New Trends in Sports Management of Major Sports Events Held Annually in the Czech Republic
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E-Leader Vietnam 2011 New Trends in Sports Management of Major Sports Events Held Annually in the Czech Republic Jiri Kotab Faculty Business Administration, Department of Business Economics University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic Introduction Sports events are a great phenomenon of the contemporary world. Sport mega events like Olympic Games or World Cup of Football move the world. For a period of time, not only broad public focuses on these events but they also attract media, fans, VIPs, politicians. All discuss whether the goal scored to Germany by the English team which was not recognized by the referee affected the rest of the match. At the same time it is the sport that unites nations and lets people forget other problems. Both South Korean and DPRK soccer teams attended the World Cup in South Africa and played matches there. Taking into account the tensed political relations, the two countries would hardly have found any other interest in common. In addition, sports mega events are not only huge social gatherings but they also attract big business. Considerable amounts of money revolve around these events. The organizing committees seek to maximize revenue. Prices for the sale of television rights constantly rise. The willingness of people to watch a live event help to increase ticket prices because the organizers are aware that the viewers are important clients who reflect whether a sports event has been well-organized or not. The above-mentioned sports events are important internationally. On the other hand, numerous sports events are important on a national scale. In this article twenty prestigious sports events were selected that take place in the Czech Republic. They represent a subjective choice rather. The choice is not made due to the number of their participants, spectators or extent of their budget but it depends on how those events get into public awareness. I've decided to include both sports events that are oriented on participants, and events which are intended to attract viewers. Hypotheses and research objectives This research is intended to present the most important sports events which are held annually in the Czech Republic. Research analyzes pricing policy and audience attendance/participation in sports events, according to the type of the sports event. Next, the research takes into account budgets of sports events. The research covers last three years, i.e. 2007, 2008 and 2009 years. Finallythe research focuses on the current greatest shortcomings that the organizers of the sports events in the Czech Republic suffer from and how to make innovations that would help to eliminate these shortcomings. The research should confirm these three hypotheses. Hypothesis No. 1 Sports events in the Czech Republic are more and more popular and people are increasingly interested in them. The number of viewers or the number of participants respectively who attend these events E-Leader Vietnam 2011 will rise. With respect to this hypothesis, it should be mentioned that this trend is understandable since the goal of every organizer is to consider people interested in sport as potential clients. If the organizers improve the quality of the sports event, there is no reason that the number of competitors/spectators does not increase. Problem can appear in the case of an outdoor event which depends on weather. Bad weather can cause that some supporters of the athletes put off even those sports events that are otherwise perfectly planned. The second pitfall can be an event that takes place in the arena or stadium with limited capacity and has already been filled fully in previous years. In such cases, despite all new innovations the organizer makes, the number of visitors does not increase... Hypothesis No. 2 Participants and spectators are becoming increasingly important for the organizers because more and more money due to price increases for entrance or participation fees flow through them. It is necessary to mention that both the organizers and the spectators and participants are beginning to realize that sports events are unique and unforgettable shows bringing huge emotions for the spectators of sports events and experiences for the participators of the sports events. Subsequently, people are willing to pay more, also due to the fact that the disposable income on leisure time activities in the Czech Republic in the years 2007-2009 increased. Hypothesis No. 3 Costs of arranging and organizing sports events are growing steadily. This hypothesis is associated with the fact that the quality of organization and level of services for final consumers at sports events grow. That means that sports events are becoming bigger and bigger businesses. Global economic recession that started in 2009 is not reflected in the research as the research ends with the 2009 year while the theory says that recession would have impact into sports events with delay. Methodology Course examination As I have indicated, rather subjective scale was used to select twenty most prestigious sports events that take place in the Czech Republic. For each sport event the attendance of spectators or participants due to type of action for three years from 2007 to 2009 was monitored. Furthermore, the pricing policy was followed - especially the normal ticket price levels to reflect the "average" price of entry or participation fee. Budget of sports event was the last point at every sports event which was observed. The data obtained will be part of a comprehensive analysis. Given the very wide variety of sports events, the paper will analyze mainly relative changes, their causes and consequences as the comparison of absolute changes in these events should not give us such a good informative value. From the analysis it will be determined what are the latest trends in the organization of most prestigious sports events in the Czech Republic. Data acquisition Data in this research are drawn from the official websites of the respective Czech sports events. If no information was found on the official web presentations, variety of media sources, such as web magazines or newspapers were used. If necessary data were not found in the media, I tried to make phone calls or contact the chief organizers via e-mail. Most organizers promised to send an appropriate answer, however, some of them did not respond in the end. In several cases negative feedback was obtained stating that the organizers did not provide the information requested. E-Leader Vietnam 2011 Average ticket price at sports events For most sport events there is considerably different layout of pricing policy ranging from the cheapest ticket prices, which are stationary, or considering different beneficiary groups such as children, students, senior citizens or handicapped people, to the most expensive ones, which are reserved for the VIP sectors and are bought by high-ranking managers or partners of sports events. Therefore, it was rather difficult to determine what the average priced ticket is. For this research, I determined that it will be the median of all price categories as this approach excludes the two aforementioned edge categories of tickets. If there is only one price for adults, the price of tickets for adults was mentioned exclusively. In case an even number of categories existed the average price of the two middle categories is listed. In some cases, price depends on when the participant/viewer respectively buys a ticket. In such cases the price for the tickets bought by the audience or participants most frequently (according to the organizers' statistics) was taken - while in the Prague International Marathon and the Mystic Skate Cup events the largest surge comes just before the event, in the case of Jizerska 50, 89% of participants log on and pay the fee at the lowest price level several months before the event. The problem of monitoring average ticket prices also appear at multi-day events. If a total fee or one-day admission is considered, it is noted in the chart for each of multi-day events. Theory of sports events Theories of economics and marketing of sports events are rather rare in Czech language publications. According to Čáslavová, sports events are especially emotional issues because sports events spectators or participants respectively are emotionally affected and activated. Thanks to emotions a robust link between the customers (the audience/participants) and the organizers of sports events is created and thus the conditions for marketing of sports events, especially in the field of marketing communication, appear. The publication of Stedman Graham1 tells us about the SWOT analysis in organization of sports events. Basically it is a well-known economic analysis, which examines both external factors - opportunities and threats - and internal factors, namely strengths and weaknesses. Logistical planning theory of sports events will certainly contribute to better organization of a sports event. This theory contains over forty practical issues. If organizers of sports events answer these questions, they would get a better idea of the logistical and operational requirements of the respective sports event and can begin to create its organizational structure. Other theories of sports events consider obtaining financial resources. They are especially valuable when applying traditional and nontraditional methods of fund-raising. The great advantage of sports events is that many products and services can be obtained by barter exchange. The organizer of the sports event receives services or products which he can provide to subscribers or viewers. In exchange, the organizer provides the partner with various forms of promotion such as free VIP entries, space for advertising or space for sales stalls, space in promotional materials about the event etc. There are also theories that are related to the economy of sports events in terms of demand. This topic is analyzed by Rob Simmons and Patrick Feehan e.g.