Management of a Professional Baseball Team by a Private Enterprise: A Benefit Analysis of Taiwan’s Brother Elephants

Author: Chih-Pin Shih(Department of Physical Education, National Taiwan Normal University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 53, No. 1
Date：January 2008
Pages：49-63
DOI：10.6210/JNTNULL.2008.53(1).03

Abstract：

In this case study of Taiwan’s professional baseball team “The Elephants,” the researcher analyzed the benefits of running of managing a baseball team for the enterprise that owns it. The results were as follows: (1) The parental enterprise’s (Brother Hotel) purpose or motivation in running the team was primarily altruistic rather than money-driven and gave the “flat” organizational structure; (2) the executives did not evaluate the effectiveness of their management, but took this as a kind of public service which could also promote their company’s image; thus they had no particular advertising or media strategy; (3) the characteristics of spectators did not really change very much over a period of ten years; most remained male collage students. As for their own opinion of the management of the team, fans gave the highest grade to the “social responsibility” item on the questionnaire, followed by “image cognition,” “purpose of running the team”, and “purchasing intention”. As for the relationship between the fans’ views of management and their level of support for the team, 97.5% of the Elephants’ fans said they would accept continuing operation of the team by the Brother Hotel; here image cognition (2.825) was a positive factor while purchasing inclination (.310) and operating purpose (.311) were negative ones. Besides, 96.9% of the fans indicated that they believed the corporation could run the team successfully; here image cognition (3.128) was a positive factor but the operating purpose (.385) was a negative one.

Keywords：professional baseball, professional baseball team, parental enterprise, benefit analysis

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