Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore twentieth century sportscapes and their role in the development of urban arenas as places of sport. Design/methodology/approach -Utilizing frame theory and sport business history scholarship, the author examines entrepreneurs' development of six-day bicycle races at Madison Square Garden. The main primary sources include autobiographies, morgue files, and newspapers. Findings -In this paper, it is argued that entrepreneurs' shaping and marketing of six-day races and their sportscapes resulted in a popular sporting spectacle and helped to promote arenas as spaces and places of sport. Originality/value -The paper demonstrates the process and development of "frame management" in urban arenas and their transition to spaces and places of sport. By exploring six-day bicycle races at Madison Square Garden, the paper shows the importance of a now-forgotten cultural event to the development of the multi-billion dollar sport industry and to one of the world's most iconic arenas. The paper adds to scholarship on bicycle racing and marketing history, as well as the historiography of the sport industry.
This article examines the faculty job market in the humanities broadly, and sport history specifically, to assess the past, current, and future of sport history as an academic field. We suggest one way to expand the sport history job market and popular appeal of academic sport history is for scholars to embrace research questions and topics related to sport management and business history and the activities of sport entrepreneurs and commercial organizations. The authors explore the multidisciplinary field of business history as a comparison to the field of sport history; highlight evidence of job opportunities for sport historians in sport management; and assess the current vocational outlook for sport historians in the context of the United States.
Foreshadowing the beginning of the Great Depression, George ''Tex'' Rickard succumbed to appendicitis in 1929. A leader and representative of sport marketing during the 1920s, Rickard altered the urban landscape in American cities by definitively showing that promoters could use sports in arenas (i.e., indoor) to help those venues be economically viable through the production of aweinspiring spectacles. In this article, the authors critically examine sport marketing as a tool to help reframe the career of Tex Rickard and ultimately the development of Madison Square Garden III in the context of macromarketing. This historical and illustrative case study will also demonstrate that sport marketing is somewhat different than traditional marketing through an emphasis on media and community relations. Finally, we will show how Rickard made use of the traditional ''marketing mix'' (i.e., place, price, promotion, and product) to capitalize on the urban setting and other strategies employed to promote products and services.
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