Introduction

In the 21st century, professional sports teams’ owners are engaged in a global arms race for success both ‘on’ and ‘off’ the field of play. Success on the ‘field’ of play, as defined by the sustained, repeated ‘winning’ has enormous implications for the financial welfare of any club, directly in terms of prize money, but also fundamentally in terms of:

Innovations within mass media now provide the informational and financial support to sports clubs to allow the promotion of their sports team as a ‘brand’ and in doing so and help acquire a global audience that transcends the boundaries of their home stadium and league. Despite this, the ‘success’ of any sports team or club is an open concept with a variety of interpretations depending on the agenda of the stakeholder. What is clear, however, is that ‘winning’ if it is to be stable and sustainable, sports team leaders must systematically consider several ‘trade-offs’ within their ownership model and institutional context, namely, how best to balance ‘business’ (economic/financial) and ‘sport’ (propensity to win) goals. The lessons learnt from the history of sporting dynasties reveal that only a small number of organizations have been able to sustain competitive advantage in terms of both human capital and infrastructure and in doing so optimize the appeal of their brand and deliver a profit (Bouchet et al., 2013). In elite sport, the recruitment of ‘talent’ (players and executives) has always been an ‘art’, but in 2024, it is also a ‘science’.