Research

In defence of “The Decision”

Aug 15, 2013

Yupin Yang shows professional athletes must be mindful of their star status. With the dust still settling on NBA team Miami Heat’s championship victory over the San Antonio Spurs, a win that clinched their second consecutive NBA title, even basketball fans in Cleveland may now struggle to disagree with Lebron James’ controversial decision to move to a higher-profile team in search of championship silverware. However research from the Beedie School of Business shows that James’ […]

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How the Miami Heat parlayed career trajectories into NBA Finals team: Beedie research

Jun 18, 2012

As the Miami Heat professional basketball team duels with the Oklahoma City Heat Thunder in the NBA Finals for the league's biggest prize, new academic research from SFU's Beedie School of Business is putting the spotlight on the business thinking that brought the Miami team together. Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Lebron James’ decision to play with a higher-profile Heat team and all-star teammates shows sound marketing and career-management acumen, according to the newly-published article focused on the evolution and importance of star status for today’s professional athletes. In order to maximize their earnings and endorsements, today’s celebrity athletes — from James to David Beckham to Peyton Manning — need to be mindful of the evolution of their star status. That in turn has major implications for the teams they choose to play for, and the teams they turn down or leave behind. So what makes a star shine even brighter in the world of pro sports? It’s a combination of not only personal performances and team records, but also includes the markets that athletes play in and the star calibre of the athletes they compete with. The study, “Investigating the evolution of star status in professional team sports,” describes the rise and fall of celebrated athletes using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1987 to 2008.

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Pro athletes bolster star status through team selection, teammates and career evolution: Study

Jan 17, 2012

So what makes a star shine even brighter in the world of pro sports? It's a combination of not only personal performances and team records, but also includes the markets that athletes play in and the star calibre of the athletes they compete with. The study, “Investigating the evolution of star status in professional team sports,” describes the rise and fall of celebrated athletes using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1987 to 2008. Published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, it was authored by professors Yupin Yang of the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and Mengze Shi from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

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