Going green in baseball - a case study of the SK Wyverns

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the marketing journey of a professional baseball team in South Korea (the SK Wyverns), from the conception of a new "green" campaign to the resulting environmental, social and economic gains of the local community and of Korean baseball in general. Design/methodology/approach - The investigator interviewed 12 constituents of the SK's green marketing campaign, participated as an observer at seven separate field trips to the SK stadium and meetings, and collected and analyzed corporate documentation and physical artifacts. The role of the researcher as an advisor to the Wyvern's green marketing initiative from the onset provided rare access to these multiple and different sources of evidence, which helped to establish the trustworthiness of the results (Yin, 2003). Findings - By taking unconventional steps to find new funding opportunities, the team managed to achieve a triple benefit-of environmental, social and economic gains from green marketing. In the big picture, one will recognize that the SK Wyverns' story is less about the opportune timing of its funding strategy, and more about its capacity for innovative thinking to address the big issue of meeting up-front costs. Originality/value - The significance of the SK Wyverns' green marketing program is that it shows how even a team in a non-major baseball market like South Korea can accept a big challenge and deliver the desired results by solving the cost issue in a proactive, creative way. The hope is that other sport franchises around Asia, in other regions faced with growing environmental concerns, may regard this case as a benchmark and find inspiration for their own creative solutions in going green.