Abstract
Why do some sport management organizations follow the standard rules of business and fail to succeed, while others break the rules and emerge successful? The answer may lie in the acquisition, retention, and development of human capital as a strategy to overcome other commonly noted organizational deficiencies. When faced with explaining declining performance relative to competitive strength in sport organizations, prevailing excuses to the shareholders and other stakeholders seem to include items such as lack of resource acquisitions, inadequate economies of scale or scope, incompetent managers, incompliant performers, or imprudent political agendas (a last ditch effort to divert responsibility on the part of a high-level executive). However, the commonly published management explanations seem to seldom include admissions of poor human capital practices on the part of the organization. The acknowledgment would be a foolish disclosure, since such behavior is an expected component of appointed executive leadership. At the same time, the savvy shareholder knows that these other excuses could at least be mitigated by and sometimes the reason for the lack of human talent within these organizations. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]