Cross-sport collaboration: It's more in the how than the why

How do different sports collaborate at a national level and how can we ensure those collaborations are successful? In the first of three blogs, a Fifa Masters Degree working group explores.

It is fairly self-evident that working together can yield significant benefits for those involved: whether it be increased efficiency, further innovation, greater access to resources or shared risk.

This is something that the corporate world has increasingly recognised, particularly over the better part of the last two decades, with more and more organisations developing partnerships with each other – even in situations where they are traditionally fierce competitors operating in the same industry.

The sports world – increasingly commercialised and guided by the business practices of the corporate world – has taken some note of this, with the rate of collaborations between sports organisations slowly but surely increasing.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance is one of those that has been there from the start, seeking to meet the interests of a collective of sporting bodies for some 80 years now but expanding the scope of its activities in more recent times.

The reality, however, is that collaboration between sports is still not happening nearly enough, and even when it does happen there is little to no guidance on how organisations should come together and execute it. This regardless of whether it is simply a discrete project or a more long-term strategic partnership.

Why does this matter?

Because by failing to seize opportunities to collaborate and/or execute those collaborations effectively, sports are missing out on all the benefits that come with them – such as those mentioned in the first sentence of this very article.

These benefits may be difficult to quantify in monetary terms (though not impossible) and therefore easy to ignore. But they are certainly significant enough to warrant taking action and make a difference to the bottom-line, particularly to smaller sports with more scarce resources.

Because of this, our group decided to research the area of cross-sport collaboration and formulate tools to help sports:

(a)tidentify other sports with whom they could best collaborate; and
t(b)tensure the successful execution of those collaborations if activated.

You will find copies of our final report and an executive summary, both of which were presented at a sports conference in Switzerland in July, here:

• Executive summary
  
• Cross-sport collaboration project final report

We chose to focus our efforts on collaborations between sports federations within the same country, with a great deal of our research directed at the UK, so our results are particularly relevant to you – the members of the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

Indeed, the Sport and Recreation Alliance supported our research by participating as a case study and assisting us in the distribution of our questionnaire to the various sports in England. That said, we did scour the world for different examples of existing cross-sport collaborations, from Australia and Trinidad and Tobago to Norway and Denmark, so we have captured a global perspective on the issue.

The results that came from our research were extremely interesting and, on certain points, surprising.

For instance, it was clear that sports' perception of each other as competitors (ie for participation numbers, for high performance targets, etc) was playing too big an obstacle on cross-sport collaboration.

That sports were collaborating for efficiency reasons but rarely innovation.

That sports were not giving due consideration to the organisational cultures of their partners. And that no real structures were put in place to manage the collaboration (whether they be related to good communication, managing resources or conflict resolution).

In parts two and three of this series of blogs, our team will discuss these topics a little further, but more importantly lay out the tools we have devised to target points (a) and (b) above. In short, these are:

(i)tThe Multi-Variable Sports Mapping Model: This has been developed to assist sports federations identify other federations within their country with whom they could best collaborate. By “multi-variable sports mapping”, we mean that we have used multiple variables, linked to the innate characteristics of the sports and their federation's organisational cultures, to group the sports based on common characteristics. Such a model has never been developed before.

(ii)t A cross-sport collaboration process model with accompanying guidelines: We have designed a model which explains the stages involved in a typical collaboration process between sports federations within the same country. The model involves four stages and can be used to assist sports federations involved in a collaboration in better understanding how to manage the process and what potential challenges may arise along the way. Again, this model is the first of its kind in the sports sector.

Authors:
Charisse Bacchus
Ratu Tisha Destria
Gianluca Famigli
Nzumbe Nyanduga
Nicholas Rozenberg

Read more Sport and Recreation Alliance blogs.

Share this article:

Back to all news