HBS Sports Professor Awarded for Work in Sports Business

Harvard Business School Professor Stephen A. Greyser ’56 recently received the 2010 Sports Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association for his “distinguished career contributions to the scientific understanding of sports business.”

Greyser, an emeritus professor of business administration at the Business School, co-developed and taught the first sports business course offered at the Business School 30 years ago.

“To me, this award is a culmination of, but not the end of, my career,” said Greyser, who earned both his MBA and doctorate at the Business School. “My dual involvement with sports, in terms of the sport of spots and the business of sports, comes together in this award.”

Greyser—who began his research in sports business in the 1970s, when he wrote a case study on the marketing of the Boston Celtics—has written numerous cases and authored several books on management and marketing.

“The business of sports has grown to be so huge,” Greyser said, adding that sports business is “one of the fields I’ve put in a good deal of my intellectual activity.”

Greyser, who can recite sports statistics from memory, said that he has been a sports fan since he was a child, when he and his father attended numerous professional sporting events together. A Boston native, he has been a longtime Celtics and Red Sox season-ticket holder.

“I have been able to make my passion into my work,” Greyser wrote in a Business School press release.

He added that his work in sports began early. He was a sports color commentator for WHRB, the Harvard College radio station, during his undergraduate years.

He is known by his students and colleagues as the Cal Ripken of the Business School for having never missed his class during his 42-year tenure.

Cal Ripken, a former Major League Baseball player, currently holds the record for the greatest number of games played consecutively.

Greyser teaches courses at both the Business School and the Harvard Extension School, and is a Trustee of WHRB, a Winthrop House Faculty Associate, and the faculty advisor of the Business School’s Business of Sports Club. He also supervises MBA field studies.

Greyser said that he will continue his work in the field of sports management and marketing with a special interest in global sports business.

—Staff writer Tara W. Merrigan can be reached at tmerrigan@college.harvard.edu.