Sports Management Blog

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!

Some learnings from research: loss of some of the younger audience as well as drop in sports participation, led to a number of new initiatives.

1. Youth Olympic Games (YOG)

Attempt to stimulate the younger generation (14-18) which would represent the pinnacle of a young person’s sports career – BUT need to combine sport with culture and education. Some were doubtful about combining these elements.

Result of the 1st edition: resounding success, to the point that some young sportspeople perform even better after the event than before. Further benefit: youngsters start to understand and live the Olympic values.

Not everything was perfect – but fundamentally, the YOG product has proved its usefulness.

2. Olympic Program

Ultimate challenge: remain relevant across all continents. Sports practice evolves every day, so Program needs to evolve with it. Need to take into account new trends into the Events.

Different approach to selection of sports/disciplines which are allowed to enter the Program: key notion of value-added (to the Olympic Games). Criteria was used for selection of golf & rugby-7 in Summer Program. 10-12 new sports/disciplines are planned to be added to the Sochi Program leveraging same key notion.

3. 360° Management

Based on learnings from observation of successful non-sports organisations. Want to start managing the IOC based on Community participation. Matrix structure, participative, much less hierarchical.

The wait is over – the 2010 Lausanne International Sports Management Conference is about to start !

Under the subheading “Bridging Research and Practice”, the 2-day conference (Nov. 5-6) brings together in Lausanne, Olympic Capital, a distinguished panel of speakers from both academia and major international sports organisations.

Participants can look forward to attending prestigious keynote presentations (from representatives of, among others, the IOC, FIFA, UEFA, FIBA), as well as hearing from leading academics about the latest developments in sports-management research. Panel discussions are also scheduled, as well as product demonstrations.

The Sports Management Blog will cover the event – I’ll share with you my main observations from the various presentations, lectures and panels, and will kick-start what I hope will be a lively discussion on some of the topics which are relevant to this blog, and to the management of sports in general. Stay tuned for more!

Are there any conference topics you’d be interested in hearing more about? Any speakers you’d like me to interview? Let me know in the comments !