The Real Madrid Way: How values created the most successful sports team on the planet

Book Details Mandis, S. G. (2016). The Real Madrid Way: How values created the most successful sports team on the planet. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., xxix+344 pages, $16.95, paperback, ISBN: 9781942952541.

Synopsis and Evaluation

The Real Madrid Way, by Columbia Business School adjunct professor Steven Mandis, is an essential addition to the literature on the sport management of international football (soccer). Mandis competently analyzes both the on-field and the business management aspects of Real Madrid to address the following key question: How has Real Madrid faced and overcome numerous challenges to become one of the most globally popular sport teams? The book chronicles not only important managerial, financial, and operational dynamics of the Real Madrid management but also the on-field team management of the galácticos (a galaxy of stars), coaches, and performance (e.g., too-much-talent effect and too-tired-and-old effect) by incorporating in-depth interviews with an extensive range of stakeholders and reliable publicly available data from various industry professionals and scholarly experts who study Real Madrid.

Much of the book rigorously explains the competitive advantages that have given rise to Real Madrid's success and how to develop and retain its sustainable economic-sport model over the years. Mandis strongly believes there are three fundamental management pillars leading to Real Madrid's success: (a) a resolutely established mission and value statement on the basis of the community's shared values, expectations, and desires (e.g., the world's best players, an attacking style of soccer, transparency and accountability of management, modern facilities); (b) a leader and organization that stay true to and work around a common mission and set of values in a collaborative way; and (c) paying close attention to the community's values-centric approach.

The overarching concept of the community's value-centric approach involves solidifying the loyal fan base by better recognizing the shared needs and wants of the club's fans and fulfilling their desires by creating and reinforcing personal connections and relationships directly with them. Hence, Real Madrid's sustainable economic-sport model derives from organizational strategy, identity, and culture centered on the fulfillment of shared values and expectations of the club's fans.

The major strength of the book is its methodological breadth and depth. This book offers the complete business management case of a publicly owned, non-profit sport franchise in Spain. Mandis presents the conceptual research framework of The Real Madrid Way (i.e., Sustainable Economic-Sport Model, p. 20) and often uses secondary data analyses and comparisons to provide empirical evidence of his hypothesized research model. Most importantly, highlighting the importance of the mission statement and organizational values of the sport business is indeed a notable contribution of the book to the sport management literature. In sport marketing case studies, this aspect often has been overlooked and rarely discussed.

Overall, Mandis earnestly and passionately sheds light on the sport business case of Real Madrid and the importance of organizational identity and culture to assemble a competitive global sport team, in contrast to the Oakland Athletics' (Billy Beane's) data analytics approach. Real Madrid's organizational culture, which drives the fulfillment of the club fans' values and expectations, is surely its competitive advantage because other sport competitors hardly replicate such culture. The Real Madrid Way by Mandis is a worthwhile read and provides readers, especially those interested in working in any sport organizations, with a learning experience comprising Real Madrid's history, ownership structure, financial details, on- and off-field challenges, and the future of Real Madrid-including investment in facilities, people, international markets, and more.

In the Author's Own Words

"Real Madrid's management team believes that the community does not exist to serve the business or management; rather, the club exists to serve the Real Madrid community" (p. 15).

"I aim to demonstrate that there is much more to success on and off the field than data analytics and talent, and even money, and that those who do not include culture in building a winning organization are the real dinosaurs" (p. 39).

Reviewer's Details

Young Do Kim, Ph.D. ([email protected]), is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Management at Elon University. He holds a Ph.D. in Sport Management from Florida State University. His area of expertise lies in the realm of sport fan behavior, with a specialization in sport fan equity (SFE). His recent research interest is to develop a scale to measure the overall asset value of sport fans and the utility of the scaling and weighting methods to obtain an SFE index for estimating overall sport franchise value from the consumer's side. He also has several years of teaching experience in Sport Marketing and Sport Finance.

References

To Cite this Review

Kim, Y. D. (2017, Summer). Review of The Real Madrid way: How values created the most successful sports team on the planet, by S. G. Mandis. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 9(2), 101-102.