COMMERCIAL PILLARS IN GRASSROOTS SPORT2014 WHITE PAPER - CONDENSED VERSION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sustainability of the community grassroots club structure is on the minds of progressive sports administrators at the moment, but it’s a difficult space to implement change or coordinate cohesive processes. More often than not, attempts are made at national levels to improve key areas and syndicate solutions, but once these filter down to the associated levels, progression and opportunities give way to the usual push backs and protests.

For any number of reasons the reluctance to change often comes from those less able to adapt or those unable to appreciate the bigger picture. Change is not always easy, but it is inevitable, and the longer our sporting structures fail to adapt to the changing landscape, the harder it will become for them to survive.

The good news is, despite the many obstacles, some sports are making headway, changing their legacy habits, systems and administration processes, working towards sport wide common standards and systems.

These three areas help underpin a healthy grassroots structure.

Paul McDonnell, Commercial Director at IMG Sports Technology Group.

THERE ARE MANY AREAS AND TOUCH POINTS THAT REQUIRE IMPROVED ADMINISTRATION AND ULTIMATELY FUNDING, BUT THE THREE AREAS FOCUSED ON IN THIS PAPER ARE:

Administration

Membership

Sponsorship

“COMMERCIAL PILLARS IN GRASSROOTS SPORT”

Volunteering in society is recognised as a fundamental part of community cohesion, helping integrate communities and allowing people to share common interest and values.

Not surprisingly, the ABS reported that across all sectors of volunteering, Sport and Recreation tops the list of unpaid volunteer work for both men and women, with a total of 2.3m (37%) out of a total 6.1m volunteers according to the 2010 ABS report “Volunteers in Sport”.

The important thing for sports to recognise, is that the true value of the volunteer’s time should not be underestimated, and it is crucial to ensure these volunteers are working within the most efficient process and frame work.

From state to state and club to club, the non-conformity of individual entities to embrace syndicated systems and processes is costing sports time and money. Many administrative functions can be automated or run through syndicated software systems. Why have volunteers spend precious time on manual administration that can be done by today’s technology? Believe it or not, there are still sports out there asking themselves the same question, but not doing anything about it.

Fast Fact – Sport will always rely on volunteers, its part of the fabric of community sport, but volunteers time is precious and should be directed into more rewarding tasks such as training kids, development of skills, team and player management.

ADMINISTRATION - “LET THE TECHNOLOGY DO THE WORK”

AREAS WHERE SPORTS CAN IMPROVE:

Streamlining administrative tasks across National, State, Association and Club

Utilising common systems, reporting and metrics to measure and manage the sport

Tied into efficient administration is membership. For far too long, membership has been seen as just an ‘association fee’ or ‘club fee’; this is no longer the case. Membership is the life blood of community sport and it needs to be given the attention and support it deserves.

Progressive sports are now treating membership as a ‘retail proposition’, for example creating value for money, value added and competitively targeted membership offerings, not only to compete with other sports but to better reflect the discretionary spending habits and capacity of the individual. As the Australian Sports Commissions (ASC) “Future of Australian Sport” report shows, people are working more, and spending less time and money on sport.

Simple, already available process improvements include: ensuring people can register and pay online, this is still an area misunderstood by sports today, the fact is, you can buy just about anything online today, membership should be no different, and paying in the one transaction ensures clubs receive their money in a timely fashion.

This then builds a base for further automating and integrating your sports offerings for example social media sharing and marketing campaigns to prospective or lapsed members.

Presenting a more sophisticated experience to members is the next step; for example, integrating team gear and equipment into the online membership registration process. This ensures that players are not only equipped and dressed properly, but this increases the commercial return back to the club through merchandise sales.

This is why you build a solid technology base for your membership, so you can grow commercial opportunities as your sport grows.

It’s surprising how many sports still rely on sign-up nights, paper forms or registration days. Yes these days do provide a good social event for members to meet and engage, but half the sessions don’t need to be spent filling out paper, or remembering how to fill out a cheque correctly!

If the steps taken for a member to join your sport can’t be achieved in around two minutes in an online environment, then you’re not utilising today’s available technology or working with business partners that can make this happen.

MEMBERSHIP - “LOWER THE BARRIERS TO ENTRY”

TWO KEY AREAS TO MEMBERSHIP THAT AREN’T WELL UNDERSTOOD ARE RETENTION OF MEMBERS AND THE ENGAGEMENT OF NEW MEMBERS.

Fast Fact – Membership is about the customer, not about the association fee! Lower the barriers to entry, demystify how memberships are classified, and make it easy to join.

SPONSORSHIP - “CLOSING THE LOOP”

The final pillar in what we see as helping sports become more self-sustaining, is sponsorship. Community sponsorship, fundraising and local business support is a fantastic part of grassroots sport. However, the mum and dad businesses long associated in this space are in decline, big business (multi nationals) and SME’s are taking their place, understanding this change, is actually a chance to open up commercial opportunities.

Many corporations and larger SME’s think globally, but they see the value in acting locally.

From a marketing perspective the desire for these companies to interact at a community level is a huge opportunity for grassroots sports to leverage. To successfully engage with these types of companies however, sports need to be able to quantify their membership and provide this information through syndicated technology.

These days, nearly all sponsorships have to be able to show a return on investment (ROI) because someone, somewhere in these organisations, needs to be able to quantify the cost to a board, or a CFO.

Whilst there are many facets to sponsorship, the basics remain true for dealing with a multinational through to the local newsagent –

If your Administration and Membership offerings are old, tired, out of date and unable to communicate with each other, you won’t be able to deliver value for money or provide ROI for today’s sponsorship dollar.

Fast Facts – Closing the sponsorship loop, leveraging relationships and cross promoting through community partnerships, not only helps club finances, but these easy to implement strategies can increase awareness and engagement in enticing members.

In one case study example, a sport demonstrated, that through including an integrated fundraising/donation option into their membership online registration, they were able to raise over $30,000 in sponsorship during a six month period!

What do I get for my investment? (Quantify)

How can I measure its success? (Measure)

If I’m to reinvest again, what can we do better? (Tailored strategy)

SUMMARY

Of course not, there are many more elements to ensuring the survival of grassroots sport than just these three areas, and of course, at the margins, there will always be extenuating circumstances; each sport has its own unique set of challenges.

We do know however, through experience and real life case studies, that if you can firm up these three critical ‘pillars’ within the existing structure of your sport, you are well on the way to becoming a progressive, cohesive organisation, with thriving and quantifiable participation numbers.

That’s a great position to be in the next time you need to submit a funding submission or sponsorship proposal.

A more detailed version of the White paper is available HERE.

Paul McDonnell: Having an extensive background in sales, marketing and sponsorship across a number of industries, Paul work’s with a wide variety of sports on strategic business development and partner integration. Working with clients in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K and U.S sees his team at IMG Sports Technology Group able to tailor solutions to any organisation large and small with a focus on efficient administration and commercialisation.

IMG Sports Technology Group: IMG Sports Technology Group is an industry leader in online sports management solutions. Working in partnership with the IMG global sporting network, IMG Sports Technology Group provides advanced sports management solutions, administration and engagement software, ensuring growth and sustainability for sports around the world. With a fully integrated suite of modules including membership management, event registration, ticketing, ecommerce and website development serviced through its cloud based platform, IMG Sports Technology Group is the forerunner in holistic business data management.

IS SUSTAINABILITY IN SPORT REALLY THIS SIMPLE?