Professional sports leagues thrive on providing
excitement for their fans.
It seems that no expense is spared to entertain spectators and
keep them occupied before, during, and after games. Professional
basketball has been at the forefront of this trend, popularizing such
crowd-pleasing distractions as pregame pyrotechnics, pumped-in
noise, fire-shooting scoreboards, and T-shirt-shooting cheerleaders
carrying air guns. What is the goal of investing millions in such
“game presentation” activities? Such showcasing attracts and
maintains the loyalty of younger fans. But eventually, every
organization, regardless of its growth, has to step back and take a
hard look at the wisdom of its spending choices. And when
customers are affected by a recession, the need for an organization
to employ budgeting and variance analysis tools for cost control
becomes especially critical, as the following article shows