ABSTRACT
The world is getting smaller. We humans are increasingly interconnected in many ways including linkages through electronic technology, ease and affordability of travel, international trade, and commercialization. Nearly everything and every person may move around the globe with relative ease. The twenty-first century has realized an escalated growth in the free flow of capital, ideas, people, goods, and services that channel and facilitate the interaction, exchange, and integration of economies and societies (Danylchuk et al., 2014). In today’s modern society, a person may read about or see events as they happen at most locations on earth because technology is in the hands of many in the form of a ‘smart-phone’ – a tiny computer in a phone, and people can now post photos, videos, or comments to internet sites that can be seen and read by people around the world with a computer and an internet connection. In this modern and interconnected world, sports and sport business of an international caliber are expanding, giving rise to the need for sport management professionals with an international-focused specialization. This is perhaps best posited in a question by Schwarz et al., (2015) who examined demography, migration, and globalization of leisure, recreation, and sport: Is there an evolution of a new world order of sport that will have a significant effect of the future demand on leisure, recreation, and sport worldwide? ‘The increasingly globalized world and movement of people across boundaries has led to a changed mix of
players representing countries in sports over the last few decades. The ethnic mix and the natives versus immigrants that comprise national teams, not only in football but also in all sports, has radically changed. Talented sports people have become more global in terms of both their profile and their market value’ (Enskog, 2014, p. 1).
