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As you travel the length and breadth of France\u2019s clubs, meeting their directors, you quickly realize that, whatever the sport, the same observation is on everyone\u2019s lips: the current economic model of professional sport needs to be rethought. Declining TV rights, the gradual withdrawal of local authorities\u2026 French professional sport is seeing its economic model deteriorate step by step. Some point to a lack of solidarity, but in our view, the issue lies more in a lack of value creation.<\/p>\n
Yet clubs have real added value to bring to the various stakeholders involved: they are catalysts for activity among players from very different backgrounds, operating within shared geographical ecosystems where points of connection can sometimes be scarce. Those with an appetite for football and its tactics will understand the reference to the club as a false number 9. In football, triangular play helps secure possession, giving the false number 9 two options. In doing so, it creates space in the opposing defense, facilitating connections between players and generating opportunities for them in pursuit of collective victory. The club plays the role of facilitator and coordinator between the various parties involved. By going through this intermediary to establish a relationship, stakeholders can derive added value from direct contact while reducing the level of commitment required. The club generates the opportunities needed for collective success.<\/p>\n
This approach is at the very heart of the sport business model. If a sponsor associates itself with a club, it is to generate excitement and interest among consumers and to build its reputation. It could run targeted advertising campaigns through the media, but by associating itself with a club\u2019s image, it is better able to capture consumer attention and stand out from the crowd. The same mechanism leads companies to pay for advertising during half-time, generating TV rights that are then redistributed to the teams.<\/p>\n
The same value proposition applies to the fan. The club accelerates relationships between people by giving them the opportunity to share a common passion and participate in organized, orchestrated moments of togetherness. In doing so, it transforms its products by giving them an emotional attachment beyond their original purpose. A jersey is no longer just a T-shirt; a match scarf bought on a thirty-degree day becomes a historical relic\u2026 The club creates a distinct consumption environment, with an entirely new layer of value. It gives the hot-dog vendor at half-time the location and the social atmosphere that enhance the spectator\u2019s enjoyment of the consumption experience, enabling the vendor to increase the value of his products. It transforms a simple sporting event into a social gathering, orchestrating interactions that might otherwise never take place.<\/p>\n
It all seems so obvious in our conception of the club economy. And yet, when confronted with reality, it is not uncommon to end up paying a premium for an overpriced hot dog without sauce. The F&B operator is trying to maximize his own value without considering the value he is delivering to the consumer\u2014part of which will ultimately flow back to the club, which will then be able to invest in modernizing the F&B facilities required to increase the value generated for the operator.<\/p>\n
In a team, individuals have to play together to make the most of one another. Across all their development projects, clubs, leagues and federations, as well as the stakeholders around them, need to rethink their approach through a capitalist lens: that of creating shared value and building a \u201cwin-win\u201d relationship.<\/p>\n
When the false number 9 calls for the ball, it is not necessarily to score, but to create the conditions for others to score\u2014that is how he creates value. A club seeking to benefit from a new venue must therefore ask itself what added value it can bring to the project, notably by helping to strengthen its business model and create benefits for the wider ecosystem of stakeholders of which it is a part.<\/p>\n
To remain true to this approach, however, it must encourage all stakeholders to rethink their business models, so as to maximize the value they create collectively rather than individually. The consolidated income statement is the ultimate proof of whether investments are truly creating value. A hot-dog vendor who decides to reduce the quality of his products will generate less value for the fan, the club, and many other commercial partners.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, ultimately, the problem lies in the ability of club stakeholders to challenge their own assumptions and think about the added value they create for the players and stakeholders they bring together?<\/p>\n
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As you travel the length and breadth of France\u2019s clubs, meeting their directors, you quickly realize that, whatever the sport, the same observation is on everyone\u2019s lips: the current economic model of professional sport needs to be rethought. Declining TV rights, the gradual withdrawal of local authorities\u2026 French professional sport is seeing its economic model […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nos-convictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixsportsmanagement.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}