The purpose of this research is to create a model that will benefit this industry and the many changes to come. As of now, there are limited FTC guidelines which limit the protection of content creators, agencies, and brands. That is when I came up with the idea to develop a model to further improve efficiency of the influencer marketing industry, and to help the entrepreneurs who are leading it. This model provides the framework for a strong start in the influencer marketing industry. Through informational interviews, literary research, field studies, and surveys, the model was developed through the data analysis of each of these tools, based on common themes found within each. This research was conducted from a variety of perspectives, including consumers, brands, agencies, and content creators.

This thesis aims to develop a new way to value players for all teams in the MLB, despite the financial disparity. Displayed in the rest of this paper, is a player valuation model created around each team's salary level, focusing on player’s offensive output. The model functions in a way that values players by their ability to help their team score runs and win games by setting parameters for salary expectations based on player performance. This allows for small market MLB teams, like the Cleveland Guardians, to build a roster of players around their specific salary limit, specifically to score the maximum runs and win games. On the contrary, the model also works for big market teams, like the Los Angeles Dodger, allowing them to project their larger salary limit to players and build their ideal roster as well.

This thesis looks at youth baseball pitchers’ perceptions of the risks and benefits of a weighted baseball and long toss training program. The literature review is a supplement to the thesis by examining the effects of weighted baseball and long toss training programs on a youth pitcher’s arm health and career longevity. Prior research in this topic details the risks and benefits of these programs. The research survey conducted for this thesis aimed to supplement the prior research by giving insight into the perceptions of these young athletes towards weighted baseball and long toss training programs.

Basketball has evolved and is continuing to evolve in parallel with media and communication. The 21st century bears witness to the digitization of basketball, media, and communication with the advent of social media. Arguably the most esteemed professional basketball league in the world, the National Basketball Association (NBA) observes fans and players alike conversing about the game through social media platforms available across the world. One of the most popular platforms, Twitter, enables anyone with a computer to write a textual post known as a “tweet” that can be made viewable to the public. The Twitter landscape holds a trove of data and information including “sentiment” for NBA teams to analyze with the goal of improving the success of their team from a managerial perspective. Two aspects this paper will examine are fan engagement and revenue generation from the perspective of several franchises in the NBA. The purpose of this research is to explore and discover if key measures of performance including both the number of points scored in a game and the game outcome either being a win or a loss, and the location of a game being won either at home or away on the road influence fan Twitter sentiment and if there is a correlation between fan Twitter sentiment and game attendance. The statistical computing tool RStudio in combination with data compiled from online databases and websites including Basketball Reference, Wikipedia, ESPN, and Statista are employed to execute two t-tests, two analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, and one correlation test. The results indicate there is a significant difference in fan Twitter sentiment between high-scoring games and low-scoring games, between game wins and losses, among games being won at home versus away on the road, and there is no conclusion that can be made regarding any existing correlation between fan Twitter sentiment and game attendance.

Marketers are constantly striving to discover strategies that promote the greatest amount of word of mouth (WOM) from their consumers. WOM is perceived as one of the most reputable forms of marketing by consumers due to the authenticity and sincerity that is associated with the strategy. With WOM being an organic and genuine response from consumers, marketers are often faced with difficulties or failure when explicitly requesting that consumers engage in positive WOM behaviors. However, there are certain practices that firms can implement to encourage WOM behaviors from their consumers. This study examines the effectiveness of two different freebie marketing methods and the impact that each method’s presentation has on a consumer’s willingness to participate in WOM. The results of this study will be used to provide companies with guidelines and recommendations to successfully create freebie marketing strategies that drive authentic WOM surrounding their brand and products.

Marketers are constantly striving to discover strategies that promote the greatest amount of word of mouth (WOM) from their consumers. WOM is perceived as one of the most reputable forms of marketing by consumers due to the authenticity and sincerity that is associated with the strategy. With WOM being an organic and genuine response from consumers, marketers are often faced with difficulties or failure when explicitly requesting that consumers engage in positive WOM behaviors. However, there are certain practices that firms can implement to encourage WOM behaviors from their consumers. This study examines the effectiveness of two different freebie marketing methods and the impact that each method’s presentation has on a consumer’s willingness to participate in WOM. The results of this study will be used to provide companies with guidelines and recommendations to successfully create freebie marketing strategies that drive authentic WOM surrounding their brand and products.