I decided to evaluate the organizational structure of the Boston Celtics, which is a professional basketball franchise whose team is a member of the NBA. The NBA is a professional basketball league in the United States and Canada that consist of 32 teams. I choose the Boston Celtics because it is one of the most recognizable franchises and logos in all professional sports. With 17 NBA championships, the most of any NBA franchise and unbelievable fan base from all over the world. The average fan that watches the NBA has no idea to the amount of money and organization management that is involved with these organizations and franchises. They are structured very meticulously, where every position is essential to winning, making money, and leaving the fans that spend millions of dollars supporting these franchises entertained, and happy.

Winning Championships is not at all about the players on the court that play the game. Yeah they play the game and must out score the other team to win. In reality but it takes a lot of time and hard work buy the people in the front offices that run the franchise to get an organization to that level. Winning Championships is not like a pickup game of basketball you have to hire people in all types of positions. Everything position from a General Manager, to a Head Coach, to a Game Operations Manager. Any Championship organization will tell you that you win Championships as an Organization, not just the player that plays the game. Everyone from the CEO, to the ball boys, to the mascot, and even the cheerleaders are a part of the success to a Championship Organization.

The Boston Celtic franchise has a centralized organization structure. There are several layers of management that control the company, by maintaining a high structured level of authority. Decisions that are made within this type of structure can be made by a President or Vice President of a particular department. This type of structure leaves employees on the front line very little room to make decisions without going through the chain of command on business making decisions. The centralized structure is based on top down management, where top executives at top financial officials are responsible for the strategic planning of the organization. They then communicate this plan to middle managers, who then come up with a tactical plan for the front line managers, who then break the tactical plan down into an operational plan of attack to achieve objectives made by the top executives. The centralized structure is very structured organization that has a lot of routine and leaves employees with little freedom. It is a process of going up the chain of command to get things answered or approved.

The Centralized structure of the Boston Celtics is headed by a CEO. The CEO is then over four major departments, each head up by a vice president, chief officer, president or general manager. The four departments are basketball operations, operations and information, financial, and marketing and sales. Each department is essential to the overall success of the Boston Celtics and consists of many vice presidents and managers to oversee the success of that department..

The marketing and sales departments are the biggest departments in size of the organization. The overall department is consumer driven and is broken down into two internal departments. One department is ticket sales and the other is community relations. The ticket sales department is responsible for all ticket sales and generates a lot of revenue for the franchise. The other department is about sales and public relations. This is a business that depends on the consumers for support to cheer on a victory. That is why community support and involvement is a major part of the organizations success.

The CFO or chief financial officer oversees three directors: a human resource director, senior director or controller, director of accounting, and all receptions. He or she is basically over day to day operations on the business side of the business; handling finical problems paying bills and overseeing the employees of the company. Another depart that helps and is on the same operational side of the franchise is the Operations and Information department. Which is ran by a vice president, that oversees; technology, operations, risk management, and has a staff accountant.

The last major department is the Basketball Operations side of the franchise. This department is the reason the franchise is financially successful and the reason why people pay their money to cheer this organization. The Basketball Operations side of the company is run by a general manager or president. He or she oversees a scouting director. The scouting director oversees the scouting of new potential amateur and professional employees. The most important job for the head of basketball operations is hiring the right coach that will win. The coaching department is run by the head coach who hires assistants to help coach players.

The Boston Celtics centralized structure is different from other organizational structures, like a small "brick and mortar" record shop, neighborhood grocery store, barber shop, or law office. These types of companies use a line structure as an organization structure. Which is the most simple to run based on the type of business and the number of employees. A line structure works for these small local businesses because the final decision is made by the CEO or owner of the company. These types of CEO’s are available throughout the day to make almost all major or minor decisions for the company. This distinct chain of command is what defines a line structure, and is why this type of structure would not work for the Boston Celtics. In line structures the President of the company usually are on a first name basis with their staff and the president is required to juggle the task of many different positions throughout the company, and cannot be an expert in all levels where he or she makes decisions.
For example being the company accountant, sales representative, marketing coordinator, in addition to president will eventually catch up to them and mistakes will be made. This workload would just involve too much work and stress any CEO and especially for the CEO of the Boston Celtics.

Another type of organizational structure is the matrix structure. This structure combines the authoritative relationships of horizontal, diagonal, and, vertical structures; into a functioning relationship where employees report to a project manager for a length of a project. Workers may have two supervisors, one that they regularly report to on an everyday basis and one for a special project. This is becoming more and more common in today’s modern work environment; where employees in marketing, finance, human resources, and accounting departments work together on a specific project to meet a company goal. This would be great for an engineering or construction company. I do not think this type of structure would work well for the Boston Celtics. Because there is no real projects that would require employees to do different projects. It is pretty much a systematic way of handling business that has been running the same way for decades. Going to a matrix structure would confuse the chain of command and things would not get done to the best of its ability. I just don’t think this the Celtic organization could really function at its best on this system because of type of business it does. The Celtics are built on an entertainment factor, even though I could see the sales and marketing departments doing some cross departmental matrix project. I don’t think it would be a good idea for the overall success of the company structure to be a matrix.
The ultimate goal for all member of the organization is to win a Championship for that year. The average sports fan doesn’t understand what goes on behind the scene to get those banners hanging in the rafters. The Boston Celtics have proven that they know the formula for making money and winning. They are an organized organization that knows the formula for success.

Bibliography

Organizational Structure. (2001). Retrieved from http://www.enotes.com/organizational-structure-reference/organizational-structure

Boston Celtic Organizational Chart Retrieved from http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763728845/Figure%2062-4_Celtics_OrgChart.jpg