Sports Management Blog

As a competitive sportsperson, it’s always gratifying when you make it into the Top-x of the event you’re taking part in (with x = 3, 5, 10, 50 or 100, depending on your level and your fellow competitors’ level…).

Well, although I don’t really consider this blog as being “in competition” with others, I’m still happy to report that the Masters in Sports Administration website, which tracks “the best online master’s degrees in sport administration”, has just selected the Sports Management Blog as one of the Top 50 blogs covering the Sports industry ! Check us out here – we are among the 12 blogs listed in the “Sports Business & Management” category.

I am very honoured by this distinction, which encourages me to pick up the pace at which I post my comments on the management of sports, with a European perspective.

Although I only follow a few blogs in the list’s “Sports Agent, Scout and Sponsorship”, “Sports Law” and “Sports Science” categories, and so wouild be hard-pressed adding any blog to the ones already listed, I would definitely add the following 2 blogs as near-mandatory reading in the “Sports Communications & Marketing” and/or “Sports Business & Management” categories:

• Take A Peck – Social Media, Sports, Marketing and More, by Jason Peck
• The Sports Networker, by Lewis Howes

Thanks again to Rachel & the team for including the Sports Management Blog in their Top 50 list – and happy holidays to all of my readers!

This post contains my live notes on one of the topics covered during the 2010 Lausanne International Sports Management Conference. Apologies for any typo and/or misinterpretations which might have snuck in the text.
Feel free to comment below!

5 presentations around “IT in sports”, followed by a panel discussion.

1. IT trends for sports events (Mr. Carsten Florstedt, CEO DC GmbH)

A number of products and platforms are increasing their penetration in the general public – are they relevant for sports events’ organisers?

iPad: Showcases an excellent SKY iPad App developed for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Concludes that the iPad is definitely a product to be taken into account when managing sports events (and its marketing).

Media Tablets: Essentially competitors to iPads, and replacements for notebooks. Concludes that these are also (naturally) products to contend with when managing sports events (and its marketing).

Smartphones: Several platforms competing with each-other. Are they relevant for sports-events’ organisers? Definitely. Need to also include in events’ budget the cost of developing dedicated app.s for those different platforms.

“Social Web”: Several social networks could be relevant for sports events’ organisers – although country-specific (Facebook not necessarily predominant in every country). Some social utilities get a mention as well (e.g. Amiando). Clever use of social platforms can benefit ticket sales. Some social networks (e.g. LinkedIn) now also link directly into one of the most widespread email tool (Outlook), through social connectors. Relevant for sports events’ organisers – but cautions on potential security threats (need to manage carefully).

Cloud computing: Several advantages to leverage cloud computing as sports events’ organisers – but there are disadvantages (mostly around data safety).

2. How the Dutch Olympic Committee uses IT trends (Mr. Jean-Pierre Martens, Dutch Olympic Committee )

The goal for the Dutch NOC when creating & managing a “community” is to share knowledge between Dutch National Federations – thoughts have been given to whether or not the community was something that Dutch NFs wanted.

2 main components to the Dutch NOC community:

• WieSport.nl – a wiki-type platform (centralisation & “communitisation” of data on Dutch sports), which provides support to NFs in the field of knowledge- sharing between members of all Dutch NFs
• Olympisch.nl – a purely fan-oriented website, active during the last Winter Olympic Games; no more competition with other media outlets & sources, full use of social media (YouTube, Flickr and Twitter info’ streams), with extensive showcase of user-generated content with extremely little intervention from the NOC (low-cost solution)

The Dutch NOC realises that, although it’s already done a lot, it still needs to leverage social media even more to prepare for London 2012: e.g. more use of mobile & geolocation (Foursquare).

Key learnings:

• No need to build a new “networking platform” from scratch – they already exist: make sure you participate in them wholeheartedly
• Look outside of your on narrow field of specialisation
• Be open to future trends (e.g. mobile) and be ready to leverage them

3. FIBA Digital: Developing basketball through technology (Mr. Wolfram Klug, FIBA Head of Technology)

Exponential growth in capabilities offered by technology – applies to the sports world.

FIBA started implementing a platform for its constituents a few years ago. FIBA’s technology platform now has 3 main components.

a. Software

Caters for all of the regional federations’ core operational/business needs; was initially developed for FIBA, was then cascaded down to the FIBA Zones, and subsequently to those of the NFs which demonstrated a need for it (and even to clubs) – for free!

b. Online services

Live results & statistics to all of the basketball games which need it (even on mobile platforms). Also lending a hand (for free!) to any club which wants to create a website for their website.

c. Courtside services

Further developments: get closer to the fans’ needs, by allowing fans to customise their FIBA website experience (becomes an individual portal). However, contends that the usage of some social-media platforms is bound to decline – so Federations should not bet their house on it.

4. Defining data standards (Mr. Christian Michels, FIFA )

Definition and management of data is key in sports. In order to manage data properly, you need standards, and an interface (which, as far as sports-specific data is concerned, is software). That software needs to be understandable/interpretable for ay user of that data: there need to be globally-understood and -agreed data standards.

Without data, you simply cannot work. FIFA’ s approach is to leverage what already exists, and decide how it fits into the standards which have been defined at FIFA level.

5. Asociation Management meets Web 2.0 (Mr. Ingo Thomann, DFB-Medien )

DFB-Medien is the IT & software house of the German football association. It creates administration software for a sports – but unlike the institutions represented by other speakers on the panel, it has a significant commercialisation objective in its developments.

The company strives to build a common system to administer German football data, by bringing together all of the existing knowledge & resources, and establishing common standards.

This post contains my live notes on one of the topics covered during the 2010 Lausanne International Sports Management Conference. Apologies for any typo and/or misinterpretations which might have snuck in the text.
Feel free to comment below!

Topic: Managing athletes and bidding for the Games – Two tracks to peak performance

(Presentation starts with an overt self-promotion video for Ms. Witt – apparently the Munich bid is placing a hell of a lot of emphasis on her personality to woo decision-makers…)

(Presentation continues with a lengthy, apparently well-rehearsed description of Ms. Witt’s past and present career, motivation, achievements – the Munich 2018 bid is barely even mentioned.)

When the topic finally switches to the 2018 Munich bid, the standard, well-produced promotional video is shown – which is, interestingly, not available anywhere else than on the official bid team’s website.

“Technical” criteria are not the only elements which a bid city needs to master; the bid team also needs to highlight the motivation and commitment of the city’s inhabitants to host the Games. A clear, concise description of the plan needs to be delivered consistently. The passion of the fans & of the country’s sportspeople needs to be highlighted.

Interesting comment from the conference co-organiser: the bidding process for hosting any major event is probably one of the most complex and sophisticated processes you can find in sports – other industries often look to specialists in the sports industry to help them in their bidding process.

This post contains my live notes on one of the topics covered during the 2010 Lausanne International Sports Management Conference. Apologies for any typo and/or misinterpretations which might have snuck in the text.
Feel free to comment below!

Several speakers give their (short) perspective on the management of mega-events.

1st Speaker: Denis Hainault (Vancouver 2010 General Manager Olympic Ice Hockey Venue) on Venue Management in Mega Events

Several functions related to the event’s organisation, on which a single perspective needs to be brought from a venue perspective. Ends up being fairly complex, sometimes venue team needs to act a bit like a “referee”.

Need to have an extremely rigorous plan – and stick to the plan. Success is in a large part related to the quality of the venue-management team, and to how the team is managed. Applying sound leadership principles in that setting is critical.

2nd Speaker: Andreja Wieser (PROSKE group’s Head of Sports) on Management of dignitaries during Olympic Games

Protocol rules are pretty strict, but there is still a lot of passion involved in working with dignitaries.

Within Olympic events, the rules are very well defined at IOC level – the Chief of Protocol, however, has to navigate through its intricacies and convince all stakeholders of the necessity to abide by those rules.

The accreditation process is a key element in any large-scale sport event.

3nd Speaker: Jonathan Hill (COO Kentaro Group) on the “Brazil World Tour”

“Brazil World Tour” is a series of friendly football games between the Brazilian “A” national team and other high-profile teams, organised outside of Brazil and marketed by Kentaro.

Brazilian team plays all of its friendly games in the run-upto the 2014 World Cup outside of Brazil (a lot of Brazilian players do not play in Brazil anyway…). Since Brazil is hosting the next World Cup, no qualification games get in the way.

4-steps approach:

1. Strategy definition (simple: find opponents, find stadia, negotiate commercial rights);
2. Scheduling of the games (taking into account many considerations linked to the Brazilian team’s opponents’ needs);
3. Structure the deals with the various teams & venues;
4. Manage operations (incl. ticketing, promotion, team logistics, media management).

This post contains my live notes on one of the topics covered during the 2010 Lausanne International Sports Management Conference. Apologies for any typo and/or misinterpretations which might have snuck in the text.
Feel free to comment below!

3 presentations on “Women in Sports Management”, followed by a panel discussion.

1. Women and Sport: Bridging Participation and Leadership (Ms. Raija Mattila, IWG on Women in Sport)

IWG on Women and Sport (IWG) is an umbrella org., creted in 1994, representing both governmental and non-governmental org.s.

Every 4 years, World Conference on women and sports is held, organised by IWG.

Despite a lack of comparable cross-national statistics, there still is overwhelming evidence of gender imbalances, and even prejudice, at management level in sport – despite increasing representation of women on the sports field. Women are massively underrepresented at management/executive level in International Federations, National Olympic Committees, executive committees, legislative bodies, etc.

The IWG attempts to provide a “Leadership Toolkit” to support women in sport in their leadership challenges. It also fosters research, data collection and other quantitative research to increase awareness of the issue.

2. Women and Sport: IFs promoting Women in Sports (Ms. Brigitte Zufferey, Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme)

Ms. Zufferey is also one of the founding members of the Lausanne Network for Women in International Sports (LNWIS). The organisation provides, among others, scholarships for a Master’s degree is sports management in Lausanne (up to CHF 23’000.-).

Examples of resounding successes in rebalancing gender representation in the management of international sports federations:

• the International Table-Tennis Federation (ITTF), masive progress from 2002 to 2010;
• Women & Motor Sport Commission (WMC) within the FIA, created in 2010;
• Increasing participation of female racers in FIM at World Championship levels

3. Sport in Italy – Reasons for inequality (Ms. Luisa Rizzitelli)

Contends that inequality is the 3rd great threat faced by world sports (on top of doping and illegal betting).

Only 6 sport disciplines are recognised by the Italian government as being allowed to identify playing members as “professionals” – and none of them has any woman… There are dozens of highly successful Italian sportswomen – none of them recognised as “professionals”, which disqualifies them from all of the advantages and rights conferred only to “professional sportspeople” in Italy.

Under many other perspectives (e.g. prize money), gender inequality is extremely widespread in italian sports. Needs to change!