Book Review #5

Citation:
Gladden, James M., George R. Mime, and William A. Sutton. "A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Brand Equity in Division I College Athletics." Journal of Sport Management 12.1 (1998): 1. Print.


Summary
In this source the author, James Gladden, gives a method for assessing brand equity, and explains factors that go into building brand equity.


Credibility:
This source is credible because it is published in the Journal of Sport Management, which is a peer reviewed publication.


Quotes:
This is not a direct quote, but rather a list of positive consequences of strong brand equity.  Gladden lists national media exposure, merchandise sales, individual donations, corporate support, atmosphere, and ticket sales as positive consequences of having good brand equity (Gladden 9-10).  These items relate directly to the theme of privatization, and increasing the amount of revenue a school has available.  Sports do this by increasing name recognition of the school and also act as marketing for the school.  Ultimately this will attract more students which is more income.


Gladden talks about the importance of a head coach, and how having a successful head coach can serve as a basis for brand equity (Gladden 6).  This is directly related to the personal interview I had last week.  Doug and I discussed the importance of the head football coach as a public focal point for a university.  Very often when people are considering making a large donation to a school, they want to meet someone from the school that they can associate with, in order to determine if their donation is going to a worthy cause.  Very few people at a university are more in the public eye than the head football coach, so employing a well reputable coach will often give the community a link to your school that they can relate to more so then the school president or a professor who is deeply interested in research.


"College sport teams with visible corporate support can create a positive quality image because corporate marketers within large sport product manufacturers will only ally with the teams with the most brand equity" (Gladden 11).  Here gladden talks about corporate sponsorship.  Its hard to ignore emblems just as Nike, Rebook, and Easton all over the uniforms of college sports.  Its not just a coincidence that the schools that earn corporate sponsorship are schools that have based their brand equity off of their sports programs, and have invested time and money into becoming the largest, most successful, and most popular athletic programs.  Because these schools have based their brand image off of their athletic programs they are the schools that the public can relate to most. Its no surprise that the schools that the public can most easily affiliate themselves with have the largest fan base, and were therefore chosen for corporate sponsorship.  This goes to show the importance of being able  to relate to the public.  Only a small percentage of the public can relate to institutions that consider themselves academically elite, such as the ivy league, but the majority of the public can relate to big time sports.  Because this is the case, schools that base their brand image off of big time sports programs are better equipped to compete in a world of privatized college funding.


Conclusion & Relating to Other Sources:
It is not a secret that most collegiate athletic programs lose money for their institutions.  It is also not true that colleges across the country, or any college for that matter, are scrapping their athletic programs in order to route more money towards education.  As i have said, the reason for this is privatization.  Schools have less income from the government, so their income must now come from other sources.  These sources are mainly attracting students to enroll at their schools, seeking donations, and from the community in ways such as corporate sponsorship.  Sports programs increase name recognition of a school, as well as offer a platform for the school to create its brand image.  A positive brand image will attract more money to a school through the three aforementioned revenue streams, and ultimately leave a school better equipped to operate in a privatized environment.