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Brand Platform in the Professional Sport Industry:

Sustaining Growth Through Innovation by Jingxuan
Zheng and Daniel S. Mason

Article  in  Mass Communication & Society · May 2019

DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2019.1616438

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Mass Communication and Society, 22:689–690
© 2019 Mass Communication & Society Division
of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
ISSN: 1520-5436 print / 1532-7825 online
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2019.1616438

BOOK REVIEW

Jingxuan Zheng and Daniel S. Mason. Brand Platform in the Professional Sport
Industry: Sustaining Growth Through Innovation. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave
Pivot, 2018, xii + 104 pp., ISBN No. 978-3-319-90352-1 (hardcover).

Reviewed by Thilo Kunkel

School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management
Temple University

In their book Brand Platform in the Professional Sport Industry, Jingxuan Zheng
and Daniel S. Mason provide an interesting overview of the sport industry and how
new media influences the industry. Over four chapters, the authors discuss different
theoretical constructs developed based on traditional sport market assumptions and
modify them by integrating characteristics of new technology.
In Chapter 1, the authors argue that the arrival of new media impacts the
“dual product market,” where sport leagues generate income from selling
products and services directly to fans and from selling the attention of fans to
media and brands. This creates challenges for sport leagues, which need to find
a balance between protecting their intellectual property and engaging fans. The
authors argue that technology advancement can facilitate the broader and freer
transmission of sport content, which is beneficial to the suitability and devel-
opment to the industry itself. Yet the more liberally sport—as content—flows,
the more difficult it is to control by the producers.
In Chapter 2, the authors review the evolution of professional sports as
a multisided market. Readers interested in the role of radio and television on
professional sports leagues over the last century find multiple examples from
Major League Baseball and get insights on the broadcasting contract history of
the National Football League. Historically, sport was a multisided market with
fans on one side and the media on the other side, where growth on either side
benefitted both sides. However, the emergence of new media has challenged the

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