Formula E's season three is nearly complete. CEO Alejandro Agag needs to examine his business model to ensure the racing series is positioned to grow sustainable in the years to come.
Founded in 2012, DraftKings helped change the fantasy sports landscape by popularizing daily fantasy sports (DFS), or short-term fantasy sports tournaments that offered big cash prizes to winners. The company's valuation exceeded $1 billion by 2015, but DraftKings soon faced intense scrutiny from government agencies about whether its business model violated federal laws preventing sports betting and online gambling. Then, in May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law that had prohibited states from legalizing sports betting. Now that states could legalize sports betting, what should DraftKings' next steps be?
In 2016, Michael Rubin's Fanatics was the U.S.' largest sports e-commerce company, and operator of the official online store for all the major American sports leagues. That year, Fanatics began to dabble in manufacturing licensed sports merchandise, securing limited permissions from leagues to manufacture apparel in response to 'micro-moments,' sudden surges of interest in a team or player that were too abrupt for the league's usual licensees to react to. The success of these efforts raised the possibility that Fanatics might make a play to displace a major athletic wear manufacturer as the official merchandise licensee of a major sports league. For a company with little manufacturing infrastructure and experience however, it was unclear whether this was an advisable step for Fanatics, or how they would go about it.
In 2015, National Hockey League (NHL) commissioner Gary Bettman was weighing two major decisions: whether to expand the league to a new city, and whether to conclude a digital media rights deal with Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM). Expansion required a careful balance between the needs of existing teams, and of parallel fan bases in the U.S. and Canada. Between two candidate expansion cities, Las Vegas, NV and Quebec, QC, Bettman would have to decide to expand to either, neither, or both. If the NHL accepted MLBAM's offer, it would be one of sports' first digital media rights deals, and the first time one major sport had outsourced its digital media production to another. This case also explores the history of the National Hockey League and labor relations between the league and its players.
Drone Racing League (DRL) sees itself as the world's preeminent professional drone racing league. The company is in its third season of racing and is focused on future seasons and the negotiation of a new media agreement. How should the company proceed?
In late 2016, Russ D'Souza and Jack Groetzinger, co-founders of the online event ticketing platform SeatGeek, faced some difficult decisions. In the company's seven-year history, SeatGeek had positioned itself primarily as an aggregator, facilitating ticket transactions between sellers and buyers on the "secondary ticket market." But in early 2016, D'Souza and Groetzinger had decided to pursue the "primary ticket market"-contracting directly with the sports teams and venues that issued tickets to events, a space dominated by Ticketmaster. This move would require SeatGeek to confront Ticketmaster, an established incumbent, develop or acquire the back-end software necessary to enable primary market ticket sales, and establish partnerships with sports teams and event venues. Entering the primary market would also likely necessitate a Series D funding round.
In 2013, Street League Skateboarding, a professional skateboarding league founded in 2010, just concluded its annual Street League World Tour. The growing action sports property had purchased time on ESPN2 to air its events, and though ESPN was the most-watched sports television network in the U.S., Street League President Brian Atlas had become impatient with the network's lack of support. Atlas planned to meet with network representatives in the coming months to discuss their 2014 contract, but was recently approached by FOX Sports, which had just launched the new FOX Sports 1 cable television network and was working to sign sports properties. Atlas considered Street League's relationship with ESPN, the league's finances, and attempts to raise capital. For a new action sports property such as Street League, what business model made the most sense?
Fola Laoye is the Group Managing Director of Hygeia Group, a Nigerian healthcare insurer and provider, and she is deciding on the optimal strategy to grow the provider arm of her business. Hygeia Group was founded in the 1980s by her physician parents, and although operating a healthcare company in Nigeria offered challenges particularly in human resources and infrastructure, by 2011, it had expanded to include three hospital and clinic sites and a large insurance company. The company has just received a large equity investment from an international private equity company, and it has decided to focus on expanding tertiary care capabilities in its hospitals. A consulting team has identified cardiology, oncology and advanced surgery (orthopedic and minimally invasive) as areas with strategic potential. However, Ms. Laoye must decide which of these options offers the greatest growth opportunities. In addition, as her company grows, she must decide the how best to structure the payor and provider aspects of her business in a way that maximizes synergies for both.
This case explores the relationship between Tenet Healthcare, the third largest for-profit hospital chain, and its subsidiary Conifer Health Solutions, a health services company. Conifer's IT programs help health care providers with revenue cycle management and population health management; the case provides an overview of both sectors. Conifer has been growing rapidly, leading some to question what the best relationship is for Tenet and Conifer going forward. The current parent-subsidiary arrangement presents synergies as well as potential conflicts.
By January 2015, Whistle Sports, a multi-platform sports network for millennials, had attracted over 54 million online subscribers on Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Vine. It established partnerships with several professional sports leagues and amassed 225 partner channels on YouTube. Its revenue was largely generated through advertisements featured on YouTube. Whistle Sports recently announced that it raised $32 million in Series B financing, enough to bring the company into 2016. John West (MBA 1995), founder and CEO, wondered how the company should allocate its resources over the next year in order to become profitable and ensure future growth.
The case describes this health and wellness service company and poses the question: should RedBrick stay on the path of building out its product platform or should the RedBrick platform be launched directly to health insurers, ACOs, or directly to customers?
This is the syllabus and course outline for "Entrepreneurship in Healthcare IT and Services (EHITS)" taught by Prof. Bob Higgins in the spring of 2017. Contains the course overview, objectives, goals and themes.