Marketing Immigrants in Czech Basketball
Vol.9,No.1(2015)
As the labour force becomes more global in sport, what are the ramifications to marketing the sport, both to fans and for the youth who play the game? The shift from teams composed predominantly of players from the home culture to teams including outsiders creates a necessary concurrent shift in the marketing and promotional strategy of teams. Foreign players are often the stars of the team and can even become role models within the club, yet their cultural distance makes it necessary to rethink if and how they can be used to grow the game in the city, region and culture. Czech basketball has shown a marked shift not only in the use of foreign players on the court, from 11 across the league in 1998 to 50 in 2010, but also in the use of foreign players in marketing and youth development. How is this exoticism in sport being marketed? By 2011, 71% of teams featured foreign players on their websites, 36% featured them on their media guides, and every team poster observed by the researcher had the face of a foreign player on it.
marketing; foreigners; basketball; exoticism
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