Beyond the Scoreboard
The Ultimate Guide to Sports Event Presentation
Comprehensive in scope and consistent in its focus on operational excellence, Beyond the Scoreboard is a useful reference text for those in event management.
Don Costante, who has directed more than 2,500 events across thirty years, including the NBA Finals and World Series city celebrations, shares his advice about planning and executing live sporting events in the career guide Beyond the Scoreboard.
Both a primer on and a field manual for event presentations, the book uses the metaphor of a wheel to chart the essential components of industry success. Its early chapters reframe “game operations” as a broader discipline, introducing core stakeholders and defining shifts to fancentric philosophies. Topics including budgeting, inventory, sponsor integration, and team introductions are covered alongside helpful procedural templates and case studies to support related advice.
The material is arranged into discrete, self‐contained chapters that reinforce three unifying principles—timing, transitions, and execution—while maintaining overarching cohesion. The opening chapters outline key terminology and the central philosophy, while subsequent chapters cover planning meetings and sample rundown structures. The middle sections address topics including branding, signage, staffing, cleanliness, and sensory engagement, and the later chapters delve into specialized subjects like rally music, crowd prompts, and LED board animations. This modular layout facilitates both sequential learning and targeted reference use, ensuring that the text remains accessible.
Focused on utility, the language is concise and authoritative, with the book favoring bullet-point and numbered lists and clear headings to make its work digestible. Industry-specific terms are introduced with the necessary context. And the material is vivified by stories including the conversion of a passionate but reluctant spouse into an NBA fan through well-timed T-shirt tosses, as well as by stakeholder perspectives on its points. Descriptions of negotiating special-effects budgets, navigating philosophy shifts, and collaborating with team operations committees underscore the necessity of fostering adaptive problem-solving skills that can stand up to high-stakes conditions.
The guide’s comprehensive scope and consistent focus on operational excellence make it a useful reference. Its sections dedicated to checklists help anticipate common pitfalls and offer preemptive remedies. An “off season action plan” for digital production and a deep dive into music licensing processes ensure that strategic planning extends beyond single events to long-term program development. The book’s attention to detail, combined with a philosophy that places stakeholders’ experiences at the center, makes it a strong resource for elevating productions of all scopes.
Beyond the Scoreboard is a thorough career guide for those in sports management, proffering advice focused on stadium and other live events.
Reviewed by
John M. Murray
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
