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Sport as the most globalized legitimate business in the world

Walter LaFeber, the political historian, once said the most globalized business in the world and the most lucrative is the drug trade, but for legitimate businesses, sports is probably number 1.
The fans want to see the best and they use the global standards to determine what the best is. The development of the satellite television enables them to watch live events from almost anywhere in the world. This exposure helped a bigger fan base, which, in turn, enabled sporting groups to earn more income, especially through advertising. At the same time, players have declining allegiance to their home-town or home-country fans; rather they are willing to go wherever they can earn the most, presuming that their teams are willing to trade them or release them from their contracts and their governments permit them to work abroad. In every sport, we find top players on the rosters of teams outside their home countries, such as the British soccer star David Beckham with Los Angeles Galaxy, USA (before playing for Real Madrid, Spain); Czech Ice-hockey player Jaromír Jágr with Dallas, USA (before playing for Avangard Omsk, Russia; Philadelphia, USA).
Given the growing global audience for professional sports, top players and teams have effectively become global brands. Athletes such as Tiger Woods in golf, Venus and Serena Williams in tennis etc. not only do companies such as Nike, Reebok and Adidas pay them to endorse sportswear and equipment, nonsports companies pay them to endorse their products (McDonalds, Avon etc.) (Radebaugh, Daniels,

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Sullivan, 2007).

4. Causes of Globalization

Globalization is a complex phenomenon with complex impacts. As you may have noticed, the definitions stated above vary greatly. From one point of it is perceived as a force that brings about economic prosperity to people throughout the world. From another, it is blamed for many contemporary ills. Regardless of the differences in perception of globalization, it is widely accepted that its key characteristics are the liberalization of international trade, the expansion of foreign direct investments as well as the emergence of massive international financial flows. This resulted in increased global competition.

Two underlying factors play the major role here: reduction of national barriers to international economic transactions and the impact of new technology, mainly when it comes to information and communication. Technological development has been crucial for globalization.

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Information, goods and capital are also cheaper and able to move across the globe faster. It is difficult to ignore globalisation. Just have a look at the tags on your

clothing. Where did you buy the item? Where was it made? How did it get there?

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Examples of globalisation are the US fruit imports from Brazil; The American Company NIKE manufactures their trainers in Indonesia. When you call the DELL call centre, you will speak to someone in India; Hollywood movies are pirated and sold for cents in China, car parts are manufactured in many different countries, including Korea, Germany and China, and then these are then in the US.

1. Firm´s activities vs. globalization

Impacts of globalization on different economic sectors, enterprises, workers and social groups vary significantly. From the economic point of view, globalization has uneven impact across countries. The rise of China and India is a great illustration of the uneven distribution of the benefits of globalization. The industrial countries have also benefited substantially from increasing globalization of the world economy. This is because of their strong initial economic base, capital and skill as well as technological leadership. The other group that have benefited greatly was also the minority of developing countries by increasing exports and increase of foreign direct investments. Reasons for this are that these countries had relatively good initial levels of industrialization, human resource development, infrastructure, and economic and social institutions. On the contrary, some undeveloped African countries have not benefited from globalization and remain handicapped by poverty and illiteracy with some of these countries still largely dependent on a single commodity.
Globalisation is the process by which people, their ideas and their activities in different parts of the world become interconnected or integrated. The main idea of globalisation is interconnectedness.
The impacts of globalisation are: economic, social and environmental.

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