Outlook: Sport and Business – A Future Research Agenda

• We conclude and emphasize that sport management researchers must devote time to understand the mega-shifts that increasingly appear to characterise the changing nature of sport and its environment. The growth of social networking, for instance, is something that has taken many organisations aback. Diminishing gender differences in sporting achievements and the growing interest in women’s sport (just to mention Nadeshiko Japan: After becoming world champions in football in Germany in 2010 the Nadeshiko Japan is the most successful Asian team in women’s football and is now attracting crowds that could not previously have been dreamt of for female football in Japan) might be another mega-trend. Missing important product or management innovations might be one of the reasons for losing the competitive edge in sport. While the expected positive effects of innovation strategies are well documented and supported empirically within industry and services research in the field of innovation and sports is still very limited; just consider the development and implementation of enhanced sports products (like the new football for the Football World Cup in Germany, or performance-aiding swim suits as used during the Beijing Olympic Games and the Rome World Championships or advanced swimming goggles to allow for 180-degree peripheral vision underwater), aspects of the ‘dark-side’ of sports (like using drugs and innovative ways of drug-testing), the development of sporting facilities (like wave-crushing lane ropes to diminish and deflect waves in the pool, which helps swimmers to swim faster as they do not need to battle the waves), or the development of new forms of sports (like long-boarding, kite-surfing or T20 cricket). Being able to predict such developments, identifying how sport organizsations should respond, and the way in which technology can help to accentuate and enhance the fundamental features of sport can become a route through which researchers are able to make significant empirical and theoretical contributions to the advancement of research on sport and business.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

sport management; sports governance; sport regulation; sport performance; sport marketing; media; technology; sport club management; sport team structure; sport spectators; sporting events; sport branding; sponsoring

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)