COMMUNICATIONS 448T
RESEARCH PAPER
Electronic Copies Only

1) Use Subheads (sports teams (or professional sports league, brief history, trendsetters, et cetera)
2) All papers must be typed and double-spaced (7 to 10 pages). Most papers are about 7 pages long.
3) Left, right, top and bottom margins must be 1 inch.
4) Each page must be numbered in the top-right corner or centered at the bottom.
5) Please use Times Roman, Courier or Arial font and it must be 12 point.
6) Title page, bibliography, notes, appendix, etc. DO NOT count toward the page count. Please only list on your bibliography the sources that you used for your paper.
7) Please use citations correctly. Not citing properly (i.e. not citing all your sources) is considered plagiarism. You will receive an automatic zero for improper citations.
8) If you do not understand these guidelines, please see me after class or in my office hours.

Introduction:

1) Briefly identify the sports league (or team) and describe the history of your topic. When and where did the league begin? Who were some past two or three trendsetters that helped to popularize the sport (10 points)?

Body:

1) Who currently regulates this sports league or organization? What changes has he/she made to the league? What are a couple of their responsibilities? (10 points)

2) What’s the league revenue? What is the average team value? If you are writing about a team, what’s your team’s value? (5 points)

3) What teams (or individual players) are some of key current figures in this league (i.e. who generates the most endorsement and/or merchandising revenue)? (5 points)

4) Does your league have a salary cap? What type of salary cap is it? What is the amount of the salary cap? Are teams punished for going over the salary cap? How does the league handle the re-signing of star players? (10 points)

5) How does free agency work? What changed the league’s free agency (i.e. famous court case)? If a union exists, how strong is the union? Has the league had recent labor issues? (10 points)

6) How does the league handle live gate revenue? What are some of the key venues throughout the league (i.e. historic or largest)? In terms of construction costs, what are some of the most expensive venue? What’s the current trend in terms of building venues? (10 points)

If you are writing about a team, what’s the team’s current venue? Do they own the venue? Did they recently move into a new venue or renovate their venue? How much did the venue cost to build? (10 points)

7) What are some of the key televised events or games? What are some your team’s national (or local) media deals? How much media revenue are they generating? What type of revenue do they keep and what type of revenue is shared with other teams? (10 points)

Conclusion:

1) What are three future challenges that your team or sports organization will encounter on the horizon? (10 points)

Grading:

1) Correctly answering each of the questions in the introduction. This portion is worth 10% of your grade.

2) Correctly answering each of the questions in the body. This will encompass 60% of your grade.

3) Knowledge of future trends and challenges. This portion will be worth 10% of your grade. You must be thoughtful in order to receive full credit.

4) Quality of your research (20 points):

. You can use a variety of journals (peer-reviewed), books (peer reviewed – generally speaking), newspaper articles, websites, or magazine articles.
. You must use a minimum of ten sources. Of your ten sources, five sources need to be peered-reviewed scholarly articles or books (You already have four articles from your proposal). The class reader does not count as an academic source because I want you do to your own research.