Management in Sporting Industry
Management in Sporting Industry
Sports industry has been prominent in recent years, making it possible for people who are naturally attracted to sports to pursue sports-related courses in various fields that suit them. To make it even more interesting, women have also been involved in internationals sports particularly football, drawing more attention towards international football. The fact that women are also engaging in international football is a positive aspect to all people across the world especially women, to see that they can actually do what they love and what they are most passionate about. On the same note, even women are enrolling in sports career, because it has proved to be a universal career (Boyle & Haynes, 2002, p.100).
As football becomes global, there are various things that need people to manage them, such as mass media presentation, sports publication, as well as exposing any sport related activity. On this note, the sport industry requires people who are qualified or those with expertise on sports media, and this makes many people to develop an anxiety to study sport-related courses. On top of that, sports adventure, the provision of goods and services related to sports in various markets, and differentiated sports activities have all contributed largely to the exponential growth of sports industry, making it among the prominent growing business across the world. Therefore, it is clear that international football needs functional aspects on its management, to ensure that everything runs as expected (Rowe, 2003, p.33).
As far as sports management is concerned, a sports manager must be considered. A sports manager is he who ensures that all the activities are done efficiently and in the least possible cost. This means that sports management revolves around the following (Watt, 2003, p.31);
Human relations movement
Organizational behavior
Scientific management involves the act of a sports manager to motivate the workers to do the same job, not in a different way but in the most efficient way. The best way to encourage excellence in work is through financial rewards, compensation as well as promotion. Human relation management involves making the employees feel safe and secured in their working places, by providing the best physical working conditions. Organizational behavior involves the application of globalization, diversity, downsizing as well as information technology in the workplace.
Functional aspects of sports management involve the following;
Planning
Organizing
Leading, and
Evaluation
Planning
In sports industry, planning involves the definition of the goals of the organization, as well as the determination on how the set goals are to be accomplished. In addition, planning is all about setting what to be done, how and who to do it. Therefore, managers in sports industry particularly football have so much task to comprehend. They must ensure that they set both long-term and short-term goals that will help in the achievement of the set goals. Therefore, if we take the case of marketing, the manager must select the best team to market football items such as jersey, helmet or even boots, using the most convenient marketing channels (Shank & Lyberger, 2014, p.55). In addition, the manager must select the best people who will be able to capture a niche for the marketing of their football products. This means that the selected people should be in a position to determine a gap in the market, and fill it with what has not already existed, for instance, they can plan to introduce helmet to be used by footballers to avoid injuries and concussion in case of dangerous encounters between the players. Planning is important to determine how international football such as word cup, both men and women word cup would commence, who to manage it, where it will take place and the time.
Organizing
Organizing in a sporting industry is all about actualizing the plans and putting them into actions. On this note, sports managers are obliged to selecting the right person for the right job. In most cases, selecting of the right person for the right job in cumbersome, but managers can implement the best practice of job evaluation as well as the level of performance appraisal, as this can help them to select the person that does the job most efficiently. Besides, managers should also consider job rotation to point out the person who can execute various duties effectively, as that could be the person who can do any task as required. In addition, under organizing, sports managers should develop organizational chart, position qualifications as well as positional descriptions that will give information about employees that will further help managers to selecting the right person for the right job. The most beneficial information include the;
Academic qualification
Level of experience
Levels of expertise
Under organizing, it is also the responsibility of sports manager to consider staffing, to help in the execution of day to day duties. Staffs are paramount in sports industry, because managers cannot work on their own, and they require staffs to manage other workers. Staffs are need to be consistent and perfect, meaning that sports managers must follow the right procedure in selecting staffing, that include the following;
Selection
Orientation
Training and development
Leading
In sporting industry, leading is all about delegation, which is assigning accountabilities as well as responsibilities to the employees, with an aim of obtaining the intended success. On the same note, managers should be well aware that it is not obvious for employees to do exactly what they have been requested, and therefore, they should always be there to accommodate the differences and show employees what to be done. For instance, some of the employees may not do the marketing or the promotion as required, but managers should give direction on what should be done and how it should be done. Besides, work conflicts are unavoidable, and sports managers should always be there to handle any misunderstanding that arise in the workplace, miscommunication, work problems, and instead, they should encourage creativity, unity in workplace, as well as motivating employees, to ensure the sport industry runs effectively. As per the international football, leading is important to select the right referees to conduct several games without fear or favor.
Evaluating
Evaluating is all comparison, that is, comparing what has been achieved and the expected outcomes, to deduce how far towards the set objectives. Work progress is evacuated by the employees when they carry out their duties effectively. Under evaluating, sports managers need to have reporting systems, performance standards, give rewards to the best performing employees, and compare works of different employees and promote those that deserve it. On the same note, a manager may realize that one employee can market football sport facility more excellently than giving promotion to the same facilities, and it is the duty of the manager to place that person in marketing and select another person for promotional purposes. Again on international football, evaluating is paramount so as to ensure the organized tournaments commence when they are required to without any problem.
As stated earlier, football is an international sport that requires top management for it to run smoothly without any challenge. International football is well governed by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), and organizes international football such as world cup. Just like any other organization, it is cumbersome to organize football for all the countries in the world, and therefore, there are many challenges that face FIFA, as will be discussed here.
Match-fixing is one of the major challenges that FIFA is currently facing, given that there are various types of matches played almost everyday across the world, be it leagues and other international and national competitions. There are many games that are expected to play, such as in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, all of which are expected to participate in various championships, World Cup, and Champions League for sides associated with top European clubs. Fixing games for all these teams is cumbersome, in addition to other issues to with the banning of officials and players, and even though FIFA works in close association with global policing agencies and national federation, it is not possible to get the solutions intended (Haberfeld & Sheehan, 2014, p.39).
FIFA was founded in 1904 (Hoehn, 2006, p.227) and since then, it has been known for its commitment and credibility, until recently when its credibility started to be questioned by many people across the world. The issue in question was all about the introduction of goal-line technology which was used for the first time during World Cup 2014 (Bojanova, 2014, p.13). Many people as well as other football governing bodies were not convinced by the importance of goal-line technology, and raised many questions regarding the management of high-ranked FIFA. Besides, many people are still astonished by the dates set for the World Cup final in 2018 and 2022, and there are even speculations that even the final may never be played. This is because the dates set for the finals coincide with a winter season, and it may pose some challenges, not only to the players but also to the spectators. Another issue that has raised questions about FIFA is the issues of corruption (Becker, 2013, p.133). On this note, FIFA set an Ethics Committee to investigate corruption scandals that were believed to tarnish the good name of the world’s top ranked governing body. FIFA was introduced to serve all people around the globe as far as football is concerned, but its officials have been accused of focusing on their own selfish gains over people. Therefore, FIFA has a pressure of these issues, and they are required to show the transparency in what they do for the sake of international football.
Racism and fan violence is a national challenge which has seen FIFA unable to control. Racism is all about oppression based on color, and black people are mostly affected. Players abuse other players just because of their complexion, and so are fans. Unable to control racism, UEFA was involved in banning players involved as well as fining them, but nothing much has improved yet. Recent cases of racism were witnessed in South America when fans start to show violence particularly in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. Besides, Ghanaian top player Kevin Prince Boateng was forced to walk off the pitch after fans booed him in a more racism manner while calling him monkey and throwing him bananas when he was playing for AC Milan. Similarly, fans also showed some disrespect to another player, Mario Balotelli, just because of his skin color (Doidge, 2015, p.250). Given that FIFA organizes the international football, it is its responsibility to control racism and fan violence by imposing extreme punishment to the players, or even banning the clubs or country from playing for violating, but it has been unable to manage it.
Racism is one of the greatest challenges affecting football, and needs to overcome. The best way to overcome is to elect new FIFA official who will be harsher on racism by players, coaches and fans. For instance, the new official can impose huge fines to the offenders, ban players from playing for any team, penalize the offenders via the forfeiture of awarded points in the league, relegating teams to lower ranks, and all these will serve as a stern warning to the clubs that show consistent racism
The rift between rich and poor clubs is evident. Rich clubs make huge revenues and therefore, they spend any amount of money they want to buy their favorite players. On the other hand, poor clubs struggle to with little revenues to compete with rich clubs, and try to impress themselves by buying players with the little money they have as a way of avoiding relegation, thereby leaving no money for their management and for players. Therefore, the best thing is for the FIFA to have a standard buying clause for playing, that is manageable even by poor clubs
FIFA should work in collaboration with national football association in every country, to analyze the kind of challenges each country face, so as to make it easy to deal with a problem that has been witnessed before other than dealing with a problem after it happens
Reference List
Becker, R.J., 2013. World Cup 2026 now accepting bribes: A fundamental transformation of FIFA’s World Cup bid process. The International Sports Law Journal, 13(1-2), pp.132-147.
Bojanova, I., 2014. IT Enhances Football at World Cup 2014. IT Professional, 16(4), pp.12-17.
Boyle, R. and Haynes, R., 2002. New media sport. Sport in Society, 5(3), pp.96-114.
Doidge, M., 2015. ‘If you jump up and down, Balotelli dies’: Racism and player abuse in Italian football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50(3), pp.249-264.
Haberfeld, M.R. and Sheehan, D., 2014. Match-fixing in International Sports. Springer.
Hoehn, T., 2006. 21 Governance and governing bodies in sport. Handbook on the economics of sport, p.227.
Lussier, R.N. and Kimball, D.C., 2009. Applied sport management skills. Human Kinetics.
Rowe, D., 2003. Sport, Culture & Media: The Unruly Trinity. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Shank, M.D. and Lyberger, M.R., 2014. Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.
Watt, D.C., 2003. Sports management and administration. Psychology Press.
