Professionalism versus amateurism in grass-roots sport: associated funding needs Carolyn J Cordery, John Davies Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Keywords: club sport, rugby union, sustainability of sport, amateur sport finances Acknowledgements We are grateful for the support and funding from Sport New Zealand, our Research Assistant Andrew Milne and the engagement of the Wellington Rugby Union and its 18 member clubs in this research. We also acknowledge feedback from participants at the Sports Management Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference (Dunedin, 2013), seminars at Victoria University of Wellington and Queensland University of Technology, and the two anonymous reviewers. Corresponding Author: Carolyn Cordery, School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Victoria University, Rutherford House 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington, Phone: 04 463 5761, Email:
[email protected] 1 Professionalism versus amateurism in grass-roots sport: associated funding needs Abstract Considerations of professionalization within sport are typically limited to the commercialization processes that generate the funding regimes and impact the expenditure patterns of professional sports teams. By contrast, using historical data, this paper analyses how professionalism and the professionalization of elite rugby has impacted the amateur game, in general, and challenged the core values of amateurism and the associated funding needed for the amateur/grass-roots game, in particular. It compares funding and expenditure patterns in amateur sports clubs for a particular sport – rugby football union, aka rugby. This paper utilizes a case study analysis of amateur clubs in the Wellington Rugby Football Union, a provincial union of the New Zealand Rugby Union. It finds that professionalism is exhibited in the amateur game both as a top-down phenomenon and a bottom-up phenomenon as new actors have entered the institutional field.