Data envelopment analysis in measuring the efficiency of volleyball teams in Primorsko-Goranska County

Every sport organisation strives to evaluate its performance: its weaknesses and strengths. Measuring efficiency and sports are two interrelated concepts and it is not surprising that most of the research on sports is focused on analysing the efficiency of teams according to player techniques, attack and defence efficiency. However, there are very few studies based on the analysis of financial factors such as teams’ revenue and costs. In this paper two Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models were used to evaluate 16 young cadet volleyball teams in Primorsko-Goranska County based on two economic inputs. The paper aims to explain the importance of teams’ financial resources in achieving sports efficiency. To analyse the relative efficiency of teams, two frequently used models are employed, the Banker Charnes Cooper (BCC) and the Charnes Cooper Rhodes (CCR) model. In the end, a super efficiency analysis was conducted to make a distinction in efficiency scores between efficient units. Analyses showed that financial factors are not crucial factors for efficiency score and gave possibility to use obtained results and improve the performance of inefficient volleyball teams. The study was conducted on a sample of 16 teams through 4 inputs and 1 output collected during 2017/2018 season.

The post-Olympic Games experience: A qualitative investigation of Australian Rio Olympians

Background: While research into Olympic Athletes’ career transitions and retirement has led to a deeper understanding of important factors for athletes in this context, considerably less is known about the experiences of athletes in the immediate phase following an Olympic Games. Objectives: The purpose of this research was to investigate Australian Olympic athletes’ experiences during the period of time immediately following the conclusion of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. This involved investigating specific factors that influenced athletes’ post-games realities of success, failure, and return to everyday life.Design: Qualitative-inductiveMethods: Eighteen Australian Rio Olympic Games athletes (Female N=9, Male N=9) from a variety of team and individual sports participated in semi-structured interviews that explored their post-Olympic Games experiences. Thematic analysis was used to inductively analyse the data. Results: In the period immediately following the Rio Olympic campaign, many athletes felt a sense of relief before coming to terms with a post-Olympic ‘come down’. While positive and negative transitions back to reality following the Rio Games were influenced by performance expectations, positive transitions generally occurred when athletes had made plans for the post-Games phase and received strong support from family, teammates, and sport governing bodies. Conversely, negative experiences tended to occur where funding ceased, coach-athlete relationships fell apart, or team structures were dissolved following the Olympic event. Conclusions: Overall, athletes had a variety of experiences during the post-Olympic period and as such, it is critical to consider their needs individually. The findings of this project have implications at the micro (athlete, coach) and macro (National Sport Organisation) levels that could be used to better inform the targeted development of post-Olympic programs.

Types of evidence used in Canadian provincial sport organisations

Different types of evidence can be used to inform organisational decision making. The purpose of this study was to identify types of evidence used in sport organisations. Data were collected via interviews with 60 Canadian Provincial Sport Organisation representatives from five provinces. A qualitative description approach was used and data were subjected to an inductive-to-deductive thematic analysis procedure, with the deductive component guided by a classification of evidence types. Results demonstrated that knowledge and information (reported by 38 participants) and ideas and interests (28 participants) were the most frequently reported evidence types, whereas research (12 participants), political (2 participants), and economic (12 participants) evidence types were least frequently reported. These findings suggest that sport science researchers could communicate in the form of, and through mediums dedicated to, knowledge and information and ideas and interests in order to reach sport organisations.

From Macro to Mega

The Vuelta a España is one of the three cycling Grand Tours, a long-established (first staged in 1935) and global sports mega event. Nonetheless, in the mid-noughties, it went through a financial and identity crisis, which culminated with the French company, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the organizer of the Tour de France, taking over the Spanish race in 2008. This research, an in-depth case study based on semistructured interviews and analysis of all the relevant corporate documentation and online activity, aims at shedding light on how the new ASO management has refloated the race through a reinforcement of its globalization and mediatization, on the lines of the managerial policies already in place for the Tour de France since the early 80s. This article also proposes a small theoretical refinement of the “mega sporting event” concept, moving from a binary, yes–not typology, to a four-level scale including micro (local), meso (provincial/subnational), macro (national or regional), and mega (global) sporting events. In this sense, this article concludes that the communication strategies set up by the new ASO management have pushed the Vuelta beyond the macro and towards the mega level.

Corporate governance applicability and theories within not-for-profit sport management

This paper examines the role of corporate governance in non-profit sport organisations. Governance within the traditional business environment is a crucial issue for the ultimate success or failures of an entity. This study analyses if the structures and systems of governance within traditional business can be transferred to a sport organisation. The various governance theories are examined to assess their applicability within a sport organisation and the role of the board is also analyzed within the study. Finally, this paper examines areas of conflict which may arise relating to governance and concludes by offering a best practice approach to this integral issue within any modern sport organisation.