Midterm Case Study: From the Dugout to the Courtroom

Noah Bridgeborn is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Boston Red Sox, a Major League Baseball team. Bridgeborn was recently hired by Red Sox ownership to be the new CRO, and his job responsibilities involve all aspects of the Red Sox's revenue generation operation $-$ from ticket sales, to sponsorship, licensing$/$branding$,$ hospitality, and emerging markets. Bridgeborn oversees a staff of over $100$ employees in these various departments, and directly reports to the Red Sox's Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, David Beeston. The team's organizational chart also indicates that the team's President and Chief Executive Officer, Sam Kennedy, is also responsible for managing Bridgeborn.

A little bit about the search process that led to Bridgeborn being hired: The Red Sox hired a third$-$party consulting firm, Sport Search, to provide expertise and assist the organization in hiring a new Chief Revenue Officer. Sport Search's consultants helped Red Sox executives craft the language for the job announcement, disseminate the posting, recruit candidates, interview potential hires, check references, and make a final recommendation that the Red Sox could factor into their decision.

Bridgeborn had a solid resume: a former college baseball player who double majored in business analytics and statistics at Stanford, Bridgeborn saw his promising professional career as a pitcher flame out due to a throwing injury. He cut his teeth on Wall Street by working as a hedge fund manager for five years. A chance meeting with an old college teammate led Bridgeborn to transition out of finance and into the business side of minor league baseball, where he fell in love with sales. After a few stops excelling in sales positions at several minor league sports organizations, Bridgeborn was hired by the Dallas Cowboys' sales department, where he quickly rose up the organization's ranks due to his knack to suss out new and unconventional revenue streams. Bridgeborn's profile in the sport business industry ascended almost as quickly as the Cowboys' new revenue streams.