Leveraging fan's global football allegiances to build domestic league support

Purpose – It is not uncommon for sports fans to follow multiple sports teams across different sports and even several teams across different leagues of the same sport. Whereas this might be considered a competitive situation, the purpose of this paper is to examine how interest in overseas football (soccer) leagues played a symbiotic role in the successful development of an Australian national soccer league.

Design/methodology/approach – Results of survey data are presented from two clubs in Australia’s newly formed A-League. Three surveys were conducted over a two year period with over 3,700 season ticket holders. Specific attention is paid to fans’ previous interest and exposure to football, which is then related to attitudes and behaviour associated with the new clubs.

Findings – Interest in overseas clubs and leagues is found to be a major antecedent of interest in the Australian league. Those who follow teams in overseas leagues are more likely to be heavy consumers of the new local league than those who follow local leagues or had no prior experience. They also exhibit stronger attitudinal and behavioural loyalty, such as higher attendance and renewal rates of season tickets.

Practical implications – Recognising fan interest in multiple teams/leagues as positive involves a shift in management thinking away from a competitive to a collaborative stance. In this case, rapid adoption of new teams is encouraged by capitalising on strong interest in overseas leagues. This requires careful structuring and branding of the competition that mimicks familiar foreign leagues, while minimising unfavourable comparisons in areas like quality of play.

Originality/value – This study capitalises on the rare opportunity to examine foundation teams in a new national league. The findings highlight the importance and value of taking a ‘‘global’’ perspective to the marketing of sports, and of carefully leveraging the interest in other elite competitions to build interest in new leagues.

Learning in agriculture : building social capital in island communities

Social capital helps communities respond positively to change. Research in agricultural businesses and into managing change through learning in communities has highlighted the importance of relationships between people and the formal and informal infrastructure of communities to the quality of outcomes experienced by communities, businesses and individuals. Communities can be geographic communities - the data drawn on in this paper are from an island community, for example or communities-of-common-purpose, such as agricultural organisations. This paper reviews research into managing change through learning and social capital, presents a model of the simultaneous building and use of social capital and explores the ways in which learning as part of an agricultural community can be used to bring benefits to geographic communities such as islands. The model presented in this paper stems from studies of the informal learning process that builds resilient communities. It conceptualises the way in which social capital is used and built in interactions between individuals. There are two stages to the model. The first stage depicts social capital at the micro level of one-on-one interactions where it is built and used. The second stage of the model is about the interrelationship of micro-level social capital processes with the community and societal-level social capital resources.

Strategic significance of the island state of Sri Lanka

The study is focused on an analysis of the major diplomatic documents from the mid eighteenth century to the present as regards Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known till 1972. The objectives of the study are to identify the issues underlying these diplomatic documents. These include the political and strategic factors and other subsidiary issues like trade and commerce relevant at the time these treaties, agreements, and proposed treaties were formulated. It is also a geopolitical study as it relates to Sri Lanka's geographical position in the Indian Ocean, and her possession of the Trincomalee Harbour on its east coast, which is one of the great natural harbours of the world. Over the centuries this harbour has had significant strategic value for naval deployments. The case study of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries studies the diplomatic documents against the political and strategic background for the French Revolution and actions of Napoleon, and the Anglo/French rivalry, spreading from Europe to North America and Asia. In the twentieth century the environment for studying the place of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean was created by the Russian Revolution, the failure to keep the peace of Versailles after World War I, the conflict and horrors of World War II which led to the disintegration of European colonial empires in Asia and Africa, and the tensions generated by the Cold War. A study of the documents would reveal that in international relations what matters is the ability of a party to promote its interests, and this depends on its power. This realist approach contrasts to the idealist approach where policies are based on moral and ethical principles. For the realist the states should follow to protect their interests and to survive. To achieve this is to strive for a ‘balance of power’. To do so is to form a favourable alliance system. As the documents examined cover a period from the mid-eighteenth century to the later part of the twentieth century, they reflect the changing technologies that have had an influence on naval and military matters. For example, this period witnessed great changes in technology of energy utilized to propel warships, from wind, to steam, to fuel and finally to nuclear power. These changes had an influence in determining strategic policies involving weapon systems and communications within a global and regional setting. The period covered was the beginning of the process described a ‘globalisation’. Its idea is not unique to this century; there were many attempts, in various times of history, to integrate societies within a global context. Viewed in this light, the Anglo-French rivalry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the indication of a global naval strategy, in which Sri Lanka was a major factor in the Indian Ocean region. This process was associated with the phenomena called the ‘expansion of Europe’. It covered all the oceans of the world and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to the founding of the largest maritime empire the world has ever seen: The British Empire. After World War I, the British naval strength (the basis of the British Empire) and her consequent position as a great power, was challenged by other powers like the United States of America and Japan. After World War II, the US Navy was supreme: and there was a close alliance between Britain and the USA. The strength of the US/British alliance was based on the navy and its bases, which were spread throughout the globe; to project power, and act as deterrence and balancing force. Sri Lanka, due to her strategic position, was a part of this evolving process, and was tied to a global strategy (with its regional connotations) from the eighteenth century to the present.

Macroeconomic impact of natural disasters on a small island economy : evidence from a CGE model

Natural disasters are common in the Pacific Island countries. Fiji has been affected by many of these disasters. The most recent cyclone exerted substantial damage to infrastructure, agricultural and industrial activity in Fiji. The aim of this article is to incorporate these damages into Fiji's computable general equilibrium model and examine the short-run macroeconomic impact. Among the key results, it is found that cyclones negatively impact private income, consumption, savings, real GDP and real national welfare.

Are exports and imports cointegrated? Evidence from two Pacific Island countries

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there is long-run relationship between exports and imports for two Pacific Island Countries -- Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG). This is an important issue because long-run convergence will ensure that trade imbalances are sustainable. We explore this issue using the bounds-testing approach to cointegration and find that while exports and imports for Fiji and PNG are indeed cointegrated, the coefficient on exports is unity only in the case of Fiji. These results imply that Fiji satisfies the strong form of its intertemporal budget constraint while PNG satisfies only the weak form of its intertemporal budget constraint.

Tourism and economic growth: a panel data analysis for Pacific Island countries

The contribution of tourism to the economic growth of Pacific Island countries (PICs) has achieved significance in the past decade. The shift in the economic policies of the PICs from the late 1980s has been decisively away from import substitution and agriculture to urban-based manufacturing and services sectors. Tourism is the main component of the services sector in the PICs. The contribution of tourism to economic growth in Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea is expected to grow. The authors use panel data for the four PICs to test the long-run relationship between real GDP and real tourism exports. They find support for panel cointegration and the results suggest that a 1% increase in tourism exports increases GDP by 0.72% in the long run and by 0.24% in the short run.

Conservation of the endemic dwarf carnivores of Cozumel Island, Mexico.

Cozumel Island, Mexico, harbours two endemic species of dwarf procyonids: the Pygmy Raccoon Procyon pygmaeus and the Dwarf Coati Nasua nelsoni. Both species are Critically Endangered, and are among the world’s most threatened Carnivora. Here we summarise the research we have been conducting on their ecology, evolution, genetics, and conservation. We also summarise the conservation initiatives we have been undertaking and promoting in order to advance the conservation of these unique species and their habitats. This effort illustrates the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in conservation science and action in maximising effectiveness. Nevertheless, the precarious status of the species make it imperative to continue and expand the work we have carried out in Cozumel to prevent two imminent global extinctions.

The future of football is female : a case of fan-tastic imaginings?

Consistent with FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s proclamation that the future of football is female, the Australian Football League (AFL) has instituted a range of initiatives in an attempt to present a ‘female friendly’ face and garner women’s support for the national game. Given the large number of women who follow the AFL, especially in comparison to other football codes nationally, it’s worth considering the motivations behind the AFL’s tactics. To what extent does what the AFL think women want correlate with women supporters’ experiences and realities of being a football fan? This paper presents findings from semi-structured and focus group interviews with female AFL fans to gauge their perceptions of being an Australian rules football supporter and its impact on their lived experiences and sense of self. The responses of women supporters are critically assessed in order to contemplate how women negotiate gender identity through their support of a male dominated sport. As well as offering insights into the role gender plays in leisure pursuits such as sport spectatorship, this paper considers how femininity and masculinity might be contested and/or remade through the practice of following football in the Australian context. By demonstrating the range and diversity of women’s experiences, this research has the capacity to generate alternative imaginings of fanship and sporting community beyond gender stereotypes.

Comparative ecology of island and mainland swamp antechinus populations

The demography, reproduction and behaviour of the swamp antechinus, a small carnivorous marsupial, were compared in island and mainland populations. Divergent demography and behaviour occurred between populations, with island animals benefiting from increased productivity caused by nesting seabirds. However, evolutionary divergence in life-history and morphology, which occur in island rodent populations, were not recorded.

Australia and Japan in the South Pacific island countries : a general appraisal through the concepts of structural power

This study examines several specific fields of activity of Australia and Japan in the areas of security, production, finance, development assistance, information, education and regional organization. Using the concept of structural power, it observes the sources of Australian and Japanese strenght in the region, the growing imbalance in the bilateral Australia-Japan relationship, and also the coexistence of affinities and differences in the development opportunities opened to the South Pacific Island Countries.

Bathymetry and frontal system interactions influence seasonal foraging movements of lactating subantarctic fur seals from Marion Island

Sixteen lactating subantarctic fur seals Arctocephalus tropicalis were satellite-tracked during the winter of 2006 (n = 6), summer of 2006/07 (n = 6) and autumn/winter (n = 4) of 2007, from Marion Island, Southern Ocean. Despite varied individual movement patterns, a favoured foraging area lay to the northeast of the island. In contrast to findings for populations at similar latitudes, seals from Marion Island did not undertake short overnight foraging trips, but trips consistently went beyond 300 km from the island. This aligns with the at-sea duration of lactating seals’ foraging trips from temperate Amsterdam Island, but differs from subantarctic Crozet and Macquarie islands. Time spent at sea, maximum distances travelled and movement variation of tracks from the island varied seasonally. Faecal analysis suggests the diet comprised primarily myctophid fish with limited seasonal variation. Well-defined areas of restricted movement coincided with significant bathymetric features to the west/northwest of the Crozet Plateau, with the Del Caño Rise clearly being important. Positive and negative sea-surface height anomalies (compared to the mean) appeared to be preferred by most seals across seasons. Higher summer sea-surface temperatures correlated with the movements of some seals. Higher chlorophyll a concentrations dictated transit and foraging areas during summer. Bathymetrically influenced oceanographic variables likely explain these preferred long-distance eastward movements. The Îles Crozet and Marion island subantarctic fur seals differ in their foraging ecology despite being neighbours. Conversely, the subantarctic fur seal populations from the distant Amsterdam and Marion islands appear to be similarly influenced by such environmental factors.