Adnan Ouedraogo​

This page describes my vision for sports management in the future in terms of two trends, with one being "internationalisation" and the other one being "commercialisation"

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Internationalisation

 

​There are many pros and contras with regards to the topic of internationalisation in sports. The most important pro is obviously that knowledge and expertise is exchanged across cultural boundaries, while the most important contra is the overly big dimension and emphasis put on Euro-based or American sports opposed to indigenous sports, traditions and smaller nations and organisations, which are being pushed aside.

 

I suppose that the nations, who are able to maintain their national face and identity, while not closing down to change and international expertise are going to be the ones who are the most successful ones on the international stage. A good example for this is for example Bayern Munich, which were able to showcase their very unique regional traditions (for example traditional leather pants and dresses at certain official presentations of the team), while transforming their brand into a multinational one. The fact that they chose to sign a Spanish coach, who had insight into the "Marcia" Football school shows that their aim is to buy international expertise from the nation, which has been the most successful in Football over the past few years. At the same time the club has a lot of home grown talent mixed with international stars.

 

However, in a shareholder driven Football industry, Bayern Munich is one of the few clubs, whose main sponsors and shareholders mostly come from their own region (Adidas, Allianz, Audi) and share the same vision of developing the club. In an internationalised world, this is often not the case, because the visions of Middle-Eastern and Russian investors collide with the visions of the clubs. This often leads to overly high investments in foreign talent, while the domestic talents do not get the chance to develop their abilities. Due to the fact that a lot of clubs in England buy too many foreign players for unreasonable amounts, in order to keep their rich investors satisfied in the short-run, the English national team cannot be successful in the long run (the downside to internationalisation).

Another problem in terms of internationalisation in sports, links back to the point of buying knowledge (Josep Guardiola) from foreign organisations and nations. On a highly competitive level, buying the knowledge from the best countries in a certain sport will only be possible to the organisations and nations with great financial resources, which leaves the developing organisations and nations without any opportunities to stick up to their competitors level. Nevertheless, through the possibility of getting access to international contacts, the less developed nations and organisations can get great investors involved, which might help them to give their sports industry a boost.

 

 

 

Commercialisation

 

The on-going trend of commercialising sports influences nations, governing bodies and clubs for decades. Corporate social responsibility campaigns of governing bodies, the equal or unequal division of broadcasting rights or the implementations of a sponsoring deal between a club or franchise and a company, can all be expressions of a strive towards commercialisation in sports. Since the pros and cons of commercialisation are quite similar to the ones of internationalisation, this short essay shows the way in which it expresses itself in the world of sports nowadays.

 

In club sports for example, the times of simply showcasing the logo of companies on jerseys and in the stadiums are over. Nowadays, sponsors and investors require whole events like team presentations, product presentations with the team, fan days or broadcasted advertising as part of the contract. This forced clubs and franchises to be more creative about shaping new platforms such as own broadcasting online channels and pre-season showcase tours in order to meet the needs of sponsors and investors.

 

At the same time broadcasting has taken such a tremendous role in financing the goals of sports organisations and clubs, that especially touring and strategically signing players from different countries in order to increase the market share of a certain sport in that market. A good example for this is Yao-Ming, who gave the NBA and Basketball in general a big boost in China after he was traded to the league. The aim of a lot of European Football leagues to host exhibition matches and pre-season Super cups in East Asian countries resembles this trend.

 

Picture: http://michaelhyatt.com/why-vision-is-more-important-than-strategy.html