Earlier this week I had the pleasure of playing a round of golf with a Corporate Accounts Manager of a rather prominent and headline-grabbing National Hockey League team, during which we were able to talk rather in depth about his experiences with the team, his impression of the league and pro sports, and the impact being felt by the current recession.
What struck me most from our conversation, however, was not the state of the league or his views on player personnel issues, but rather was his assessment of the biggest hurdles he and his colleagues face daily in the their jobs. It was not the credit crunch and tightening budgets restricting sales. It was not his team's recent on-ice struggles and the impact losing has had on attracting corporate customers. It was the systematic mismanagement of sport, not through malice or ill-intent or corruption, or any of the stories you often read in the news, but simply through not knowing how to run a sports organization in today's world, and not listening to the people doing the work and making the operation tick.
As he described his situation, it struck me how easily a successful and respected organization such as his, could be improved and advanced through some fairly simple changes. Let alone what could be done to improve the situations of chronically poorly-managed organizations or businesses, who are befallen by the same problems.
Simple measures, such as opening communications between the sales and marketing teams to assess what legitimately drives and inspires sales, facilitating greater decision-making and autonomy amongst sales executives to better meet the needs and demands of real or potential customers, and above all opening the lines of communication between employees and management, may seem easy or obvious suggestions, and yet sport continues to be run in such a way that proposals like these can and must be made.
The current generation of sport managers, in which I include myself, are a unique breed. We will, for all intents and purposes, bridge a gap in the sporting world between employees and managers who ushered sport into the professional era, and the upcoming generation of social-networking, Google and Wikipedia-informed, multimedia engrossed teenagers, whose interest in professional sport wanes despite the ever-expanding and all-encompassing access to sport. However, our era, Generation Y sport managers, will serve as more than stop-gap before the next generation steps in.
Our generation is the first to enjoy benefits of the internet, of sports television networks, of social-networking and mobile phones, of 24 hour access to sport, and the world of professional sport, informing our view of sports and understanding of the business behind the games. The sports landscape as we know it is as a business - that has been our reality, that has been our understanding, and now that should be our direction.
How many professional sports organizations use social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter as more than an opportunity to link fans and display pictures or highlight videos. How many seek to use these resources to build their fanbases, or to provide added value for current fans?
How many sports organizations' websites offer more than player rosters, team news, merchandise and ticket sales, and downloadable content? How many organizations actively interact with their online visitors, track their comings and goings, and proactively seek to attract new visitors, as well as increase traffic from existing readers?
Particularly in difficult financial and economic times such as these, it is integral for the future success of professional sports that we better adapt to the times, and don't content ourselves with the progression from amateurly-managed sports, to today's professionalized system overseen by the previous generation. New ideas must be embraced, new methods and practices sought and adopted, and greater integration between old school and new school developed, in order to usher sport into the next phase of its development.
A new wave is coming...
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