Latest Paper Published in International Journal of the History of Sport

We are thrilled that our latest paper has been published by International Journal of the History of Sport.

Entitled 'Opportunities for all the Team: Entrepreneurship and the 1966 and 1994 Soccer World Cups', this paper does exactly what it says in the tin.

The International Journal of the History of Sport, yesterday

We apply swarm theory together with a framework of sports products to analyze the marketing and entrepreneurial 'products' associated with two financially successful FIFA World Cups in the second half of the 20th Century.

The 1966 edition of the tournament was famously hosted and won by England and spawned the trend for World Cup mascots, with 'World Cup Willie'. The 1994 tournament hosted by the USA took the commercialization of soccer to a new level. Both tournaments notably made use of existing stadia rather than the sorts of extensive new-build construction projects so often associated with sporting mega-events, and both also left observable legacies from a social and cultural perspective, as well as for sport.

We hope that you enjoy the paper, which is online now and will be part of a future Special Issue of the journal.

Soccer Mad Boffins Appear at University of Hull

On Thursday 30th November we travelled through the snow across Yorkshire, to Hull and back.

The occasion was a research lecture hosted by the Marketing and Business Strategy subject group of Hull Business School, all about our work on the FIFA World Cups of 1966 and 1994.

Entitled 'Opportunities for All the Team: The 1966 and 1994 FIFA World Cups' the lecture was based on a working paper which we are developing for publication in a forthcoming special issue of a well known sports history journal.

We thoroughly enjoyed presenting our work to our friends at Hull, and hope to be back soon.

Alex and Kevin with lecture slides