A Social Network Perspective on Sport Management: The Effect of Network Embeddedness on the Commercial Performance of Sport Organizations

The sports sector is generally regarded as a field in which interorganizational relationships have a large effect on the performance of those organizations (Berrett & Slack, 1999; Daellenbach, Davies, & Ashill, 2006; McCarville & Copeland, 1994). Be it relations with agents, governments, spectators or sponsors, organizations within the field of sport management are increasingly dependent on their ability to build and maintain a strong social network (Thibault & Harvey, 1997). Surprisingly, social network theory and methods have largely been neglected within the field of sport management (Daellenbach et al., 2006; Quatman & Chelladurai, 2008). Within this study we explore the potential of social network theory and methods by conducting an empirical investigation of the effect of sport organizations' network characteristics on its commercial performance. We focus on ego-network characteristics as these can be directly influenced by sport organizations and their managers (Ahuja, 2000).