One of the most interesting as well as very challenging management is that of sports.
You need to develop a thick skin in order to survive in it lest you are doomed forever.
Any sports administrator you know, if you asked them, they will tell you that they have developed a thick skin.
What’s sports management anyway?
Management generally is how you work with others to achieve a common goal.
In my simple terms, sports management is how you work with the different sports stakeholders to achieve a sporting goal with the available resources in an effective and efficient manner.
Personally, I have been in organizational management since the early 2000s.
Almost a decade now, I delved into sports again, like I had been in my younger years.
Not only have I gotten into playing it, especially soccer, I have gotten into its management and administration.
I have attended various courses and most importantly, I have been intrigued by any sports management course that is brought up to fully understand whether there is a stack difference between organizational and sports management.
Since then, I have continuously connected with various persons in the sports and slowly but surely have shared my expertise in the sports management.
I honed my expertise in organizational management—mostly in the humanitarian sector as well as business which I am applying in the sports sector.
I have delivered some consultancies to the sports fraternity, receiving very good reviews from the members of what they have learnt and how they are changing themselves and their teams as a result of the trainings.
During this period of time, I have learnt some intriguing yet powerful insights if anyone wants to become a guru in sports management needs to take keen interest in and to navigate around them carefully to avoid perishing due to lack of knowledge.
Some of the major characteristics I have realized which cause a lot of conflicts and issues which the sports sector is mired with include;
Passion:
There is a lot of passion for the sports by everyone who is involved.
As you know, with passion, then there are raw emotions being exhibited because of the love of the sport.
This, then leads to some of the actions or inactions taken by the people involved in the sports to appease the passions of the people which might not necessarily be the right thing to do.
This passion becomes disastrous, especially, when the administrators or managers are not able to detach themselves from it and this hence clouds their decision making and judgments.
In the normal organizational or business sectors, there isn’t lots of passion but the love for being paid which takes the people in those spaces.
This should explain the rather laid back approach to when somethings are not working well unlike in the sports sector.
Numerous stakeholders:
There are numerous stakeholders involved in the sporting business than in the other sectors.
All these stakeholders want their interests or views to be considered as the best, yet, they are often varied.
Imagine the players who want to be fairly compensated for their services as the sports is only as good as they are and without them, there is no sport, the sponsors who want to have the opportunity that their visibility is increased and get the profits or economic benefits from their services, the fans who want to be served with a beautiful sport for their entertainment and enjoyment, the owners who want their teams to win and receive the privileges which comes with the winning, etc.
These interests are all varied, but, all want them to be considered and served.
As an administrator, you will need to know how to balance all these various interests of the stakeholders and appropriately work towards achieving them.
As a result, you have to be adept at understanding the interests of the different stakeholders and be able to devise mechanisms which are able to appropriately address them.
The know it all Attitude:
There is not any sports person who seems not to know the sport’s problems and the best solutions to those problems.
They will assure you how they know what has to be done to each and every problem that is being faced. Some genuinely have very good grasp of the ideas as well as the solutions.
However, some of the ideas might seem simple but very complex to implement.
They usually have the surface symptoms minus the deeper underlying causes of those symptoms. In so doing, their desired prescriptions to the administrators when they are not put into action fuels more backlash.
As an administrator, this shows that you have the simplest task of providing the information that they might be lacking to get them to the same level of understanding to avoid the conflicts and tensions that comes with such situations.
They want a lot with little investment:
The various sports stakeholders want the best from any sporting engagement.
They take it as their right and that isn’t negotiable and all the administrators have to fulfil such needs.
That kind of behaviour needs to seriously change. You invest little, then don’t expect a lot from your investment.
The more investment, the more the returns expected. However, with any kind of investments that they put in, you will be assured how it’s too much and you are wasting their monies, in most situations or not all when they lack proper information on how those investments are being utilized.
Thus, as an administrator, you will need to ensure that you are transparent in all that you do and most especially with the resources that you receive in the achievement of the sporting goals.
They are entitled:
The sports stakeholders don’t want to know anything apart from them receiving what they think is duly theirs.
Everything is theirs and you are only answerable to them irrespective of whatever the context is.
They as well have this attitude that all you have to do has to please them at all times.
They don’t seem to care as they take themselves as the true owners of the sports.
As an administrator, you will need to learn how to balance these kinds of entitlements because if it’s not handled well then you are bound to fail.
You are as good as the decisions made which support their views:
The decisions made are as good as the interests of the most vocal persons who are ready to character assassinate a person whom is perceived to make decisions which are contrary to their interests.
You need to know that at any time your allies might instead become you most vocal enemies irrespective of the good that you have done or are doing because their cause isn’t aligned with the decisions that have been made.
The best thing is to remain steadfast in doing what you know is the right thing and along the way, you will be able to bring them back on board slowly but surely. Also, know that some will never come back on board and that’s fine.
In conclusion, sports management is not for the fainthearted.
You have to be ready to know what has to be done and how best it has to be done.
All have to be done in a rational and principled manner aligned to the achievement of the sporting goal.
About the author:
Ayiga Patrick Obita is a management consultant with The Manager Resource Centre, a management firm providing one stop center for management solutions to your problems or challenges to exhibit management with distinction.
The Manager Resource Centre is available to support and walk with you towards the exhibition of management with distinction in your sports management.
He is also the CEO of the Oldies League, Kampala East Oldies League and Founder of Kiti Children Sports.
Contacts:
Email: patrickobita@yahoo.co.uk
