1. What makes a sport local, regional, or global? 2. What major drivers are responsible for the internationalization of Manchester United? 3. How important are Manchester United's strong local roots to its international success? 4. Bring one question for discussion related to the case study

Case Study

Sport can be local and global: Manchester United For most sports there appears to be a natural connection with the cultures and communities of particular locations and even individual venues. Often history plays a strong role, even when sports are played internationally. St. Andrews Links Course, Lord's Cricket Ground, and Wembley Stadium all have a particular symbolism to players and fans of golf, cricket, and soccer in and beyond the UK. These contrast with more "placeless" global sporting events, particularly the Olympic Games, which involve most nations of the world. Rather than creating a sense of common identity, such events can reinforce national cultural identities through international competition. Other sports remain local: Japanese sumo wrestling, Aussie rules football, and hurling in Ireland, for example, where the connection with national culture, community and history are strongest. American football is played in several countries but only seriously in the United States. It is not only a huge commercial enterprise but, like basketball and baseball, strongly embedded in local communities through schools and colleges, as an important symbol of US cultural identity. Some sports could be defined as regional, such as baseball, which is predominantly based in North America, but also popular in Japan and played little elsewhere. A few sports are marked on a global basis, although not all parts of the triad are fully involved. Golf, tennis, and soccer have global television audiences and advertising revenues. Among these, soccer is recognized as the biggest, played by an estimated 240 million people with 1.5 million teams and 300,000 clubs worldwide. Many countries, from Brazil to Cameroon, Italy to South Korea, would claim the game as an important part of their popular national culture. But soccer is not a major sport in North America, where it ranks well behind American football, baseball, hockey, and car racing. Europe hosts some of the major soccer club brands, with 52 leagues and a combined value over $20 billion. Within this the English Premiership is worth over $8 billion and as of 2015 it has been reported that eight of the top 20 most valuable teams are from this Premier League. It has been argued that the value of English soccer has been assisted by the rising value of the British pound in comparison with the US dollar and euro. One of the leading clubs in the Premiership is Manchester Unitednot your average soccer club, but certainly one of the best illustrations in the sporting world of the evolving mix between local cultural heritage and international business. Born in 1878, Manchester United long epitomized the connection between the local team and the local community. Its fan base was dominated for over a hundred years by local people, with Trafford Park and the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the world's first industrial centres, at its heart. The grassroots, blue-collar, working-man's passion and fierce loyalty remain at the cultural heart of the club today. Rather than symbolizing English culture, it demonstrates the strength and persistence of the regional subculture of England's industrial northwest. This is reinforced by strong rivalry with other leading clubs such as Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea. Now the brands of these teams are very multinational. In the early 1990s, despite strong growth in international merchandising sales through Manchester United Merchandising, over 90 percent of revenues to the club still came from the domestic UK market. But a growing global fan club, the international spread of Manchester United Magazine, and the growing availability of televised games beyond the UK (particularly via Rupert Murdoch's global media networks) led to an export drive in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Countries with national teams but few big league teams, like Ireland, Scandinavia, and a range of Asian countries, where soccer is watched by millions on TV, became the club's best markets. By 2002 the global club membership had grown to 200 branches in 24 countries, and with profits of over $25 million on a turnover of over $100 million, it was considered the world's wealthiest club. MUTV, the club's own TV channel, and a large range of internet sites fuelled interest in the team. By 2003 Manchester United had attracted an estimated global fan base of 53 million. Major sponsorship deals with Nike and later Vodafone (at $15 million per year) boosted its finances and its global brand footprint. In 2014, Manchester United signed a new ten-year record-breaking sponsorship and licensing deal with Adidas, which guarantees the club an average income of 110 million per year. Furthermore, Manchester United signed a seven-year shirt deal with Chevrolet, which paid the club approximately $75 million during the 2014-15 season. The cross-border takeover by the US-based Glazer family in 2005 made the club even more international by any definition. Boosted by wins in the Premiership, the FA Cup, and the European Champions League, the club's fan base had grown to an estimated 75 million worldwide. Significantly, 40 million of these were in Asia, compared to 23 million in Europe. Since then the actual number of global fans has been in dispute, ranging from "over 50 million" to "over 300 million." In 2014 Manchester United generated revenues of $703 million, second only to Real Madrid's $746 million. As of 2015 Manchester United is worth $3.1 billion, and there are eight British clubs in the top 20 and five in the top 10, the others being Arsenal ($1.3 billion), Chelsea ($1.3 billion), Liverpool ($0.9 billion) and Manchester City ($1.4 billion). By this time the club had a range of regional sponsors, with PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Schick in North America, Ladbrokes in Europe, and Fuji Film and Air Asia in Asia. These were co-branding partners alongside global sponsors such as AIG, Vodafone, Nike, and Audi (and a few local partners like Dimension Data in South Africa). In some cases, these have been the route to joint products and services, such as content services delivered by cell phone to Manchester United fans through Vodafone. Pre-tax profits for the club are around $60 million and turn-over, including merchandising and media partnerships, is over $250 million. Despite the fact that, on average, over half the team comprises foreign players who play against the England national team in the World Cup, and despite the fact that the club's fan base is (in terms of pure numbers) more Asian than English, the passion for the club is still as strong as ever around Manchester. Global sports teams like Manchester United are embedded in local folklore, passionately discussed in bars and clubs around the world, part of the cultural identity of communities, but at the same time they are multinational businesses with global brands and international strategies.