The National Football League (NFL) is an American football league made of one of the major professional sports leagues in North America. The league constitutes of 32 teams which are equally divided between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The league has its highest professional level running for a 17 weeks season. The league consists of various forms of competition with winners of different competitions are awarded accordingly. Six of the 32 teams; where four are from division winners and two from wild-card teams, compete in playoffs to win a Super Bowl, which is played between NFC and AFC champions (Bass, 2007).
The sports sector has become extremely famous in the globe. Its fame is fetched from the high income that has been attractive to different participants. This has created massive competition among different leagues in the world. Competition is one of the main external factors that have been influential to the activities of NFL. The competition in the league has been in form of poaching of talented players from the league by other football leagues in the world such as the English Premier League. This has negatively influenced the performance of the league. The other external factor is the economy of the United States. Poor performance of the economy affects the activities of organizations in a country (Hamlen, 2007). The NFL is usually sponsored by organizations from the United States. Therefore, negative performance of the organization means inadequate funds for the league. This will have extensive negative influence to the performance of various teams as they may not have adequate money to pay the players (Bass, 2007).
The operations of NFL may be influenced by different stakeholders; commissioner, participating teams, and sponsors. Each of these stakeholders plays critical role in ensuring success of the activities of the organization.
The commissioner is the executive officer of NFL. This means he chairs various meetings with other stakeholders. His influence is intense since he acts as the representative of the organization. Therefore, his decisions or contributions in a discussion are directly influential to how activities flow in the organization. Teams make the organization complete by introducing the competition that make the league relevant to the world. Teams must consist of players, and the manager. They must also have unique names to make the competition attractive. Sponsors are equally fundamental as they are ambassadors of the organization as well as individual teams in the league (Hamlen, 2007).
These stakeholders can influence the activities of the organization in different ways. One of the ways that they may influence the organization is by them being the decision makers in the organization by each of them contributing according to their point of view. Secondly, they finance various activities of the organization. This is mainly done by sponsors as they act as the ambassadors of the league. Thirdly, stakeholders are the determinants of the competition will be as they assist in scheduling the competitions of the league. Their plan is usually final and it is the determinant of the well being of the league. The commissioner is usually the signatory of the organization. Therefore, he may decide to undertake some activities, which are not in line with what every member of the board of directors may support. The commissioner is a key figure in the organization such that he is the one who passes contracts and he may do it favorably if not checked accordingly.
As an organization inclined to social activities, NFL usually undertakes various corporate social responsibilities. These are usually aimed at ensuring existence of a strong bond between the organization and the society. However, recently the organization held a controversial breast cancer awareness month.
The organization may realize the corporate social responsibility through a well structured plan. The first thing is to ensure that all participants of the league are well aware of breast cancer. The level of knowledge of the disease must be defined by the existing data or information about the disease and the individual teams must be aware of them. This may be achieved through extensive campaign in the league to bring in awareness to all the teams. The ambassador color for breast cancer is pink. Therefore, it may be proposed that all teams find a pink in their kits. They may decide that all players put on pink boots. Teams may be extremely influential on how to achieve the goal of corporate social responsibility on breast cancer. This is because they form the largest portion and most influential set of stakeholders. Teams are usually renowned of their extensive influence in the league. Since they are the most fundamental in designing how the league will flow or stand in a given football season, and the carry the mind of the fans they would be the best people to carry out the campaign to other stakeholders. In most cases, teams develop close and reliable connection with the fans (Hunnicutt, 2009). This makes it easy for teams to command follow up by the fans. Therefore, as a leader of any team, one is guaranteed the support of a large group of people whenever there is a positive project to undertake.
However, leading a team is not always an easy task. It requires consciousness of the leader to convince the team to support a given initiative. This is an indication that there will be challenges that may result from different stakeholders. It is not easy to convince all the stakeholders to befall the plan of one of them. The first challenge is explaining and making every stakeholder understand the influence that breast cancer may have to a league made of men teams. Some of them may have inadequate understanding of what breast cancer is and how it may affect the organization. Unless the stakeholders understand what this form of cancer means there may not be adequate breakthrough to pursue the social responsibility (Hunnicutt, 2009). The second challenge would be how to sensitize the society about the disease. It had been proposed for teams to change their playing kits slightly. This may be controversial between teams and sponsors as sponsors may find it difficult to finance new kits while they have already invested in the real kits. They may feel like they are sponsoring another event outside the football that they had signed a contract. The commissioner may not be always for such ideas. In the society, citizens are facing extensive challenges, such that choosing only one is also a challenge. As the leader to teams, I would undertake the challenge to convince the rest of the stakeholders that breast cancer is a new lifestyle disease and needs to be controlled early before it became extensively deadly (Meadows, 2008). I would gather massive information that would be presented to the rest of the stakeholders as a method to convince them on the urgent need to deal with breast cancer in the society.
References
Bass, T. (2007). National Football League: between the lines reader. New York: Scholastic.
Hamlen, W. A. (2007). Deviations From Equity And Parity In The National Football League. Journal of Sports Economics,8(6), 596-615.
Hunnicutt, S. (2009). Corporate social responsibility. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Meadows, N. (2008). Campaigning For Breast Cancer Awareness. Geriatric Nursing, 17(2), 54-54.
