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Sports marketing has established itself over the last three decades not only as a very special form of marketing but also as an own subject of research. However, it is quite surprising that the nature of sports marketing is relatively unknown as different definitions of sports market-ing indicate. Indeed, a generally accepted definition does not exist to date and opinions about the nature of sports marketing differ widely. This paper examines the nature of sports market-ing and therefore seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion as to whether sports marketing is any different from principal marketing or just a modified version. It starts with a discussion of three different definitions of sports marketing. Then the unique characteristics of sports and sports marketing are described followed by implications for sporting organisation, companies involved in sports marketing and sports marketing academics. The paper concludes with a summarizing concept of sports marketing that illustrates the very special nature of sports marketing both verbally and graphically.

Lifecycles have been accepted widely as a matter of fact in business. Existing literature focuses on their theoretical implications for product managers and corporate strategists. There are major shortcomings of the research in that field concerning the populations covered (if at all, mostly hardware) and the theoreticcal as well as empirical analysis of the drivers of the lifecycles in the various industries. Based on the research of Menhart et al. (2003), we chose a population of service organizations to analyze the drivers of the lifecycle. Biological lifecycles describe the development processes of an individual from birth to death. Economic life cycle concepts assume, that in analogy to biological organisms, economic systems also experience typical phases of development in their evolution. In the economic literature, life cycle concepts were used to explain the development patterns of single products, organizations, technologies and whole industries. In the standard model of the life cycle concept, specific characteristics of the unit of analysis such as sales volume, turnover or number of competitors first increase to a maximum, then decrease significantly and finally reach a level of stability, or they are discontinued completely. We have developed a concept for an insurance specific industry life cycle with a non-typical maturation and degeneration phase, and discuss to what extent the concept of Maslow's pyramid of needs can have explanatory power regarding the pattern of density dynamics.

We introduce a new method of varying the risk that bidders face in first-price private value auctions. We find that decreasing bidders' risk significantly reduces the degree of overbidding relative to the risk-neutral Bayesian-Nash equilibrium prediction. This implies that risk affects bidding behavior as generally expected in auction theory. While resolving a long-standing debate on the effect of risk on auction behavior, our results give rise to a new puzzle. As risk is diminished and overbidding decreases for most of the value range, a significant degree of underbidding sets in for very low values.