Purchasing and Operating a Professional Sports Team

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapter 13: Financial Ratio and Chapter 14: Moving From Strategy to Action in your textbook.

The final paper culminates your learning achieved in the course by demonstrating your understanding and application of knowledge in the field of sports finance.

In this assignment, you will create a condensed business plan for purchasing and operating a professional sports team. This is a hypothetical sports team, and you may make assumptions to support your key points.

Important Note: Use a spreadsheet program such as Excel to create the financial statements. If needed, review the recommended video Tutorial: Using Excel to Prepare Financial Statements (Links to an external site.). Then, embed the statements by copying and pasting them into the final Word document. If needed, consult the Writing Center’s Tables, Images, and Appendices (Links to an external site.).

In your paper,

• Introduce your sports business (e.g., football team, location, etc.) (Overview).
• Explain the importance of having diversity, equity, and inclusion in your leadership team and how it can add value (Leadership Team).
• Discuss how specific marketing promotions will help drive revenue and profitability for your sports organization. Consider trends, diverse audience segments, market strategy, pricing, sponsorships, advertising, and revenue generation sources, and so on (Marketing).
• Explain why diversity and inclusion is important in securing sponsorship deals. Describe at least one sponsor or advertiser your sports business can partner with that would demonstrate a commitment to diversity (Sponsorship Deals).
• Discuss at least one tax and one legal issue you may face in the purchase or operation of your sports business (Tax and Legal Issues).
• Develop pro forma financial statements (5 years) for your sports business (Financial Plan):
  • A monthly income statement for Year 1, quarterly for Year 2, and annually for Years 3, 4, and 5.
  • A balance sheet on a monthly basis for Year 1, a quarterly basis for Year 2, and annual basis for Years 3, 4, and 5
  • A statement of cash flows on a monthly basis for Year 1, a quarterly basis for Year 2, and an annual basis for Years 3, 4, and 5
• Include a list of key assumptions that drive your financial plan for all financial statements (Financial Plan Assumptions).
• Describe three financial metrics or ratios that you will use to analyze the health of your business (Financial Analysis).
• Explain three potential financial risks for your sports business (Financial Risks).
• Describe possible ways to mitigate each of the risks listed above (Mitigate Risks).
• Describe what you will offer potential investors to seek funding for your business. Consider types of ownership, stocks, dividends, interest payments, royalty fees, merchandise profit sharing, perks, and so on (Investor Return on Investment).
• Describe your exit strategy assuming you are ready to sell the sports business in 10 years (Exit Strategy).

The Business Plan final paper

• Must be eight to 10 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style (Links to an external site.) as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word  resource.
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper in bold font
    • Space should appear between the title and the rest of the information on the title page.
  • Student’s name
  • Name of institution (The University of Arizona Global Campus)
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Due date
• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) and Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least five scholarly or credible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view the Quick and Easy Library Research (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the University of Arizona Global Campus Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Writing Center for specifications.