Observations of the sporting industry from early 2023
I’m currently writing from Boston, which this week has played host to a number of sporting events, conferences and meet-ups. These activities have provided countless opportunities to reconnect with old colleagues as well as meeting some new ones. Throughout the various conversations and presentations, a number of recurring themes have emerged, some of the key ones are summarised below.
Virtual is a distant second to in-person
The pandemic forced changes to the way in which we work. Some of those changes, such as video conferencing, show no signs of disappearing any time soon. And although they serve a purpose and on the whole may have even improved efficiency, for some functions they simply don’t cut it.
Creating a relaxed, creative environment to brainstorm new ideas with colleagues
Properly connecting with someone when meeting them for the first time
A start-up founder conveying a true sense of excitement about their product to a potential investor
Despite the many benefits of virtual conferences and remote work, most real impact is still best generated through face-to-face interactions. It appears as though the pandemic has reminded many people of that.
Enough already about the data tsunami
View a presentation by someone working in sport these days and invariably they will mention that one of their big challenges is dealing with the massive amounts of data they are faced with in their organisation. How well organisations use this data is another predicament altogether, but the deeper question relates to why this is even a problem at all for many organisations. After all, no one is actually forcing them to collect it. We can always say no to that new piece of technology, or that new data source. So why don’t we?
If we’re honest with ourselves, a lot of the time we simply adopt new ways to generate data because everyone else is. Sport mirrors life in that regard. A tipping point will be reached shortly for organisations with respect to how much data they can truly handle. With new roles being created, and others reconfigured, for the almost sole purpose of managing tech and data, one might argue that point has been reached already. The irony of course is that all of this data was meant to make work easier, rather than create more of it. Questions relating to how certain data improves decision-making processes, who the responsibility lies with, as well as how best to access and store it are all questions that do need answering. But before any of those, we should simply be asking ‘Do we as an organisation really need this data?’
Structure is still beating out function
Most sporting organisations look reasonably similar structurally. Setting up a performance or operations department based on function rather than filling a set of pre-determined roles would be transformative for most. But as the skillsets of people become more varied and extensive, there has never been a better time to change this paradigm. If an organisation has developed clarity as to how they can best develop performance in their athletes, then that should be their primary pursuit above all else: the team put in place to support that goal should match it, not the other way around. It’s only then can we truly start to objectively question the reasons as to why so many of structures look the way they do:
Does your organisation have four athletic trainers because they’re needed? Or because your competitor does?
Does your coach plan training because he’s good at? Or because that task has been traditionally seen as the role of the coach?
Does your physiotherapist’s expertise in manual therapy, but not decision-making, really mean that they’re the best placed to decide on the availability of athletes
There is still a preoccupation with how departments look structurally when the question should be How can I best create a supporting environment to develop the athletes? If we work from this position then it might be surprising which roles we discover are surplus to requirements (or at least in need of substantial change), and more excitingly, which new roles we might create.
The next generation is in good shape
Some of the work that graduate students (and even some undergrads) are doing across the world in areas such engineering, sports science and computer science is incredibly impressive. However, advisors and industry-based collaborators need to guide these students to ensure that these skills and efforts are well-directed.
An elegantly conducted project or piece of research on a topic that isn’t a problem to begin with helps no one. And it’s an outcome that is largely avoidable.
To be clear, I am not saying that engineers shouldn’t focus on specific engineering problems. But the sport industry doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) care about disciplines. It should care about problem solving. So advisors have a responsibility to start at this point when guiding students. Students in turn have a responsibility to read widely to identify what has already been done, rather than reinvent the wheel because they happened to miss a similar paper published in a journal that wasn’t in their discipline area. Both groups have a responsibility to recognise their own limitations and collaborate far across disciplines when the problem requires it, which is more often than not.
Sustainability is rightly a hot topic, but…
We need more than just virtue signalling. It’s very easy in a public forum to convey why organisation X should be changing every element of their business to more sustainable solutions, but we all already know that. The need for sustainability is well known by the average six year old. It’s time for less talk about why it’s important and more on how and when new initiatives can be implemented.
Faster progress may be around the corner
How do athletes best learn? How can sport be made more accessible? How to solve the injury crisis? Perhaps as we emerge from the pandemic, it has solidified recognition of the duplication of efforts that often go on around the globe, and how we’d maybe make a whole lot more progress by pooling resources when trying to tackle the most challenging problems. The best organisations are recognising that sports, universities, governing bodies, start-ups all have a role to play – and the best way to make progress is through joining forces.
