Sports events Industry: Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
A SWOT analysis for the sports events industry and considering the organization, products and services, the customers and the market is important to determine the strengths and weaknesses of this industry. Strengths are aspects of an event that make it worth and when managed well could mean the driving factor in making the event a success. In sports events management, success is usually meeting the objectives of the sports event (Ko et al., 2011). A sporting event is usually expensive to organize. There has to be financial resources for the event promotion, venue preparation, and awards for the winners. The economic viability of sporting events is one of the objectives. In a sporting event, commercial revenue is derived from sale of media rights, corporate sponsorship, ticket sales and hospitality services, licensing and merchandising (Masterman 2012).
One of the major strengths is media. Media management is an important aspect of any sports event. The media provides publicity and make the general public to be aware of the media campaign. To realize the strength in the media, it is important for sports events managers to have a robust media management strategy which generates positive narratives and deliver sellout crowds (Karadakis, Kaplanidou & Karlis 2010). The most basic way to promote the media is by having an sufficiently furnished media center and consistently communicating facts regarding the sports event to the media. The other strength in the sports event industry is the actual event that is being promoted. Sports that are events in the Olympic have a large following and an event involving such as sport is more likely to be successful.
Strengths in a sports management event can come from the human resource used and the organizational structure. Employing qualified people makes management and problem solving easier and this promotes the sports event as well organized. The location of sports events is strength too. Venues with access to good transportation and hospitality infrastructure attract people and make sports events successful.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses in the sports events industry include all factors that pose a challenge to the industry. A major weakness to the sports events industry is negative publicity. This may result from factors such as rowdy fans that cause violence. Other negative sports stories such as match fixing, racism, and corruption create a negative impact on the mind of sports fans. Use physical enhancing drugs in physical performance sports such as athletics and cycling creates a bad image which dissuades sponsors from investing in sports events.
Poor infrastructure especially the sporting venues, transport, and hospitality facilities dissuade sporting events. In addition, the public perception especially gender differences to games proves to be a weakness. For instance, since women are not common participants in formula one racing, promoting a similar event for women would be more challenging due to public perception. Another weakness in the sports event management is sports which are not mainstream. This are sports’ which are popular only in certain culture but not in other cultures. To promote such sports in cultures they are not popular requires time and a lot of investments and may prove to be a disadvantage economically to sports events managers.
References
Karadakis, K, Kaplanidou, K, & Karlis, G 2010, “Event leveraging of mega sport events: a
SWOT analysis approach.” International Journal of Event and Festival Management, vol. 1, no3, pp. 170-185.
Ko, Y J, James, Z, Kevin, C, and Donna, P 2011 "Assessment of event quality in major spectator
sports." Managing Service Quality vol. 21, no. 3: pp 304-322.
Masterman, G 2012. Strategic Sports Event Management, Routledge, New York.
