The specific pressure of leading (in) professional sports organizations: 4 aspects you’ll only learn while doing it.

This article has been written as concluding article for my participation in the Sports Leadership Program. Views expressed in this article are my personal views and are not necessarily the views of my employer.

The specific pressure of leading (in) professional sports organizations: 4 aspects you’ll only learn while doing it.

In 2021 one of my dreams came true: after years in marketing consultancy I got the opportunity to take on the role of Manager Media, Marketing & Communications at my childhood football club. Given the fact I spent years and years on the stands supporting the club, and the fact that I gained years of experience in media, marketing and communications, I reckoned this would be a great opportunity to combine both passions. Three years down the line I can definitely confirm this is the case, even though there are also a lot of learnings I didn’t expect beforehand, coming from a regular business environment. There are a few aspects in leading (in) professional sports organizations you’ll ever only learn while you work within the (professional) sports ecosystem. Aspects that immediately contribute to the pressure felt in the day-to-day work. I’ll dive deeper into these four aspects in this article.

1.       Irrational passion of stakeholders

When working for a marketing consultancy firm, you’ll (hopefully) have loads of clients, who at their turn have customers. A very distant relationship and often it’s difficult to get real and valuable feedback directly from your ‘target group’. When working for a professional sports organization, you’ll oftentimes have tens of thousands of fans, who live and breathe your club. Fans support your club and team(s) always and everywhere, buy goods that are branded with your logo and amend their personal schedules based on your matches: they showcase irrational passion for your club. This irrational passion makes it that fans are on top of what you’re doing and not doing, what you’re communicating and not communicating. Fans want their club to prosper and to perform at the highest level possible. Whether it concerns the squad, the manager, the new team kit, the fanstore, or the seating plan in the stadium: fans are totally committed and passionate and have specific expectations of what their club should do. This brings a great and unique dynamic that can make a club unbeatable, or it can bring uproar and difficulties from time to time. It is the irrational passion of the fans that can make or break a club, this dynamic and what this does to a professional sports organization can only be experienced while working at such an organization. For leaders in this environment it means one has to understand and ‘feel’ the passion of the fans, and at the same time one has to be able to implement and deliver against a long(er) term vision and strategy, that is in line with the culture and characteristics of the club. This irrational passion forms a dynamic that is incomparable to having customers in any other field of work.

2.       No full control over the entire ‘chain’

Professional sports organizations are part of a broader ecosystem in which all sorts of entities and individuals are involved. Just a brief overview: (player) agents, (possible) players, fans and fan associations, (former) employees, sponsors, opponents, suppliers, media (at multiple levels), accountants, (local) authorities, governing bodies, and football associations (at multiple levels), and so on. Most of them also bring their own emotions within this ‘chain’. Think of your suppliers who are also a fan, or think of the municipality you play in who is not particularly happy with the safety challenges that come with professional sports nowadays. Combine this with the fact that you don’t have control over the entire ecosystem (given the aforementioned irrational passion), and you’ll see that leaders in professional sports organizations have to cope with certain unique dynamics. It is impossible to have full control over all topics that are emerging at a club’s agenda. In times of (for example) transfers or crises, all parties involved have their own view and their own interests. Once again, having a clear long term vision and strategy, as well as being able to adapt and evolve with the given circumstances, will then prevent you from being vulnerable to this pressure from within the wider ecosystem.   

3.       Managing constraints

In professional sports, you are continuously managing constraints. Simply put: in case you would have had more time and more money, you’ll probably be more competitive. The challenge is to get your priorities right and invest at the right time in the right products, departments, or people. In a professional sports organization, time and money is primarily invested in performance of the first team(s), which makes it that other parts of the business have less budget, time, and/or attention. Even though also those parts of the business may be very visible to stakeholders, think of the Service department, or a fanstore for example. Your fans also buy products at Bol(.com), Coolblue, Apple and for example KLM. These sorts of companies set the standard for how an experience and/or service for customers should be, and fans oftentimes don’t expect less from their favorite club. Even though this is not always realistic, since these organizations are completely different in terms of type of organization, time (FTE), budgets, and constraints. The challenge here is to find the right way to do the best you can with whatever you’ve got at that time: managing your constraints. It’s starting to get repetitive, but also here the clue is to deliver against a long-term vision and strategy. By ensuring you’re not surprised or too much affected by your constraints, a professional sports organization can steadily grow and improve over time.

4.       Being at the center of attention

As a professional sports organization, you’re in the public eye. Various media outlets have specific ‘clubwatchers’, there probably will be multiple ‘fansites’, everything you do as a club might attract attention: you’ll find yourself often at the centre of attention, desired or not. This dynamic leads to the fact you’ll have to be on top of your game and on top of (potential) topics at hand. Managing this by always anticipating, being able to adapt and evolve over time and keep an open mind are pivotal in such circumstances. Leaders in professional sports organizations nowadays have to be able to cut through all the noise and get the right information at the right time to make the right decision for that specific moment.

Of course, there are many other (corporate) organizations that gain lots of attention and where leaders also need to perform on a daily basis. However, as a professional sports organization, you’re basically every day at the center of attention. Big or small, nationwide or international, there will be eyes laid on your organization on a regular basis, for all sorts of topics. Or, as Bas Kodden (Nyenrode University) puts it: ‘’There is a form of double complexity {in a professional sports environment}, the pace of continuous performance is high and every evaluation is highlighted and very visible. As a leader you’ll need to implement a long-term vision while delivering against a short-term cycle of performance. The pitfalls are ever increasing.’’

Wrap-up

All-in all, I found that there is a very specific dynamic when working in a professional sports organization. This dynamic, and its impact on the day to day operation at such a professional sports organization, can only be experienced when working ‘inside’ such an organization. This dynamic also makes it that professional sports organizations need professional, well-educated and diverse leadership teams, that can take on the responsibility and lead professional sports organizations through challenging times. For professional sports organizations and its leaders, it is imperative to flesh out a long-term vision and strategy and execute against it. If this is lacking, there is a big chance the organization will be impacted by various dynamics (as mentioned above) that make it very hard to keep on track. Furthermore, it seems that there is a new and young generation entering the boardroom in various professional sports organizations, who all will have to get used to the specific stress that comes with such a role. In order to cope with the challenge of leading (in) a professional sports organization, it is more important than ever before to be able to cope with stress, remain cool headed under pressure and headwind, be able to develop a vision and execute against it no matter the circumstances, be able to emphasize with your (main) stakeholders, maintain (personal) boundaries, and ‘to leave your ego at the door’. Those characteristics form an important foundation for leaders in professional sports organizations to build a successful and long-term career.   

Do you recognize any of these aspects? Or do you miss important ones? I’m looking forward to hear your thoughts on this!