Recreation

This ongoing series serves as a stepping stone in understanding specific careers and provides a wealth of information on the education and training needed within each profession along with a look towards the future of the field with an informative employment outlook.

What southerners do, where they go, and what they expect to accomplish in their spare time, their "leisure," reveals much about their cultural values, class and racial similarities and differences, and historical perspectives. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture offers an authoritative and readable reference to the culture of sports and recreation in the American South, surveying the various activities in which southerners engage in their nonwork hours, as well as attitudes surrounding those activities. Seventy-four thematic essays explore activities from the familiar (porch sitting and fairs) to the essential (football and stock car racing) to the unusual (pool checkers and a sport called "fireballing"). In seventy-seven topical entries, contributors profile major sites associated with recreational activities (such as Dollywood, drive-ins, and the Appalachian Trail) and prominent sports figures (including Althea Gibson, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Hank Aaron). Taken together, the entries provide an engaging look at the ways southerners relax, pass time, celebrate, let loose, and have fun.

Evan Friss traces the colorful and fraught history of bicycles--and bicyclists--in New York City. He uncovers the bicycle's place in the city over time, showing how the bicycle has served as a mirror of the city's changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics.

The second edition of Branded: Branding in Sport Business examines significant brands associated with the sport industry. The brands profiled in this work identify successful practices that have been utilized in the business of sport to cultivate brand equity. The concept of branding is significant and has generated great interest in academic and professional circles. The notion of branding encompasses aspects such as collective images, messages, associations, and other characteristics associated with organizations, products, and people. The breadth of information presented in this work provides points of discussion and further examination pertaining to significant branding considerations impacting the sport industry.​​

Developing and implementing a systematic analytics strategy can result in a sustainable competitive advantage within the sport business industry. This timely and relevant book provides practical strategies to collect data and then convert that data into meaningful, value-added information and actionable insights. Its primary objective is to help sport business organizations utilize data-driven decision-making to generate optimal revenue from such areas as ticket sales and corporate partnerships. To that end, the book includes in-depth case studies from such leading sports organizations as the Orlando Magic, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Duke University, and the Aspire Group. The core purpose of sport business analytics is to convert raw data into information that enables sport business professionals to make strategic business decisions that result in improved company financial performance and a measurable and sustainable competitive advantage. Readers will learn about the role of big data and analytics in: Ticket pricing Season ticket member retention Fan engagement Sponsorship valuation Customer relationship management Digital marketing Market research Data visualization. This book examines changes in the ticketing marketplace and spotlights innovative ticketing strategies used in various sport organizations. It shows how to engage fans with social media and digital analytics, presents techniques to analyze engagement and marketing strategies, and explains how to utilize analytics to leverage fan engagement to enhance revenue for sport organizations. Filled with insightful case studies, this book benefits both sports business professionals and students. The concluding chapter on teaching sport analytics further enhances its value to academics.