSAS’s whitepaper format for sharing condensed versions of the academic research provided a useful tool for sport business practitioners.

“Many elements of the sport industry are information-driven, and certainly quality, scientifically assessed information is often vital, but the format of scholarly articles is often a stumbling block for many people in the field,” he said.

“However, much like the topical articles found in TSBX, practicing young sport professionals can use the JSAS whitepapers to obtain a quick, concise capsule of information that they can incorporate directly into their working world.”

 “Each article is almost a sport management class in itself,” Duboff added.

 In addition to the benefits of building a practitioner audience for JSAS and utilizing TSBX papers in college classroom instruction, Goss said that another direct benefit of the partnership would be the provision of hot-button topics directly from practitioners to academics, who could then utilize them for directing and/or refining their research agendas.

“Exposing an academic audience to the thoughts and questions of practitioners will boost the likelihood of more practical, applied research that will help directly sustain the sport industry, particularly in such an uncertain economic climate,” Goss said.

TSBX papers are peer reviewed by young sports business professionals who share an interest in the research and academia of sport business. 

For its review process, JSAS utilizes two academic reviewers, who review the academic manuscript, and one practitioner reviewer, who reviews the management whitepaper.

Accordingly, while the exact number of articles exchanged will vary, Duboff and Goss said the partnership would likely involve the inclusion of one JSAS whitepaper in each TSBX issue, while each JSAS issue would include as many as three TSBX articles.

TSBX is published quarterly, and its next issue is due to be released in early April 2010.

JSAS is published annually, and it will release its next issue in mid-April 2010

In addition to serving as the Founder/Editor-in-Chief of TSBX, Duboff is also a collegiate sports media professional in New York, N.Y.

Duboff graduated with a B.S. in sport management and B.A. in political science from the University of Massachusetts and is currently pursuing his MBA at City University of New York – Baruch College.

Goss, who serves as editor-in-chief for JSAS, is an associate professor in the College of Business Administration at Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo.

Jubenville, who serves as JSAS’s publisher, is a professor and director of the Center for Sport Policy & Research at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., which houses the journal.

To learn more about TSBX, visit
www.TheSportsBusinessExchange.com.

For more information about TSBX, please contact:
Joshua Duboff
Editor-in-Chief
duboff@thesportsbusinessexchange.com

To learn more about JSAS, visit www.jsasonline.org.

For more information about JSAS, please contact:
Dr. Benjamin D. Goss
Editor-in-Chief
bgoss@jsasonline.org
417-836-6592

This week’s featured young sports business professional is Steven Gibbs from Hoop Mountain.

Name: Steven Gibbs

Age: 24

Name of Company(s) Hoop Mountain Basketball, Zero Gravity Basketball, Team New England Select Basketball, The Pingree School

Web Site: www.hoopmountain.com

Favorite sport to play: Basketball

Favorite sport to watch: Basketball

Favorite professional team(s):
Boston Celtics, Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, Boston Bruins

Favorite college team(s):
Boston College Eagles, Syracuse Orange, UMass Minutemen, Harvard Crimson

Please briefly describe your background in sports business:
Director of Event Operations and Marketing for Hoop Mountain Basketball Corporation, a partner of the New England Recruiting Report. I also serve as managing partner for the Zero Gravity Basketball Tournament Series and coach basketball at Pingree, the current New England Prep School Basketball Champions.

If you could change one thing in sports business what would it be?
Exploitation of intercollegiate student-athletes. For example, John Wall brings in millions of dollars to the University of Kentucky, but will be forced to leave Coach Cal and company after just one year to support his family and go to the NBA. I feel as there should be a way for superstars like this to get a taste of the income they bring in which could possibly help college athletes stay and graduate before turning pro.

What’s your most prized possession that you display at your desk and why?
I proudly display a John Calipari signed “Refuse to Lose” Basketball on my desk. This gives myself the motivation to “Refuse to Lose” any business deal, any basketball game, and conflict that comes up while I am in the office.

Do you think you have encountered any unique challenges or advantages because of your age?
I feel that being in a decision making position at the age of 24 presents both its challenges and advantages. A challenge is certainly the fact of having to manage, and direct peers that are much older. A positive advantage of my age is the fact that I am not as tied down as an older professional who is married and has children, this allows me to work 80 hours a week, that is something some that are older simply cannot do.

What campaign do you think is working right now?
Title IX. I feel that this has made women’s sports grow leaps and bounds all the way from the youth to the college level. It is really been impressive to see the youth participation numbers among females playing athletics, and the rise in popularity in Women’s sports such as NCAA Women’s Basketball and the Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament.

What’s one issue in sports that needs to be addressed immediately for the betterment of the sport?
There are two major issues I see that need to be addressed. First would be all of the cheating and scandals in NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Recruiting. The second and most obvious is the Bowl Championship Series, we must crown a true national champion on the field.

What’s the toughest part of your job and what’s the easiest part of your job?
Being in the events industry, outsiders often feel the hardest part of running a high quality event, is directing the actual event. I strongly, feel the most difficult part of event planning is the sales/marketing and operational planning prior to the event and the easiest part is actually operating the event on site. This holds true in both my current role in the basketball industry and my past role, in event operations at the NCAA Division I level.

If you could give one piece of advice to young sports business professionals coming up the ranks behind you, what would it be?
Network, Network, Network!!!