Moving with the times: How the sports sector can get fit for the future

Sport and Recreation Alliance Chair, Andy Reed, blogs about the inevitable pace of change and how the sport and recreation sector can look to adapt and evolve to it in the future.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. (John F Kennedy)

We live in an ever changing world. Standing still in the face of the new challenges is never an option. I am sure Tesco looked on amused at the decline of Woolworths only a few years ago, only to find themselves in deep trouble over the last 12 months as the consumer market shifted beneath their feet. Even the most ambitious and successful are vulnerable if they don’t anticipate and move with the times.

I see a large part of our work at the Sport and Recreation Alliance to be thought leaders and guardians of our sector. We want to inform and allow busy NGBs and volunteers to look into the future and prepare for whatever new challenge is coming our way.

As we head to our annual Sports Summit we have created a themed day to help the sector identify and prepare to become fit for the future. We have a programme of speakers and workshops in place to get us thinking about some of the following themes and how to adapt to an ever changing socio-political landscape:

• Funding
• Technology
• Public and mental health
• Governance
• Commercialisation

We need to learn how to manage innovation and embrace it. All too often I get the impression we are suspicious of new entrants and technology and look to control too many aspects of our work. In the recent past the disrupters have brought with them great new products that have attracted new people to sport and recreation and provided opportunities for us to grow. We need to learn to work with disrupters and embrace them to our cause.

The whole of our society is changing and whilst we all get to an age where it is easier to look back to some golden era (that probably never really existed!) we need to accept that each generation has a different norm to the previous. I try my hardest to be digitally savvy, but I will always be a digital immigrant not a digital native. I layer digital on top of my world whereas digital natives know no other way. This digital age is already with us and we have no time to wait for a different future.

It is why we were keen to work with the Future Foundation – trying to get ahead of these challenges rather than always playing catch-up. Insight has become the latest trend and this is really useful for the here and now, but we hope we can also give you the tools to plan ahead.

But we can’t just study these changes heading our way – we need to manage and react to them. Societal challenges like individualism or the ‘quantified-self’ do pose challenges for team sports. So how do we re-create community in a different way? Is online enough? What can be done to increase participation in a connected world?

Of course almost no discussion about the future is possible without talking about money and funding. I wrote a year ago that we need to think differently about public funding for sport and why we might need to think again about what is funded and how it is distributed. I am sure we will want to make the case for a continuation of our existing models – but we should be preparing at the same time for a different future.

There are likely to be changes ahead in funding as the new government looks at budgets and how it funds sports. I know there are cycles to this emphasis but increasingly it will not be sport for its own sake, but rather as part of a connected public health agenda that looks at tackling physical inactivity and understanding the benefits of physical activity for mental health.

We will need to think more broadly about who we need to work with across the health and physical activity agenda to ensure that sport is seen and used as tool for development.

The tectonic plates of change have been moving for some time. A mixed economy of delivery, technology, individualism, a health and wellbeing agenda, and emphasis on physical activity have all entailed a drift from inflexible team sports. The continuation of changes in government funding and the continuity of ‘austerity’ especially in local government where the bulk of the sport development spend actually happens have also had an impact.

This evolutionary change requires our collective response and new thinking. Despite perhaps taking the deepest cuts, I see innovation in local government in the delivery of sport and recreation in some of the best local authorities. We need to share this best practice. Indeed, collaboration with central and local government is at the core of our Ministers’ To Do List and is something to consider in an era where more power in local government is seen as a viable option.

The biggest challenge facing us however, is how quickly we can adapt to these changes. It is not an option to stand still and wait for some good times to emerge at the end. It is also impossible to go through change, emerge at the other end and think we can now sit back. Change is constant – it is just the pace that changes and that is happening faster all the time!

Whilst we will never be as agile as some of the best innovators, as we proudly rely on millions of volunteers to provide our service offer, we can and must think like them! There are things business can learn from the best sports but we should never be afraid to look at what we can learn from business. I am fortunate that for my day job I work in this arena daily and it is truly exciting to be involved.

Our colleagues at the Youth Sports Trust have also been looking at the future in a great piece of work called The Class of 2035 – again it worth looking at the resources available. If we think our current children are digital natives, this highlights what we may be competing with in 20 years!

So I truly I hope we can help our sector to respond to and embrace the changes taking place around us and ensure that we are able to raise the heartbeat of the nation and create an active sport loving country again.

For more information about our Sports Summit and to book tickets, click here.

Read more from Andy.

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