POTENTIAL SOURCES TO OBTAIN PRIVATE FUNDING FOR THE NATIONAL OLYMPIC TRAINING CENTER HELSINKI AND THE METROPOL AREA SPORTS ACADEMY URHEA

Bachelor’s thesis

Valkeakoski, International business

Spring 2021

Sini Forsblom

TIIVISTELMÄ

International business Valkeakoski

Author Sini Forsblom Year 2021

Title Potential sources to obtain private funding for the National Olympic Training Center Helsinki and the metropol area sports academy Urhea

Supervisor(s) Victor de Bruin

TIIVISTELMÄ

Tämän laadullisen tutkimuksen tavoite on löytää mahdollisia yksityisen rahoituksen lähteitä Olympiavalmennuskeskus Helsingille ja Pääkaupunkiseudun urheiluakatemialle Urhealle. Kahdesta erillisestä nimestään huolimatta organisaatiot ovat toisistaan riippuvaisia ja niitä johdetaan saman konsernin alla. Suomalaisen urheilun rahoitus perustuu laajalti julkiseen, Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön rahoitukseen, joka puolestaan saa rahoituksen Veikkaus Oy:ltä. Yhteiskunnan arvojen muutokset ja globalisaatio ovat johtaneet siihen, että julkinen rahoitus tullee pienemään lähivuosina. Tähän organisaatioiden on sopeuduttava ja löydettävä rahoitusta myös muista lähteistä.

Tämä tutkimus koostuu haastatteluista, verkkosivujen analyysistä sekä kirjoittajan havainnoista, jotka on analysoitu käyttäen markkinointimixin 7 P -teoriaa. Analyysi osoitti, että Olympiavalmennuskeskus Helsingin ja Urhean kilpailuetuja sekä urheilun että liike-elämän kontekstissa ovat huippu-urheilijat sekä uudet harjoitteluolosuhteet. Kohderyhmien kiinnostuksen kohteet kuitenkin vaihtelevat riippuen siitä, ovatko ihmiset urheilun sisältä vai ulkopuolelta tulevia. Liike-elämän ja markkinoinnin ymmärrystä sekä monipuolisempaa tunnettuuden lisäämistä tarvitaan, jotta Olympiavalmennuskeskus Helsinki ja Urhea voisivat saada taloudellista tukea yksityishenkilöiltä tai yrityksiltä.

Työn toimeksiantaja on Urhea-säätiö sr.

Avainsanat Urheilumarkkinointi, brändäys, markkinointimix

Sivut 58 sivua, joista liitteitä 6 sivua ABSTRACT

International business Valkeakoski

Author Sini Forsblom Year 2021

Title Potential sources to obtain private funding for the National Olympic Training Center Helsinki and the metropol area sports academy Urhea

Supervisor(s) Victor de Bruin

ABSTRACT

The aim of this qualitative research is to find potential sources to obtain private funding for the National Olympic Training Center Helsinki and the metropol area sports academy Urhea. Despite of the two different names the organizations are interdependent of each other and originate from the same enterprise. The funding of sports in Finland is largely based on the public funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture, to which the funds are mainly originated through the national gaming company Veikkaus Oy. Due to the changes in the values of the surrounding society and globalization it is likely that the public funding will reduce during the upcoming years, to which the sport organizations are forced to adjust and find funding from other sources.

The research consists of interviews, website analysis and writer’s observations which all were concluded as an analysis through the marketing mix and the seven P’s of marketing. The analysis projected that the NOTC Helsinki and Urhea have the high-performance athletes and the new training facilities, that create the competitive advantage to both the sports context as well as the business side. However, the interests of target groups differ depending on whether people come from sports or outside sports. To create interest and get financial support from individuals or companies, business and marketing expertise as well as more promotion is needed.

The commissioning organization of the research is the Urhea Foundation.

Keywords Sport marketing, branding, marketing mix

Pages 58 pages including appendices 6 pages

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION...... 1

2 ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS ...... 2 2.1 The beginning of organized sport in Finland ...... 2 2.2 Funding structures ...... 4 2.2.1 The complex political nature of sport ...... 5 2.2.2 Public funding ...... 7 2.2.3 Private funding ...... 7 2.2.4 Non-profit nature of a foundation in terms of taxation ...... 8 2.3 The organizational design of Urhea and the National Olympic Training Center Helsinki...... 9 2.3.1 Harmonious missions ...... 10 2.3.2 National Olympic Training Center ...... 11 2.3.3 The requirements of a NOTC ...... 11

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...... 11 3.1 SWOT analysis of NOTC Helsinki ...... 12 3.2 Background for marketing analysis ...... 12

4 RESEARCH METHOD AND IMPLICATIONS...... 14 4.1 Methodology ...... 14 4.1.1 About benchmarking ...... 14 4.2 Implications ...... 15 4.2.1 The choice of the peer organizations for the observation ...... 15 4.2.2 The nature of the interviews ...... 16 4.2.3 Conducting the interviews...... 17 4.2.4 The interviewees ...... 17 4.2.5 Processing of the data from the interviews ...... 18 4.2.6 Website observation ...... 18 4.2.7 Researcher’s observations...... 19 4.3 Reliability of the research ...... 19

5 RESULTS: CASE: POTENTIAL SOURCES TO OBTAIN PRIVATE FUNDING FOR THE NOTC HELSINKI AND THE METROPOL AREA SPORT ACADEMY URHEA ...... 19 5.1 The basic information of the facilities ...... 20 5.1.1 Independence of the training centers ...... 20 5.1.2 Human resources ...... 21 5.1.3 Marketing and communications staff ...... 22 5.1.4 Operative partnerships ...... 23 5.1.5 Commercial partnerships ...... 23 5.2 The seven P’s: Product ...... 24 5.2.1 Current state ...... 24 5.2.2 Issues to develop ...... 24 5.2.3 For consideration ...... 25 5.3 The seven P’s: Price ...... 26 5.3.1 Current state ...... 26 5.3.2 Issues to develop ...... 26 5.3.3 For consideration ...... 27 5.4 The seven P’s: Place ...... 27 5.4.1 Current state ...... 27 5.4.2 Issues to develop ...... 28 5.4.3 For consideration ...... 29 5.5 The seven P’s: Promotion ...... 29 5.5.1 Current state ...... 29 5.5.2 Issues to develop ...... 30 5.5.3 For consideration ...... 32 5.5.3.1. Branding ...... 32 5.6 The seven P’s: People ...... 33 5.6.1 Current state ...... 33 5.6.2 Issues to develop ...... 34 5.6.3 For consideration ...... 35 5.7 The seven P’s: Process ...... 35 5.7.1 Current state ...... 36 5.7.2 Issues to develop ...... 36 5.7.3 For consideration ...... 36 5.8 The seven P’s: Physical evidence ...... 37 5.8.1 Current state ...... 37 5.8.2 Issues to develop ...... 37 5.8.3 For consideration ...... 38 5.9 Factors that influenced the results ...... 38 5.10 Self-assessment ...... 39

6 CONCLUSIONS...... 39

7 RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 41

REFERENCES ...... 43

Appendices Appendix 1 Interview questions for Simo Tarvonen Appendix 2 Interview questions for Kevin Penn Appendix 3 Interview questions for Janne Vuorinen and Juha Toivo Appendix 4 Interview questions for Jochem Schellens Appendix 5 Interview questions for Ville Köngäs Appendix 6 Analysis sheet for seven P’s (example)

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1 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this case study is to identify possible ways to find private funding for the new National Olympic Training Center in Helsinki (later NOTC Helsinki) by utilizing the marketing mix. In Finland public funding has been the most common and traditional way to secure the funding of sports organizations and centers. Furthermore, the public funding of a variety of non-profit organizations within sports, culture and health has been based mostly on the revenues of the national gaming company Veikkaus Oy, which upholds exclusively the rights to organize gambling in Finland (Veikkaus, n.d.). The monopoly status is legislated by the Lotteries Act (Lotteries Act 1047/2001, section 11).

Moreover, the funds are officially directed to different sport organizations, excluding professional for-profit sport organizations, by the Ministry of Education and Culture as either general or special grants. These grants are directed to the clubs and non-profit organizations through the national sport governing bodies and via Finnish Olympic Committee (later FOC) and Finnish Paralympic Committee (later FPC) to the designated high- performance athletes that fit the set criteria, which exclude for-profit sports (Ministry of Education and Culture, n.d.). To conclude, in Finland the government and sports are interdependent of each other.

The complicated, yet simple question appearing in the Finnish sports community and among the sport management time and time again is how and where to find more funding outside of the money that is originated by Veikkaus Oy and allocated by the Ministry of Education and Culture. More specifically, when building and soon running a modern sport facility, the NOTC in the middle of Helsinki, the challenge for the organization is not only to cover the costs but to maintain the facilities financially achievable for the Finnish elite athletes. As already mentioned, the governmental support does not cover for-profit sports, and this brings the challenge for facilities such as NOTC; how can a non-profit organization generate profits without losing the governmental support? And moreover, if the amount of public support decreases, how can NOTC still exist?

The aim of this research is to find answers to the following question: How can the proposition for private funding of Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki be developed by utilizing the 7 P’s of marketing?

This research has been conducted as a qualitative case study by interviewing key persons from the other Olympic training center in Finland and the FOC but also from similar environments abroad. The facilities from outside Finland were chosen based on their international success and interesting appearance of the facility in general. Based on the findings the researcher analysed and contemplated different possibilities of generating

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funds by different ways that had not been executed earlier or at least the writer was not able to find information about such process.

2 ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS

According to the research assigned by the FOC and the FPC in 2018, for 78% of the Finnish people the international sport success is meaningful and additionally, 72% of the Finnish people consider elite athletes as good examples (Finnish Olympic Committee & Finnish Paralympic Committee, 2018, p. 11).

There are multiple reasons why the debate about granting public funds to high-performance sport is ongoing. On one hand, high-performance sport has maintained its position as the heightener of patriotism and national cohesion which was acknowledged already in the early days. On the other hand, issues like the unreasonably large multi-sport events hosted in totalitarian countries, multiple corruption allegations in several international sport associations or continuous doping scandals to mention a few weaken the status and acceptance of high-performance sport. (Lämsä, Aarresola, Mononen, Blomqvist, Kalaja & Nieminen, 2018, pp. 1— 2)

Conversely, what is rarely mentioned is that high-performance sport also has a substantial role in wellbeing and sport in terms of both technology and business. Eskola (2020, pp. 10, 15—17) describes the multifarious environment of innovation sport technology in which the companies develop digital services and research methods to measure pulse monitoring or recovery. The two big customer segments to use these services are high-performance athletes or teams and regular clientele interested in their wellbeing. Therefore, it could be reasoned that elite sport have influence in public health this way.

2.1 The beginning of organized sport in Finland

The origins of Finnish sports lie in a culture of civic movement, which rose in the late 1800’s and in the early 1900’s. Finland had been a part of the Swedish kingdom and at that time was still ruled by the Russians. The first sport associations in Finland were yacht clubs, which were related to the national defence and were under the Russian navy at that time. In addition, the first gymnastic clubs were founded. In general, sport was closely seen as way to enhance the physical condition and skills of national defence. Additionally, sport became a reasonable way to uphold good physical condition, upbringing and patriotism. (Heikkinen, Hentilä, Kärkkäinen, Laine, Meinander, Silvennoinen & Vasara, 1992, pp. 133—134)

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Gymnastics was taught in schools already in the 1800’s (Arponen, 2012, p. 6).

In the beginning of 1900’s class society was strong in Finland. Before, the organized sport activities had been the privilege of the higher social class to which the working class was not welcomed to attend. However, through other kinds of non-profit organizations such as the YMCA’s, the voluntary fire brigades’ or sobriety societies’ actions sports became increasingly available also for the working class. (Heikkinen et al., 1992, pp. 134—135) Furthermore, working class activated within their workplaces and, for example, started their sport clubs in factories. Moreover, the working class had begun to found sport associations especially for the working class. (Heikkinen et al., 1992, pp. 142—143)

The will for independence was strong and amongst the Finnish people sports activities were enabled by active volunteers at that time, even though it was not supported by the Russian regime. Furthermore, the national emotion started to grow through the possibility for some athletes to represent Finland in the Olympics in 1906 – years before Finland was even independent. Four Finnish athletes got to participate and officially represent Finland in the Olympics in Athens. Despite of the fact that Finland was still under the Russian emperor the athletes Verner Weckman, Verner Järvinen, Heikki Åhlman and Uno Liljefors represented Finland. However, it is noteworthy that any official, financial support was not granted to them. The first Olympics were a success for Team Finland: Järvinen became the first Finnish Olympic medalist winning bronze in discus, and Weckman won the first Olympic gold medal for Finland in wrestling. (Sjöblom, Viita, Kokkonen, Laine, Kanerva, Itkonen & Siukonen, 2007, pp. 14—17) Järvinen won Olympic gold in antique style discus throw as well (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020e). Notably, already in these early days of the Finnish Olympic history the debate about the public financial support has been controversial. During the same year, in 1906, the first Finnish national sports umbrella organization SVUL, Finnish Gymnastics and Sports Federation, was founded and in 1907 the FOC was founded. (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020c)

Nevertheless, political issues such as the language issue between Swedish and Finnish languages were also to be dealt with and it also affected the sport organizations. The Swedish speaking sport organizations divided into their own umbrella organization Finlands Svenska Gymnastik- och Idrottförbund FSGIF in 1912. (Heikkinen et al., 1992, p. 139) The sport world was very politicised and like the country in whole, sport community was also strongly divided. Even though Finland gained independence in 1917, the country was in a situation in which the society was divided strongly in two sides, and not everybody was welcomed in the already existing sport organizations. Hence, another sport organization TUL, The Sport Federation for Working-Class, was eventually founded in 1919 (Suomen Työväen Urheiluliitto, n.d.). Not until the 1970-80’s the

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class division started to fade away and the Finnish sport community slowly commenced to unite (Heikkinen et al., 1992, pp. 366—367).

Since the early decades of Finnish sport organizations there have been several changes. Umbrella organizations have been abolished, renewed and joint together. Currently there is only one umbrella organization for all sports, whether it is voluntary or professional, health or high-performance: FOC.

The strong alliance between politics and sports in Finland has come into existence already over 100 years ago and still is strong. One of the most recent events was the election of the president of the FOC. Three out of the four candidates represented a political party and one of them, Jan Vapaavuori, was elected as the president (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020d & 2020f).

2.2 Funding structures

When it comes to funding sports, Finland is no different from many other countries regarding public funds. According to Böhlke and Bähr (2015), 90% of the international high-performance training centers that took part in their survey commissioned by the Association of Sport Performance Centers are completely or somewhat government funded.

Hoye, Smith, Nicholson & Stewart (2015, p. 7) have segregated the context of sport into three subdivisions noticing however, that they also support each other; public sector, non-profit and the commercial sector. This also leads to the fact that within sport operations the mixture of both professionals and volunteers is unquestionable. According to Laine (2017, p. 109—110), the trend is that the share of the private sport services is growing.

The comparison of the funding structures in the context of sport between the other Nordic countries shows that in all of them, excluding Iceland, the gaming companies are closely in relationship with the public funding of sports. However, European Union as well as the modern online gaming services have changed the world drastically. The strict gambling legislation has so far been justified as the source of non-profit funding, which according to the European Commission is not a legitimate justification for the monopoly status. Old-fashioned has been another description against the limiting legislation because of the online gambling possibilities that enable gaming outside the Nordic countries anyway. (Stenbacka, Mäkinen, Lämsä & Nieminen, 2018, pp. 15—20)

However, the increasing awareness of the problems that gaming causes, for example through addiction, it is more and more questioned how acceptable it is for the sports community in general to take advantage of other peoples’ problems. A clear indication is that people with

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lower income spend more money in gambling than those with higher income (Pursiainen & Kultti, 2017, p. 19).

Another way to evaluate the rights that Veikkaus Oy holds is to acknowledge the fact that sports organizations in Finland continuously lack resources, which leads to incapability of hiring full time staff and providing the needed conditions for athletes. Moreover, this leads to poor success on the international level, which again leads to the critical conversation in which the public funding to high-performance sports “directly from the tax-payers’ pockets” is being questioned, even though people are craving for international success. One possible solution to the sport organizations, such as professional ice hockey or soccer clubs, might be to find sponsorships from the international gambling companies that might be interested in spreading their market in Finland and would have the money that the organizations would need. However, as already mentioned, the legislation not only denies the international gaming companies from entering the Finnish market (Lotteries Act 1047/2001, section 11). This causes frustration within the sport organizations that constantly suffer from the lack of funds. The question is whether the international companies still already exist in the Finnish market or not. Today the legislation is very widely interpreted and the international rivals of Veikkaus advertise their games for example through the internet and the international tv-channels that are broadcasted also in Finland but still the possible sponsorships are unreachable.

2.2.1 The complex political nature of sport

As Ottela (2019, p. 16) states, the sport governing bodies are to be independent from the politics and unprofitable. Nevertheless, as Beamish and Ritchie (2006, p. 19) describe many kinds of interests external from sports, such as politics, war or ideologies have strived the sports throughout the decades. The International Olympic Committee (later IOC) declares to be

“a not-for-profit independent international organisation that is committed to building a better world through sport.” (IOC, 2020).

However, already a glimpse into the list of the current members of the IOC show an obvious connection of sports and politics – amongst the members there is, for example, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait, a former minister of Kuwait who now has suspended himself due to criminal allegations (IOC, 2020; The New York Times Company, 2018). Prior to this, Kuwait was suspended from the international activities already in 2015 by the IOC, as it had been evident that the Olympic Movement in Kuwait had been interfered by the local government and therefore the independency from politic decision-making had been threatened (IOC, 2015; Court of Arbitration for Sport, 2017). To clarify, the independency according to

6 the Olympic Charter means full autonomy for the sport governing bodies within the Olympic Movement (IOC, 2020).

As an example, the “miracle on ice” in the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980 is worth mentioning. The cold war, a long battle between the capitalist United States of America and the communist Soviet Union had lasted over four decades. During the cold war there were no actual physical battle fields, hence the political conflicts took place in other forms such as economy or culture. (Jokisipilä, 2014, pp. 16—18). Politics had already become relevant to the Olympics earlier in 1980 as USA amongst some other nations boycotted the Moscow summer Olympics due to the Soviet Union attack in Afganistan in December 1979 (Jokisipilä, 2014, p. 263). Regarding winter sports, the Soviet Union had dominated the ice hockey and had been somewhat unbeatable. One of the obvious reasons for their dominance was that the Soviet players could be considered professionals; they practiced serving the red army but still participated in the Olympics as the world did not understand the reality at that time (Jokisipilä, 2014, p. 124). However, professional athletes were not allowed to compete in the Olympics and therefore the North American ice hockey professionals could not represent the USA but amateurs, college students played for Team USA. As a surprise for everybody, Team USA won the game by 4-3 and the legend of “miracle on ice” was born. In fact, against all odds at that time, they won the whole Olympic tournament which also turned out to be a significant turning point in the cold war. (Jokisipilä, 2014, pp. 265—268)

When looking at the context in Finland, the connection between politics and sport is self-evident, as in most of the countries. For example, Scarcello (2016) portrays the Canadian sport system and describes the structure between the co-operation of the Canadian federal government and the high-performance sport. As the public grants for sport are being allocated in Finland by the Ministry of Education and Culture, already there lies the visible connection to the democratic decision-making. Having said that, the government does still not interfere with the actual governing of the FOC.

On the other hand, the election process of the president of the FOC in 2020 pointed out the attraction and the political nature of the leading sport organization. In 2020, out of four candidates three were strongly involved in politics. (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020d) Possibly one could have some publicly unexpressed ambition to strengthen one's general success through a leadership in sport to gain some strong position in the future. One example to examine is the combination of Sauli Niinistö and the Finnish football association Suomen Palloliitto (later FFA), which is one of the oldest and biggest sport associations in Finland. Niinistö was elected as the president of FFA in November 2009 and at that time he had already an extensive political résumé (Suomen Palloliitto, n.d.). However, he had to step down due to his election as the president of Finland in February 2012 (Vihreä Lanka Oy, 2011; Ilta-Sanomat, 2012). It can be discussed how the

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presidency of the FFA affected in Niinistö’s popularity and the presidential election or did it affect at all.

2.2.2 Public funding

The nature of representative democracy is temporary due to the election which designate power to the parties and individuals who receive majority of the votes (Digital and Population Data Services Agency, n.d.). This has a major effect in sport funding. Firstly, the election cycle in Finland is four years, which leads to the fact that all or at least a part of the decision- makers is to be replaced due to the election. Secondly, this affects to the leaders of the different ministries which again affects to the allocation of funds. Thirdly, in Finland, either the Ministry of Education and Culture or the Regional State Administrative Agencies allocate grants yearly for sport organizations, such as national governing bodies, sport institutes, municipalities and regional sport organizations based on regulations like the Act on the promotion of sports and physical activity (390/2015). The grants can be either general or special grants by their nature. Likewise, the Ministry of Education and Culture directs grants to elite athletes but does not support for-profit sports. (Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland, n.d.)

In addition to the definitions of different organizations and athletes entitled for financial support, public funding is also regulated by, for example, the Non-discrimination act (1325/2014) and the Act on Equality between Women and Men (609/1986). Equally importantly, the receivers of public funding are also committed with the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts (1397/2016) which regulates how the public funds are to be used.

The yearly cycle of grant applications bring uncertainty to the sport context, which is scarcely dependent of the governmental support, but would appreciate stability for longer time period for funding than one year at a time. It also requires lots of working hours when applying the grants and specific reporting the usage of received funds. Therefore, by increasing the percentage of private funding in the budget of a sport organization would not only possibly bring more opportunities to develop actions but also stability by growing the independence of the organization.

2.2.3 Private funding

Outside of the sources mentioned above, the funding coming to sport organizations can be considered as private funding. Sponsorships and co- operative agreements between athletes, teams, clubs, national governing bodies or companies and private donors, funds or companies to mention a

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few. Private funding is not as strictly regulated and can be used more widely by the interests of the owner.

Overall, there are several examples of how privatization appears in sport. Not only clubs but entire leagues are private, for example on a global level leagues such as the National Basketball Association, Champions League in soccer or the Diamond League of athletics. The Finnish sport context is no different. For example, the national ice hockey league Liiga is run by a limited liability company Jääkiekon SM-liiga Oy and the national floorball leagues for both male and female F-Liiga are run by a limited liability company SSBL Salibandy Oy. Furthermore, for example the clubs attending the ice hockey league Liiga are all also limited liability companies. However, there are different structures behind these league organizations still. Jääkiekon SM-liiga Oy is owned and by the clubs in the league, whereas SSBL Salibandy Oy is owned by the Finnish Floorball Association. (Liiga, 2020; F-Liiga, 2020) In comparison, the football league Veikkausliiga is run by a non-profit organization Jalkapalloliiga ry (Jalkapalloliiga ry., n.d.). For example, from individual sports, the Finnish Ski Association owns a marketing company Nordic Ski Finland, which aims to gain profit for the association (Finnish Ski Association, 2020).

However, an individual does not necessarily need any backup from an organization but can become a marketing platform as oneself. The various social media channels offer many possibilities for athletes to build their own brand through either photographs, videos, voices or text. This way an athlete can assure the income to oneself instead of the club or association represented. One successful example is the Finnish 100m hurdler Lotta Harala, who solely through her Instagram handle @lottaharala has personally created stabile revenue streams with different sport apparel and lifestyle companies to fund her athlete career as she has not been granted public support (Harala, 2021).

2.2.4 Non-profit nature of a foundation in terms of taxation

There are certain conditions for an organization to fulfil to hold the status of a non-profit organization. A foundation is non-profit only if it fulfils all the following requirements:

1. “The association or foundation acts exclusively and solely for the public good. 2. Activities are not only limited to a specific group of people, but they are openly accessible to all or otherwise cover a large group of people. 3. Participants in activities do not receive any financial benefits, such as dividends, profits or unreasonably high wages. For example, the purpose of lowering members’ costs is regarded as a financial benefit. However, membership services and discounts can be provided for members when these benefits are regular

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and reasonable, and they are closely related to the organisation’s activities.” (Verohallinto, n.d.)

According to the Finnish tax organization (Verohallinto, n.d.) the activities of a non-profit organization can often be activities or fundraising exempt from taxation, business subject to tax or real estate income. Furthermore, every non-profit organization shall specify these activities yearly in accounting and tax return.

Profit excluded from the taxation of a non-profit organization can be, for example, membership fees, dividends, interest, charity or grants for non- profit activities. There are several other ways for a non-profit organization to raise funds without the responsibility to do taxes, however it is strictly regulated to exclude all possible manners to maintain the non-profit nature of the organization. In other words, if the activities are business activities, they cannot be non-profit activities. (Verohallinto, n.d) Regarding Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki this has led to a situation in which the Urhea Foundation has been needed to expand also into a business organization

2.3 The organizational design of Urhea and the National Olympic Training Center Helsinki

Urhea is a co-operative network and an academy for young athletes in the capital area including Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa based on the Urhea Foundation, which was founded in 2014. Originally the Urhea academy for young athletes started already in 2003 but until 2014 it was more of an informal network. Urhea co-operates closely with the FOC. (Pääkaupunkiseudun Urheiluakatemia, 2021)

The structure of the NOTC Helsinki might appear slightly complex as it is included in Urhea. There are several similar sport academies throughout Finland operating in their respective cities and areas. Nevertheless, this structure is essential to help the reader to understand the framework in Finnish sports. As whole, Urhea is a corporation today. It consists of the academy activities and the business operations including the Urhea Arena and campus, which shall be opened in August 2021. In the case of Urhea the NOTC Helsinki is established within the organization of Urhea corporation. Hence, they will not only have the same facilities but also somewhat the same staff. (Pääkaupunkiseudun Urheiluakatemia, 2021; Finnish Olympic Committee, 2019) The organization and the network structure of the Urhea corporation is portrayed in figure 1.

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Figure 1. A chart to desctribe the structure of Urhea corporation (Urhea-säätiö, 2021)

At the time of writing this paper, there is a large building site on the premises of Urhea in Helsinki. The building project of the Urhea Arena and campus was launched in October 2019. The premises will include versatile sports facilities as well as multi-functional facilities to support the athletes’ wellbeing such as health care or recovery. Moreover, the campus will also hold an apartment building to accommodate the athletes. (Urhea-halli, 2021). Due to issues regarding the taxation of a non-profit organization and public funding, Urhea Foundation has grown from a single foundation into a corporation in which the activities have been divided into non-profit and profit organizations.

2.3.1 Harmonious missions

One of the obvious missions of the FOC is the success of the Finnish high- performance athletes. To gain success the strategy of the FOC includes actions such as the quality development in specific sport academies and supporting athletes in becoming elite athletes (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2019). Furthermore, the mission statement of Urhea declares its meaning to be the enabler of the success and good life of an athlete through coaching and dual career (Urhea, 2021b). Altogether, the simplified main objective for both Urhea and NOTC Helsinki is to develop world class high-performance athletes that succeed well in their respective sports. NOTC Helsinki and FOC are connected in terms of sharing some employees and the costs of their salaries and interdependently with NGB’s (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020).

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2.3.2 National Olympic Training Center

According to the FOC (2020b), an Olympic Training Center (later OTC) in Finland is a sports institute which provides with Olympic level facilities for training. In 2020 there are five locations in Finland which currently hold the OTC status; Rovaniemi, Vuokatti, Pajulahti, Vierumäki and Kuortane. (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020b) The OTC status of these facilities is based on branding and marketing in their nature (Köngäs, interview 23 April 2021).

However, on another page of their website the FOC presents a map with six national training centers in which Helsinki is included as one of them. On this map the official Olympic logo, which can be interpreted to portray the OTC status, is linked only with the Vuokatti-Ruka and Helsinki locations. (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020a)

Although there is no more specific information regarding the OTC locations provided on the FOC’s website, a document concerning the development project of the Vuokatti-Ruka OTC states that in the future it there will be only two NOTC’s in Finland of which Vuokatti-Ruka is one and Helsinki is the other. These two will be named as the NOTC’s whereas the others will only be OTC’s (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland, n.d.) The main principle of both NOTC’s is that the facilities and services of a NOTC are available for each Olympic level athlete, regardless of her/his sport (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020).

2.3.3 The requirements of a NOTC

The criteria by Ministry of Education and Culture (n.d., 1—5) describe what are the functions required for a national training center. The description includes wide athlete support, and detailed information about the governance, for example. Finnish Olympic Committee coordinates the high-performance sports in cooperation with the national sport associations of different sports and each association of their respective sport agrees with a sport institute or another facility about contract of cooperation regarding their high-performance programs.

3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Adequate funding has been recognized as one of the most important factors to excel in international sport competitions. However, funds alone do not guarantee success, if the funds are not being targeted and used properly. (De Bosscher, De Knop, Van Bottenburg & Shibli, 2006, p. 208) On the contrary, even though it could seem like success in sport leads to more funding, Jalonen, Haltia, Tuominen & Ryönä (2017, p. 21) suggest that predominance in sport eventually reduces the public interest. In

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other words, uncertainty and equal competition lead into best economical results.

3.1 SWOT analysis of NOTC Helsinki

An internal analysis of the strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) as well as opportunities (O) and threats (T) or challenges (C) of an organization, a SWOT analysis, is necessary when commencing a strategic planning process (Bryson, 2018, pp. 150, 154). The same procedure shall be conducted when commencing the marketing actions (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 79). Regarding the NOTC Helsinki the SWOT analysis is projected in figure 2.

Figure 2. SWOT-analysis of the NOTC Helsinki

3.2 Background for marketing analysis

Marketing can be and has been defined in multiple ways. Kotler and Armstrong (2018, p. 29) define marketing as

“the process by which companies engage customers, build strong customer relationships, and create customer value in order to capture value from customers in return.”

In other words, marketing is conducted to promote a product to gain and satisfy customers’ needs. Furthermore, there are different layers regarding any marketing strategy, which all include several different dimensions to

13 comprehend the existing circumstances (Dibb, Simkin, Pride & Ferrell, 2012, p. 25). The analysis of the macroenvironment is conducted to understand the surrounding environment including forces such as political or economic climate, issues out of one’s own control (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 96; Dibb et al., 2012, p. 25). Equally important is to plan and determine the marketing strategy in terms of segmentation or target market, for example (Dibb et al. 2012, p. 25).

Third level of marketing strategy is the marketing mix which has been defined to be the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 74). The idea of marketing mix is to ease the marketer to attract customers and generate added value to them (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 77). In other words, marketing mix is a framework to facilitate the understanding of the customer point of view.

Additionally, the four P’s can be advanced into fifth P by adding “people” with the already mentioned essentials (Dibb et al., 2012, p. 295). In fact, the four P’s can be and often are extended into even seven P’s. In addition, including the four original P’s and the fifth P, people, the seven P’s include two more variables; process and physical evidence. Initially the seven P’s were established to support the needs of the service industry, but they can be valid indicators in other branches as well. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 5) However, as Kotler & Armstrong (2018, p. 78) point out, the number of P’s is not the most essential issue but to find the most beneficial method to design the best marketing. Figure 3 presents more detailed overview of the seven P’s.

Figure 3. Seven P’s of marketing (Adapted from Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 78; The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, pp. 5—9)

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4 RESEARCH METHOD AND IMPLICATIONS

This case study is concerning especially the entity of NOTC Helsinki. Some of the findings may support the operations of other Finnish training centres however keeping in mind the possible different nature of the socio- environmental special features of each location. Hence, what applies with NOTC Helsinki, might not apply in some other facility.

It has been stated that the case of a case study must be defined specifically by the writer. Furthermore, the nature of a case study can be versatile. For example, a case study could be a development project or a phenomenon in an organization and it can be quite narrow or somewhat large. (Eriksson & Koistinen, 2014, p. 6)

4.1 Methodology

Qualitative research has been described as discovering intents and observations of certain issue or actor (Silverman, 2005, p. 10). Eriksson & Koistinen (2014, p. 10) construe the possible methods of a case study to be mixed and varied. Hirsjärvi, Remes & Sajavaara (2001, p. 155) portray qualitative research as the kind of process in which the data is collected based on conversations and continuously, the results will be discovered upon the views of intentionally selected individuals. Hence, to understand the reasons and solutions of the other training centers better, the qualitative method was chosen. Furthermore, the basis of the analysis was reflected through the framework of the seven P’s of marketing.

4.1.1 About benchmarking

Benchmarking process has been stated to appear as a tool to comprehend the needs of the organization and improve its processes by mirroring the best organizations/institutions? from the same market (Fernandez, McCarthy & Rakotobe-Joel, 2001, p. 282; Elmuti & Kathawala, 1997, p. 230). Furthermore, Freytag & Hollensen (2001, p. 26) even identify four different types to utilize benchmarking as an improvement method. In the sport world it is uncomplicated to pinpoint the best organizations when being able to compare the international success between countries. As an example, Böhlke (2006) has used benchmarking as a tool to evaluate high- performance sport institutions and why are they successful. Moreover, it can also be stated that when discussing about high performance sports, the goal is to reach towards the topmost performance which ideally is always better than what others do to succeed on the international competition. In other words, it can be analyzed that this kind of goal would appear as an outcome goal, in which the result does not only depend on one’s own performance (Weinberg & Gould, 2007, p. 346).

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However, when contemplating the proper method for this research benchmarking was not chosen as an option, because even though the international competition takes place on the arena, field, pitch or pool, the actual environment for the everyday activities, regarding either practicing or administration, differs essentially depending on the country, meaning its laws, politic or governance. In other words, even though the context would be similar, the information discovered from the other organizations during this research could not be even half-directly transferred for the use of the commissioning organization Urhea due to the significant differences between their macro-environments.

Therefore, when identifying this research as part of the organizational development and the funding functions of the Helsinki NOTC the nature of the research was identified as a case study, which has been stated as preferrable research method especially in a research that is developmental in its nature (Williamson & Johanson, 2018, p. 195).

Regarding benchmarking, the identification of the few KSF’s the process can be conducted in a more effective manner (Freytag & Hollensen, 2001, p. 27). Even though this research was not benchmarking per se, the KSF’s have tried to be identified and contemplated regardless. Furthermore, regarding the research process of the funding of the NOTC Helsinki it is of high importance to address the Key Success Factors (later KSF) when conducting the research. The KSF’s would need to appear as specific key functions which are quite narrowly named to clarify which are the activities to go as wanted.

4.2 Implications

In qualitative study, the data is collected from real life situations and in their natural appearances, and there are multiple different ways to conduct a qualitative study. Furthermore, the research method consists of the ways the observations are made. (Hirsjärvi et al., 2001, p. 155−156).

The data was collected in three different ways. Firstly, interviews were made to bring added value to the analysis through the highly skilled professionals working in the sector. Secondly, the websites of the facilities chosen in this case study were observed. Finally, the data received were gathered in a sheet (appendix 6) to receive larger understanding of the overall results which were additionally contemplated with the researcher’s own observations. Therefore, it can be stated that the research was conducted through three different implications of data collection.

4.2.1 The choice of the peer organizations for the observation

When studying and contemplating possible ways of accomplishing something completely new from the Finnish sport context it was essential

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to identify from which organizations the NOTC Helsinki could learn and generate novel ideas for their funding. Consequently, to find solutions and models from the sport context it was clear that there would not exist enough similar, yet inspiring organizations in Finland as there will only be officially one parallel organization in the same country. This organization, the NOTC of Vuokatti-Ruka, was chosen as one entity for the research because of its similarity and successful operations.

However, it was decided that organizations from abroad are needed for the research. Obviously, when going abroad, the structure of the society and therefore it was not possible to find an interesting organization from a completely similar society from outside Finland. Nonetheless, in Europe there are globally successful countries when it comes to sport and the Netherlands is one of them. Being situated in the more northern part of Europe the Netherlands can be considered as sharing somewhat similar state of society and cultural values. It is also known that in the Netherlands there is a very modern Olympic Training Center Papendal, which was identified as a peer organization for this research. To generate possible new funding concepts, the researcher identified one foreign organization, which has organized its funding completely opposite way than in Finland or in the European countries. Thus, the Colorado Springs Olympic and Paralympic Center from the United States was pinpointed as one training facility of interest.

4.2.2 The nature of the interviews

The interviews were theme interviews, as the themes and some of the questions had been defined prior to the interview. However, not all the questions were the same for everyone and were not presented to the interviewees in the similar order because of the conversational nature of the interviews. Additionally, even though the themes were same to everyone, some questions were rising during the interview outside of the planned questions, which is also possible when conducting theme interviews. (Eskola & Suoranta, 1998, p. 86) There were three themes: The current situation of the training center, the future of the training center and the funding of the training center. The questions of the interviews are attached as appendices 1-5.

The interviews were individual in their nature, however one of the interviews turned out to be a group interview as an additional person with needed expertise was invited to join the interview by one of the interviewees. Due to his expertise this person increased the informativeness of the interview and was a very welcome change to the original plan. Had the themes and questions not been sent to the interviewee before the interview, it is possible that the extra person would not have attended, and some important information would have not been available.

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4.2.3 Conducting the interviews

The data from the interviews were collected during September and October 2020 and April 2021. The interviewees were approached by e-mail asking their willingness to take part in the research. Simultaneously, they were asked for preferrable dates and times for the interview in a more specific time frame and suggested the interviewing method. One of the interviews was conducted in person which was preferred by both the interviewee and the researcher, the others via a video meeting over the internet which was a mutually agreed method as the distances would have required hours of traveling and funding for both travel and accommodation costs.

The planned themes and questions were sent to the interviewees before the actual interview. This was to make the actual interview as efficient as possible due to the width of the subject. Additionally, the trust of an interviewee is easier to gain when he knows what questions he will be facing in the interview, and trust is essential when conducting a qualitative study (Eskola & Suoranta, 1998, p. 94). The interviewees were informed about the ethical recommendations about conducting the research in an independent and objective manner.

All together there were six people interviewed and five interviews conducted. In one interview there were two interviewees attending. Regarding qualitative research the number of interviewees is not the main issue, but observation and analysis of the results (Alasuutari, 2011). Four of the interviews were made in Finnish, two in English. All the interviews lasted from 45 minutes to two hours twenty minutes, which is stated to be an average duration regarding theme interviews (Hirsjärvi, Remes & Sajavaara, 2001, p. 198).

4.2.4 The interviewees

The interviewees were chosen not only by their employer organization but also by their position in the organization. Considering the context of funding a large and complex organization such as a high-performance sport training center, it was crucial to identify the kind of persons that really know and understand the center, the structure of the organization and the facility as whole to be able to describe it in the interview. Thus, the interviewees were all in a managerial position in their respective training centers. It would have been possible to reach these individuals without assistance, but it was of help for the researcher to have personal acquaintances to help in creating connection with the right people.

From the commissioning organization Urhea and NOTC Helsinki the executive director Mr. Simo Tarvonen was interviewed to understand the ground for the writing. The interview was conducted face to face in Finnish. Furthermore, the executive director Mr. Janne Vuorinen and the chief

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of administration Mr. Juha Toivo were the key individuals to interview from the NOTC Vuokatti-Ruka via video call connection, also in Finnish. Likewise, the chief of business operations Mr. Kevin Penn was interviewed in English via video call regarding The Colorado Springs Olympic & Paralympic Training Center. In the case of the Netherlands and their Olympic Training Center situated in Papendal the director of the hotel and training center Jochem Schellens could not be reached for a video call. The questions for Mr. Schellens interview were sent through another person in the Dutch Olympic Committee via email and the answers were sent back by Mr. Schellens’ secretary. Mr. Ville Köngäs, the director of marketing and customer relations from the FOC was interviewed in Finnish via video call.

All the interviewees were male, but in addition to their position in the organization no other personal information was gathered as in this research neither for example the age, family situation nor education were not determinative qualities for the research.

4.2.5 Processing of the data from the interviews

The interviewees were asked permission to record the interview for the usage of the researcher as Eskola & Suoranta (1998, p. 90) recommend. Once the interviews had been successfully conducted, the recordings were transcripted. The interviews were recorded and saved to a personal cloud service, which cannot be accessed by others than the researcher. Furthermore, the interviews were transcribed for further analysis and comparison. The transcriptions were saved to a personal could service and handled considerately. The results of the interviews were analysed across the seven P’s marketing mix together with the website observation and the researcher’s observations.

4.2.6 Website observation

In addition to the interviews the websites of all four facilities and organizations were observed in February and March 2021. The websites visited were − Helsinki www.urhea.fi − Vuokatti-Ruka www.vrua.fi − Papendal www.papendal.com − Colorado Springs https://www.teamusa.org

In this context it must be pointed out that although some specific information might not visible online it may still exist in the organization or facility.

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4.2.7 Researcher’s observations

Along with the interviews and the observations of the websites, the third way of conducting the analysis was to observe the findings through the interpretations of the researcher. These interpretations were made from the interviews, the website observations as well as the overall perception of the macro-environment of sports based on the writer’s extensive experience from sports.

4.3 Reliability of the research

As Hirsjärvi et al. state (2011, p. 199), the observations may not necessarily tell what is, in fact, happening, as observations are interpretations of the actions and events. Regarding both the interviews in this study as well as the observations of the researcher, this is important to understand.

Williamson & Johanson (2018, p. 39) suggest that a researcher should not be associated with something they are personally or professionally committed in for it might threaten the objectivity of the work. The researcher has been attached to the commissioning organization since March 2021, as the employer of the researcher is the Urhea Foundation. However, this kind of organizational structure bond does not threaten the independency of the study as the researcher is not in a managerial nor financially responsible position in either of these organizations. However, the relation must be mentioned. Similarly, the employment can possibly bring additional value to the research due to better access to the information concerning Urhea and NOTC Helsinki.

5 RESULTS: CASE: POTENTIAL SOURCES TO OBTAIN PRIVATE FUNDING FOR THE NOTC HELSINKI AND THE METROPOL AREA SPORT ACADEMY URHEA

In this chapter the study will conclude the findings based on the interviews, readings and observations related to the topic. First it will go through the basic information regarding the facilities concerned to examine the similarities and differences in circumstances. After that the paper will analyse the results across the seven P’s of marketing with the objective to raise and emphasize issues to concentrate on when conducting the marketing plan and the possible service design on behalf of NOTC Helsinki. The seven P’s will be analysed observing the current state of each P and how and why the P could possibly be improved or developed.

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5.1 The basic information of the facilities

To enable larger analysis, and for better understanding of this entity, it is necessary to describe the organizations relevant in this study as they all somewhat differed from each other. In the Finnish facilities, Helsinki and Vuokatti-Ruka, there is a foundation in the background and major public support through the Ministry of Education and Culture. In Helsinki, the Urhea Foundation is the employer and payer of the salaries whereas in Vuokatti-Ruka it is the municipality of either Sotkamo regarding Vuokatti or Kuusamo regarding Ruka, and regarding this study the focus shall be in Vuokatti and Sotkamo. The FOC is not committed financially to neither of the buildings nor employees in the facilities, but FOC might support in the acquisition of equipment. In Colorado Springs, USA, the facility is completely owned by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (later USOPC). The USOPC also has a foundation, but it concentrates in supporting the athletes (United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, 2021b). In Papendal, the Netherlands, the facility is subsidiary to the National Olympic Committee of the Netherlands (later NOCN) and therefore directly connected to the NOCN. All centres but the Colorado Springs facility receive public funding.

However, despite of the organizational differences, the facilities appeared to be somewhat similar. In Helsinki there will soon be facilities for sports, coaching and specialists, accommodation, education, restaurant, health services and innovation centre. The list is congruent to the peer facilities. In Vuokatti the accommodation in Sotkamo is provided either by the municipality or the sports institute and therefore is slightly different. The size and volume of the innovation centres vary but nevertheless, all four facilities have or shall have one. The only facility to also include a museum is Colorado Springs.

5.1.1 Independence of the training centers

When asked about what the interviewees were content about with of their respective centres, there were similarities in the answers. Firstly, everyone brought up that they are satisfied with the conditions and facilities. Secondly, all interviewees stressed how important it is for them that they all have full control of their actions, which inevitably may have influenced in the satisfaction mentioned.

On one hand, control in this context can be evaluated through political independence. According to one of the interviewees the political independence affects in how the training centre appears in the eyes of the national sport governing organizations (later NGB) such as Skiing Finland or the Finnish Gymnastics Federation for example. In other words, the benefit of independence is to avoid conflicts of interest regarding governance or funding. The executive director of Urhea Mr. Tarvonen (interview 4 September 2020) explains the issue specifically:

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“probably because of our unpolitical position, we have, we have a good relationship with the NGB’s, because the NGB’s, when they come to us they don’t have to prove how good work they do so we don’t decide about grants like the Olympic Committee they decide about the specific grants, so we don’t have any kind of angle why they would need to tell us anything else than how their everyday life is.”

In Colorado Springs the political independence is extensive as the facility or even USOPC does not receive any federal funding, which differs from the European centres in this study. The chief of business operations Mr. Penn (interview 18 September 2020) admits the lack of public funding might potentially cause fewer resources than Colorado Springs or USOPC might otherwise have, but nevertheless, he sees it more important to control all their own resources.

On the other hand, the control and independence can be interpreted through decision making. The interviewees emphasized the importance of being able to decide about the needs of the facility to serve the athletes and disciplines involved in the best possible manner. Consequently, the national Olympic Committees (later NOC) of each country related in this study are, or regarding Helsinki will be, in close co-operation with the training centres.

In Papendal the independence was seen related to financial stability. The successful financial structure ensures the solid future and in Papendal this also means they are not reliant on public grants only (Schellens, interview 10 October 2020).

5.1.2 Human resources

Even though the interviewees were happy about the facilities and the condition of the training centre in general, three out of four interviewees brought up the skilled human resources as an important asset in the success of the organization. It was underlined how important it is to have the right people on the right position and the right kind of mindset for self- development. The Finnish interviewees acknowledged networking in this regard also, which can be seen related to both the geographic position of the country as well as the modest international Olympic success of Finland during the past decades, especially in the summer sports.

Mr. Vuorinen (interview 22 September 2020) also brought up the importance of the knowledge when planning and implementing big entities. He mentioned that equally important is the ability to organize the activities in the right way.

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“Most of all, implementing the specific, single things so that they really make a difference, that requires highly skilled experts” (Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020)

5.1.3 Marketing and communications staff

Although the Finnish interviewees underlined the skilled staff, it can be interpreted that the expertise has so far been directed mainly in the sport performance and the core administration. Regarding the number of employees, the information was not received in the interviews neither from Colorado Springs nor Papendal but was received from Helsinki and Vuokatti. All together in Helsinki there are about 30 employees and in Vuokatti about 25 employees, of which the vast majority is coaching staff and experts. At the time of the interviews there was not any communications, media or marketing personnel employed in Helsinki or Vuokatti. However, during spring 2021 one communications and marketing person has been hired in Vuokatti (Vuokatti- Ruka Urheiluakatemia, n.d.). Additionally, in March 2021 the researcher was employed in Helsinki.

According to the Papendal website there are at least two people working in communications or marketing in Papendal but one can assume they are not the only ones. Regarding USOPC, according to the agenda of 2019 Team USA communications and digital workshop (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021a) available on the USOPC website, the whole organization holds employees for example under the titles such as Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Director of Communications and Director of Content Development & Digital Media Operations and Social Media Graphic Designer only to mention a few. However, from this it is not possible to understand which employees would be directly working at or for the Colorado Springs facility. Nonetheless, it can be deduced that from the wide marketing resources of the USOPC some are directed to the Colorado Springs facility.

Based on the observation of the websites, Colorado Springs and Papendal are notably more advanced for example in the visual presentation of their facilities and resources than the Finnish training centres. Both Colorado Springs and Papendal have undoubtedly put effort in their communications and marketing. Accordingly, this is understandable as the Colorado Springs training centre has been launched at the end of 1970’s and the Papendal training centre in 1971 (Penn, interview 18 September 2020; Papendal, n.d.). In comparison, Vuokatti- Ruka sport academy has been launched officially in 2013 and the official Olympic training centre had only been operating for two years at the time of the interview conducted (Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020). In Helsinki the history is multileveled. The sport academy of the main capitol area Urhea was launched in 2003 as a network, which officially

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became the Urhea Foundation in 2014 and in 2021 the actual Olympic training centre will be opened (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020). Therefore, the foreign training centres observed in this study have operated already decades whereas the Finnish training centres have significantly shorter history.

5.1.4 Operative partnerships

When asked about partnerships the division between the European and the American training centres appeared. The most drastic difference is due to the possibility to the public funding, which the European facilities receive and neither Colorado Springs nor the USOPC do not receive. In this subject the entity consists of many different aspects such as the history and uprising of the sport culture in the respective countries or the media contracts of the IOC influencing all the NOC's. The distinction between the organizations and the facilities is important but can be challenging. Partnerships are being made by the NOC’s, but they might not be related to the facility. This again complicates the possible partnership contracts of a single facility.

However, based on the interview it is clear, that there are different kinds of partnerships regarding the training centres. All the training centres have some partnerships with the NGB’s in their country which appear in investing in certain training facilities, coaching or equipment in the centre. In other words, some sports have excellent practicing conditions whereas others do not.

There can be partnerships regarding the supply, for instance. More specifically, this can be for providing sustainable energy solutions or something related to the building projects. Partnerships are also created by leasing training facilities to enable practicing in certain disciplines which possibly would otherwise require investments or extra maintenance. Hence, not everything needs to be available at the actual training facility per ce. In the USA this kind of facility partnership has been branded as the Olympic training site (Penn, interview 18 September 2020). As the USOPC controls all its facilities through ownership or tenancy, the partnerships of USOPC or solely the Colorado Springs facility cannot be directly separated.

5.1.5 Commercial partnerships

The European training centres involved in this study do not have commercial partnerships per ce. In Finland, the issues related to the taxation of non-profit organizations and the eligibility for public funding, as explained earlier, bring additional details in possible sponsorships. However, it is not clear whether the regulation of the Netherlands influences on this regarding Papendal.

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When it comes to the commercial partnerships of the NOC’s, each NOC related to the training centres in this study have several sponsors or commercial partnerships according to their websites (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020b; NOC*NSF, 2021; United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021c).

5.2 The seven P’s: Product

The seven P’s of marketing consist of seven different elements of which product will now be the first to be evaluated. Furthermore, the P’s are not in any specific order of importance. Nevertheless, it might be one of the easiest to comprehend, as most often a company has merchandise, service or items to sell. In this section the specifics are to consider issues such as quality, image or branding of the product (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 78).

5.2.1 Current state

According to Jalonen et al. (2017, p. 20), sports is slightly falsely in general considered as the product in the public understanding. However, it can then be discussed, what is the product in fact. Is it the competition, the club, the athletes, the facility, the spectators or the event? And additionally, which factors create the product; possibly the spectators of an ice hockey game can be considered as co-creators (Jalonen et al., 2017, p. 20). The on-going pandemic has shown how the sport events have changed due to the restrictions of the live audience.

As referred earlier, the sport success and quality of life are the mission of Urhea, the reason for the existence of the organization (Urhea, 2021b). For the athletes, the facilities and expertise of the staff could be defined as the product of the NOTC. When observing this product, the essence seems to be in good condition and additionally getting even better. The Urhea Arena and campus the new facilities will be modern and sufficient and, additionally, the staff working with the coaches and athletes is skilled and highly motivated in their jobs. Also, the feedback from the athletes and the stakeholders indicates that the core customers are satisfied in Urhea. (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020) Undoubtedly, the product from the sport point of view is excellent as is the reputation of Urhea. The experiences from the NOTC Helsinki are yet to be heard once the NOTC opens.

5.2.2 Issues to develop

Comparing NOTC Helsinki to its peer facilities in Papendal and Colorado Springs, there are some similarities. Each facility has or soon will have accommodation to offer and the modern, up to date conditioning facilities. Each facility is addressed specifically to the elite athletes that are being

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coached and supported by the elite coaches and specialists. They all shall operate in a newly opened facilities that bring costs that require funding, which typically is seen as one of the main issues in high-performance sports. Tarvonen (interview 4 September 2020) describes the draft for renting the facilities during evenings and weekends which appears to be realistic to cover one part of the costs. However, additional funding is needed. In Papendal and Colorado Springs the conference centers and accommodation bring revenue to the facilities. In fact, in Papendal 2/3 of their budget comes from their own activities such as rental activities of all the office buildings and sport facilities on site. Additionally, events and activities are also being organized on site. (Schellens, interview 10 October 2020)

A visit to the USOPC and Colorado Springs Olympic & Paralympic Training center website (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021d) indicates there is a Visitor Center and a Team USA shop on site. Additionally, according to the website, there also is an Olympic & Paralympic Museum in the city of Colorado Springs. In Helsinki there already exists the Sports Museum at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium so it may not possibly be relevant to consider another museum in almost the same location. However, in the future it might be worth considering whether the NOTC Helsinki should create products directed for sports fans and spectators in addition to its core activities directed to the athletes and their coaching processes.

5.2.3 For consideration

The high-performance sport environment is quite complex. What is the essential product from the athlete and sport activity point of view may differ from the marketing point of view. Hoye et al. (2015, pp. 4—5) list various features related specifically in sport management, such as irrational passions or sporting heroes. The narrative of elite sports is still often seen as the glory brought by medals or trophies. Controversially, when changing the point of view, in the core of sport the actual product is very normal and rational, such as the everyday life of highest possible quality. The elite sports everyday life is very rarely portrayed as it includes disciplined life and very seldom any highlights, such as international championship events or gala evenings. The essence and the core product of NOTC Helsinki concentrates on the high-quality everyday life and the main question is how the possible partners could be offered advantage through something normal and basic. The key product of the NOTC Helsinki most likely is different in the eyes of the possible Olympic medallist than in the eyes of business executives looking for competitive advantage on their own industry.

One opportunity for product design inspiration could be the tradition and brand of Mäkelänrinne non-graded senior high school, which operates at the Urhea campus. Mäkelänrinne has already 60 years of history

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and alumnis from already decades. (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020) The long-lasting tradition is worth cherishing, especially as it is something that money cannot buy. However, it will require resources to explore and plan ways to engage supporters on this basis.

5.3 The seven P’s: Price

Price is the only variable to truly create revenue (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 6). Evidently, it includes the ability to understand what the buyer or consumer keeps in value and what are they willing to pay, as that defines the worth of a product (Dibb et al., 2012, p. 11; The Chartered Institute of Marketing, p. 6).

5.3.1 Current state

The needs for the NOTC Helsinki are quite clear. Simply: the costs to cover for example the mortgage from the building project, maintaining costs and wages require 2 million euros annually (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020). The nature of the non-profit organization supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture aside with the legislation of taxation create limitations or rules to follow which again brings a twist to the pricing and especially to the ways to design services and products.

Discussion about pricing includes segmentation of the market. In other words, different types of customers form groups based on their abilities or requirements (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 75). Regarding the rental of the Urhea Arena facilities there are different market segments which makes the market heterogeneous (Dibb et al., 2012, p. 212). According to Tarvonen (interview, 4 September 2020), the facilities are being offered to the clubs keeping in mind that the price cannot rise too high. However, in a benevolent business environment there might appear collectives or individuals that are interested in investing in their own wellbeing to which the modern elite sport facilities might be the answer (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020).

5.3.2 Issues to develop

Even though some part of the segmentation has been conducted, it would be useful to concentrate to it in more detail. It is not known if pricing policies have been created or if the organization has conducted analysis of how it is positioned compared to its competitors, which in NOTC Helsinki’s and Urhea’s case would possibly be the professional ice hockey or football clubs in the capitol area. Pricing is not something to be planned individually, therefore it is inevitable to include it in the more complete service design process.

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Regarding the facilities for strength conditioning and recovering, there may not currently exist very many alternatives that would be reachable for public in the Helsinki area. In that way these facilities in Urhea Arena can attract customers when the awareness of them increases among the public. However, the crucial issue will be to concentrate primarily in the athletes and their needs. It will be important to maintain the balance between the possibly significant incoming revenue and the needs of the elite athletes and their coaching process. According to the results of the interview this aspect has been noted by Urhea and experienced even bitterly in the past by certain Finnish sports institutes (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020).

5.3.3 For consideration

NOTC Helsinki will be available for the topmost athletes of Finland, which can be seen as a big advantage when the interest towards the facility is assessed. In addition, the Olympic brand is well known. In fact, according to the FOC (n.d., p. 5), 93% of the people around the world recognize the Olympic rings trademark. Controversially, the Olympic brand also brings additional details with them when talking about partnerships and marketing. Regarding the guidelines given from the FOC, if a local partner makes a marketing contract with a third party, the using of the Olympic rings -logo shall be accepted by the FOC (n.d., p. 8).

Research and development are or will be one part of the activities in both NOTC’s, Vuokatti and Helsinki. Primarily the research originates from the need to enhance the preparation process and get competitive advantage for the Finnish high-performance sport. Looking also at the large network in Urhea, including for example the Aalto University it is likely that there will be unseen innovations created. Hence, pricing and service design will be key elements when looking at possible financial advantages to high- performance sports as well.

5.4 The seven P’s: Place

Place could also be replaced with ‘distribution’. This variable concentrates on how and where the product is delivered to certain customers. (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 78; Dibb et al., 2012, p. 11) As with all seven P’s, especially this variable requires contemplating from very different perspectives. To successfully define and plan distribution, the key questions are what the products are and who exactly are the buyers.

5.4.1 Current state

The physical place for the NOTC Helsinki products will be inside the premises of Urhea. The products are inside the walls as the athletes themselves, the sport or recovery facilities or as intangible skills of the

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coaches, Urhea staff. Additionally, the accommodation block and the campus restaurant can be included. In Vuokatti an idea of elite athletes as the godmothers or godfathers of the academy athletes has been brought up, and in this type of thinking the actual athlete would be one part of the distribution chain (Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020). In both Helsinki and Vuokatti the executives do realize firstly the possibilities for creating increasing interest and secondly the need of special skills to conceptualize the products and sales. In either one of the locations any further planning has not yet been made. (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020; Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020).

5.4.2 Issues to develop

As the whole concept of National Olympic Training Center is truly in its new beginning, there are multiple possibilities and optional ways to create the products and design the most suitable kinds of placements to them. Hardly any physical products exist so far, hence the planning of distribution leans essentially to the outlook and promotion of the actual facilities. According to The Chartered Institute of Marketing (2015, p. 6), the e-commerce operations should pay additional attention to how they appear on their website. Even though the branch of NOTC Helsinki is not e-commerce, it will be most available for public online and therefore it shall be nearly equally important how the NOTC Helsinki appears for the public online. This includes also the image being built based for example through how well the NOTC website will operate with mobile devices.

Regarding the future products the NOTC Helsinki or Urhea will offer to customers outside, the Olympic brand and the reputation of high- performance sport will be among the key elements. The opportunities as well as the risk within the reputation element lies in the individuals, athletes. How to build the NOTC brand in co-operation with the sport and athlete brands without risking the NOTC reputation if an individual drifts into trouble in one’s personal life of in a doping scandal, for example. According to Tarvonen (interview, 4 September 2020) the needs for marketing expertise have been recognized in Urhea).

Furthermore, right timing has been mentioned as one element in placement (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 6). The momentum for exceptional possibility to launch different kind of campaigns shall be when the newly built facilities open in August 2021. When the interest is at its biggest, it would be extremely important for Urhea and NOTC Helsinki be in the right place at the right time to get the biggest advantage of the publicity.

Furthermore, the Olympics will regularly offer high peaks regarding the interest in certain disciplines, such as sailing or martial arts like judo. Also, not all sports covered in the NOTC Helsinki are qualified in the Olympic games, for example not female or male Team Finland in basketball or

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soccer. Nevertheless, the Olympic cycle of every two or four years does require additional measures to maintain the interest in elite sports. The questions are, what is it that the sponsors or partners need and how or where would they desire the products to be available.

5.4.3 For consideration

Creating a new way of implementing the facilities and the Olympic brand in Finland also creates new possibilities regarding marketing. For example, a synergy advantage may occur between the two NOTC’s through the successful athletes even though the winter sports are mainly covered in Vuokatti and the summer sports in Helsinki. When planning and designing the desired products together, the two NOTC’s could really get advantage of each other and combine resources to get results through communications or more innovative aspects.

The Urhea campus will consist of outstanding, modern facilites, which are an advantage compared to the competitors. As the physical appearance of the NOTC Helsinki will be like nothing before in Finland, it would be recommendable to utilize the NOTC’s physical place in attracting interest in marketing campaigns. Urhea Arena has already started this kind of activities in December by launching a campaign to sell the seats of the Arena stands. The idea of the campaign is to offer a chance to buy a seat with a personalized name tag on it for five years and, additionally, get access to all the Helsinki Basketball Academy home games during the fall 2021. (Urhea, 2021c) Similar type of product design could be possible to plan by taking advantage of other already or soon to be existing features of the Urhea Arena.

5.5 The seven P’s: Promotion

Amongst the seven different variables promotion may be the simplest one to comprehend. Promotion is about communications and promoting the products or services of a company with the objective to have them buying the products or services (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 78; Dibb et al., 2012, p. 31). Promotion can be described as a two-way communication between the promoter and the customer and emphasizes that promotion should underline the advantages a customer perceives rather than concentrate on the characteristics of the product. Among many other things, promotion requires understanding about branding, public relations, communications and rhetoric. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 7)

5.5.1 Current state

Today, website can generally be considered as one of the essential places showcasing an organization. Even though a website would include the

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necessary facts and information, it also builds the brand of an organization without an individual even visiting the place or meeting its staff. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 7) Observation to the Urhea website currently presents a dated page along with possible difficulties to find the information searched and no mention about NOTC Helsinki (Urhea 2021a). The NOTC Helsinki is only lightly mentioned on the Urhea Arena website under the headline Campus (Urhea-halli, 2021).

Likewise, on the FOC website there is hardly any information found regarding the NOTC’s. With the search function there can be some news found related to the NOTC Vuokatti-Ruka. Additionally, under the headline “Sport academies and training centers” there is a map with marked locations for the Finnish sport academies and sports institutes. (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2020a) A visit to the Vuokatti-Ruka website shows that it is promoting the Vuokatti-Ruka sport academy rather than the NOTC. When observing the website 20 March 2021 there is a news headline communicating about the recruitment of Kaisa Sali as the specialist for the NOTC Vuokatti-Ruka. However, that is the only indication to NOTC activities. Currently there is no website found for NOTC’s.

However, website is not the only way for promotion. As mentioned earlier in this paper, the good reputation of Urhea does exist and according to Tarvonen (interview, 4 September 2020) it is due to details such as the skilled staff and activities with high standards. Similarly, the reputation of Vuokatti is excellent and has grown during the long duration of high school activities in Sotkamo (Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020). The staff of the organization is one key element on promoting its products and services (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 7). An open atmosphere and the political independency of these organizations seem to be in key roles when evaluating the successes (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020; Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020).

An element to be recognized is how the connection between the Urhea organization and the graduated athlete students still lasts after multiple years of their graduation must be highlighted (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020). Likewise, Vuorinen (interview 22 September 2020) stresses the importance of a testimonial from a successful athlete like Krista Pärmäkoski declaring the best thing during her athlete career has been to go to Vuokatti.

5.5.2 Issues to develop

Obviously, promotion includes marketing elements and PR (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 7). Kotler & Armstrong (2018, p. 78) present an example from the traditional car manufacturer Ford with several means of advertising and sales promotions, which in the case of NOTC Helsinki may not be implemented per se. However, without promotion-specific personnel, planned activities and marketing budget the

31 promotion of the NOTC Helsinki will be difficult to say at least. Urhea has made strategic decisions to invest on marketing and communications as has Vuokatti (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020; Vuorinen & Toivo, interview 22 September 2020). In fact, Urhea has hired the researcher as the communications manager in March 2021.

Also, according to the Vuokatti-Ruka website a communications manager has been added to the Vuokatti-Ruka staff in between the time of the interview on 22 September 2020 and the website observation date 20 March 2021 (Vuokatti-Ruka Urheiluakatemia, n.d.). However, it is to be noted that a communications manager is not necessarily a marketing staff member per ce.

Even though the websites have been evaluated, it is inevitable to explore new channels to keep up with the development. One of the main objectives in promotion can be to raise awareness about what the organization is for or it can persuade people take actions with a certain cause (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018, p. 31). Hence, the one of the biggest and most important steps would be to create a wider promotion plan related to the strategy. As the Olympic rings brand is very closely attached to the activities of the NOTC Helsinki, seamless co-operation with the FOC is needed to establish a unanimous line of promotion activities. According to Mr. Köngäs (interview 23 April 2021), no such co-operation has been launched so far.

Regarding the brand and the identity of a NOTC, Colorado Springs and Papendal both are good examples. USOPC controls the Olympic brand within the USA and have generated wide interest by the Team USA brand as can be seen on their website presenting the sponsors (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021c). The upcoming 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles is organized completely by a private enterprise without any governmental funding and already several years before there is strong confidence that the event will be financially successful. The interest towards the Team USA brand is wide and the interest towards the 2028 Olympic Games brand is increasing all the time. (Penn, interview 18 September 2020) Naturally, the USA is significantly a larger market and multiple times more populated than Finland, but it is important to understand the basic principles of branding and how it can be improved in Finland as well. Furthermore, this connects also to the larger question about the respect and importance of high-performance sports in Finland. According to the Internal evaluation of high-performance sports 2020 (Finnish Olympic Committee, 2021) the Finns are interested in elite sports and athletes and that the respect towards elite sports increases due to success. However, the evaluation states that the respect towards the elite athletes could also be better. This fact is something that needs to be taken cognizance of when planning the promotional activities of the NOTC Helsinki to succeed in the persuasion of people better to support high- performance sports.

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5.5.3 For consideration

The mix between organizations and brands can be confusing in the eyes of people outside the organizations. There are multiple levels of brands overlapping and multiple stakeholders concerned. The fundamental owner of the Olympic rings is the IOC, which influences all the way to the practical level of the NOTC’s. In addition, in the combination of the different organizations and brand rights also the athletes should be noted when dealing with publicity and copyrights. The field involving the organizations and rights owners concerning the NOTC’s is projected in figure 4.

Figure 4. The mix of stakeholders and rights owners in the NOTC environment

Notable is that figure 4 does not include the NGB’s and the contracts they possibly have. Therefore, it will be important to explore, for example, what is understood when talking about the sport academies, NOTC’s and where might the possible pitfalls occur when building the specific NOTC brands.

5.5.3.1. Branding

Hence, over the decades USOPC has developed and strengthened their brand and built the value of the Olympic rings. As USOPC owns the whole Olympic brand within the United States of America, they also control in

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which relation the Olympic rings shall be used and by who. (Penn, interview 18 September 2020)

The situation concerning the NOTC’s in Helsinki and in Vuokatti-Ruka will be completely new, as earlier there have been five facilities named as Olympic Training Centers in Finland. This utilization of the Olympic brand has enabled their marketing based on the Olympic status and each OTC facility has made a marketing agreement with the FOC. Until April 2021 no specific guidelines for the NOTC locations have been established. (Köngäs, interview 23 April 2021)

5.6 The seven P’s: People

The term ‘people’ regarding the marketing mix refers to the individuals, the people involved in marketing and customer relations. In other words, it means basically the human resource of an organization. However, people can also indicate to perceived customer experience and satisfaction. In addition, customer contacts after sales are also included in this variable. (Dibb et al., 2012, p. 32; The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 8)

5.6.1 Current state

In Urhea, the recruitment has been successful, and it has been recognized that the human resources are the main asset of the organization. Furthermore, the atmosphere amongst the staff is very positive and devoted into the development of the organization. (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020) The capability, skills and the will to educate themselves play important roles when evaluating the staff. However, the similar qualities seem to appear all the way to those in position of trust. The Urhea Foundation board is led by professionals with different backgrounds not necessarily from the sports. More importantly, Tarvonen (interview 4 September 2020) underlines the importance of decision makers being politically free. As stressed earlier, this aspect is emphasized also by the USOPC (Penn, interview 18 September 2020).

Besides the Urhea staff, which will partly also be the staff of the NOTC Helsinki, another important asset of the people variable are the athletes, who are the ultimate reason for existence. Athletes and their coaches shall be included in people as customers of the organization. So far, according to Tarvonen (interview, 4 September 2020), the feedback from their side has been positive. In this regard, the situation is also similar in Vuokatti (Vuorinen, interview 22 September 2020).

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5.6.2 Issues to develop

The nature of sports activities differs slightly from the traditional relationship between the sales personnel and the customer. Sports are continuously evolving, going forward, and it is normal that the same people are involved in multiple procedures. But, regarding marketing and sales the process will be different in nature and the interaction is more business-like. Money is being traded and results are being expected in turn. To succeed in the marketing and sales of the NOTC Helsinki, the essential question inevitably is why someone would want to support the facility (Köngäs, interview 23 April 2021).

Areas such as marketing or customer relationship management (later CRM) may not be familiar to the sports professionals dealing with coaching or athlete development and likewise, business professionals may not have a realistic view of how the sports processes work. In this regard the successful recruitment would need to continue to be able to find people with the right skills and abilities to understand the context widely.

When comparing the two Finnish organizations to the two facilities under observation, Papendal and Colorado Springs, one difference appears in the communications staff. Furthermore, the difference is that both Urhea and Vuokatti-Ruka are separate organizations from the Finnish Olympic Committee where as Papendal and Colorado Springs are partly or completely operated by their respective Olympic Committees. According to the Papendal website there are at least one person responsible for the Olympic Training Centre communications and one person responsible for the communications and marketing of the Hotel Papendal as Supervisor Sales & Marketing Hotel Papendal (Papendal, n.d.). However, it is likely that the marketing activities happen in conjunction with the staff of the Dutch Olympic Committee like other functions regarding the high- performance sports and the communications and marketing staff as whole is bigger.

Likewise, the USA Olympic and Paralympic Committee has a big staff working with marketing and communications regarding Team USA and therefore also the Colorado Springs facility. In December 2019, the USOPC has facilitated a Team USA communications and digital workshop in Colorado Springs and according to the workshop schedule the USOPC has had over ten people associated with communications in their work (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021a). Even though it is not clarified how many people work especially in or for the Colorado Springs facility, it is clear there is wide range of marketing and communications personnel at the USOPC.

It is not likely that the staff will be similar in its size to the USOPC. However, Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki would need to put effort in the expertise concerning especially communications and marketing to succeed

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in creating new ways to generate funding. More specifically, expertise is needed in service design, for example.

5.6.3 For consideration

In addition to the facilities, people are something that separate NOTC Helsinki from the other organizations competing for the same private funds. The athletes, meaning the current and former athletes in Urhea, are unique and can be considered as a competitive advantage. Simultaneously, one part, about 100 of these athletes will also be operating on the NOTC Helsinki side (Tarvonen, interview 4 September 2020). On one hand, the athletes are a big part of how the culture and atmosphere will be. On the other hand, they will also be the main attraction of the public and most likely the key factor in finding reasons for the financial support of the NOTC Helsinki. How to utilize this asset without involving the athletes in it or adding their responsibilities during their athlete career? After all, the mission is to enable the best possible circumstances for the athletes pursuing excellence.

Consequently, another issue to consider is how to engage the athletes in supporting their origins in Urhea. Some of the athletes being supported in and by coaches of Urhea in their early years now earn exceptional salaries in professional leagues, for example. Possibly, these athletes could support their earlier supporting organization under the will to support the next generations and give back something they have received through sport by donating funds that may not be significant for them but would make a difference to Urhea. Even though the number of these professional athletes is marginal, the possible support from them might be powerful. While some athletes can succeed financially, others do not reach similar monetary position despite of their highly successful athlete career. The reputation of these athletes is still immeasurable and could possibly be utilized in marketing material or even through employment and they would also experience the respect they deserve in turn. In fact, one example of this already exists on an alumni interview compilation video made in 2020 (Hurskainen, 2020).

5.7 The seven P’s: Process

The process element is set to underline the importance of the whole procedure in the eyes of a customer. Emphasis should be in not only the actual product considered but how the first impression appears to be and how convenient the flow is to a customer. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2015, p. 8).

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5.7.1 Current state

The evaluation of the current state of this variable seems slightly challenging as one might say that the actual products do not yet exist in terms of marketing, to be exact. The process regarding how and where an athlete receives the needed support seems to be more set.

However, Urhea Arena has launched one promotion campaign with reference to the seats inside the arena. The campaign consists of the possibility to purchase a nametag on a seat for five years. In total, there are 1200 seats sold by the range of 50€ to 500€ for anyone to buy. (Tukijoukot, 2019) This campaign enables fundraising through assets that already exist, as the seats will be set into the stands whether they are being sold or not. The process regarding this campaign seems simple: visit a website and make a transaction. However, challenges may occur in ways to make people aware of the campaign. How to appeal to individuals and where, these seem to be the two main questions. In other words, the process may need some additional planning.

5.7.2 Issues to develop

The compared facilities from abroad in this study are somewhat similar, yet again somewhat different. In both Colorado Springs and Papendal the office, accommodation and congress facilities are available for rental from which they collect fees. However, the USOPC has several commercial partners from which the funds are partly directed to cover the Colorado Springs budget whereas Papendal does not have any commercial partners and still is satisfied with the financial situation (Penn, interview 18 September 2021; Schellens, interview 20 October 2020).

Options are to make plans for private funding or to implement the possible plans for being self-sufficient in the future. Either way, the processes would need knowledge and resources to make a strategic plan (Köngäs, interview 23 April 2021). Once a plan is made, the actions regarding service design and process planning will be consistent.

5.7.3 For consideration

In the Finnish sport environment, the trend has been to concentrate on the substance knowledge and how the actual processes regarding coaching and preparations for competitions are, or in Urhea Arena’s case what are the best ways to build a new facility successfully. In the future, if another project like this will be conducted, it might be useful to integrate resources from marketing business side to the process in an earlier stage. That way the essence of the organization, of its people and the culture would be familiar to the marketing staff and they could also utilize that

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knowledge when making the plans for partnerships, whether they are commercial or not.

5.8 The seven P’s: Physical evidence

The variable of physical evidence could be interpreted in a narrow manner and only see it concerning the actual Urhea campus, its premises and the athletes using it. However, in this analysis it must be observed from the angle or a customer, from a public perspective. Physical evidence demonstrates the image of an organization and its services and convinces a customer to make the decision of a purchase. Issues such as a website or endorsements from other customers can be concluded in physical evidence. Even though the seven variables are being analysed separately in this paper, they are interdependent of each other regarding the marketing planning. (Dibb et al., 2015, p. 9)

5.8.1 Current state

From the promotion point of view, the physical evidence for NOTC Helsinki is uprising. The athletes already exist, but the actual facilities shall concretize the NOTC. However, for most of the people it may be confusing to understand, what are the differences between the NOTC Helsinki and Urhea. Which organization is which, what are the main functions or the differences. Regarding the construction site, are partnerships between the constructor and some suppliers (Tarvonen, 4 September 2020). When writing this paper, these partnerships are not public, but there is a possibility to publish them once the construction is ready.

Urhea has its own, slightly dated website, which has already been addressed under the promotion variable, section 5.8. However, at the time of writing the paper, the NOTC Helsinki website does not exist. At the Urhea Arena website the NOTC Helsinki is mentioned, however not explained in more detail (Urhea-halli, 2021). Therefore, the digital physical evidence hardly exists.

5.8.2 Issues to develop

As already mentioned earlier, when seeking private funding for the NOTC Helsinki, one of the essential issues is to evaluate why would someone want to support the organization or facility. Even though NOTC Helsinki is available for any Olympic athlete regardless of their hometown or club, it is still a facility in the Helsinki metropol area, which makes it local. Similarly, NOTC Vuokatti-Ruka is local in their area. (Köngäs, interview 24 April 2021)

Physical evidence would be something that the public could unite themselves with regarding the NOTC Helsinki. The already mentioned

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campaign for buying a seat from the Urhea Arena stands can be considered as such. A reference could be the project regarding the Helsinki Olympic Stadium renovation, in which anyone could donate funds to the Stadium Foundation and got their name printed on the stadium wall in exchange (Mediatalo Keski-Suomalainen, n.d.)

Additionally, the NOTC Helsinki will only be open for public through the restaurant and during public events, which narrows down the possibilities to offer people actual physical evidence in exchange for their possible monetary transactions as supporters or partners. According to the websites of FOC or other institutions related, there are currently no fan products of the Finnish Olympic Team for the public to buy, which in comparison to USOPC and Team USA products is a big difference (Fanatics, Inc., n.d.). Possibly this could be something that could be considered regarding the funding of FOC, the Finnish Olympic team and the NOTC’s in Helsinki and Vuokatti which all exist for the athletes, after all. However, this will need a mutual understanding as well as planned and steered operations.

5.8.3 For consideration

Physical evidence can also be considered as the physical evidence of how successful the actions of the organization are. In other words, is Urhea or NOTC as successful as they declare to be. Looking at the essential products, the high-performance athletes, their success is the most simplified evidence for the public. One of the most recent examples is ms. Awak Kuier, a basketball player originally from Kotka but also from the Helsinki Basketball Academy and Urhea, who was historically drafted in the Womens’ National Basketball League (later WNBA) as the first ever Finnish basketball player to play in the WNBA (Vox Media, LLC, 2021).

To succeed in marketing and promotion it would be important to answer to the needs of the public. Again, why would someone want to support the operations of the NOTC Helsinki. Therefore, a questionary might be one way to find out what are in the interests of the community around the Urhea campus in the Helsinki metropol are or the sports community in Finland in whole. The results of a questionary could give answers and ideas to how the NOTC Helsinki could bring the elite sports closer to the community.

5.9 Factors that influenced the results

Taylor (2016, p. 105) raises a relevant argument regarding interviews as a research method saying the people might not tell the same things to everyone they discuss the issue with. Another thing to notice is that that the competing elite sport organizations might not be willing to uncover

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their advantages to their rivals and therefore might have not told all the relevant information in the interview (Böhlke & Robinson, 2009, p. 72). In addition, the environments and contexts in countries can vary essentially, which can influence on what issues are being brought up when asking or answering questions.

5.10 Self-assessment

The issues assessed in this study are of the researcher’s interest and, additionally, the public funding of the Finnish sports is constantly discussed in the media as well as the sport community. Although the researcher has tried to obtain impartiality to the best of her ability, the angle or views during the interviews may have included bias or unintended subconscious interpretation due to the reason of her strong background within the sports.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this study is to find optional ways how the NOTC Helsinki could gain revenue from private sources. The biggest share of the funds for the Finnish sports, both grassroots and high-performance, has been received from the national gaming company Veikkaus Oy. Due to the globalization and web-based gaming possibilities, the revenue of Veikkaus is continuously decreasing which leads to the decreasing of the funds directed to sports. Earlier the funding could be considered remaining somewhat unchanged, but the recent and ongoing discussions indicate that a change is coming. This would lead the sport funding under the state budget which holds the risk of the funding to decrease by political decisionmakers.

However, if the aim is to seek private funding through commercial partners, it is inevitable to evaluate the entity from a marketing point of view in which the customer would be the future partner or sponsor of the NOTC Helsinki. Why would an organization or an individual want to support NOTC Helsinki? What kind of added value could NOTC Helsinki bring to the sponsoring organization and how? Regarding marketing and seeking commercial partnerships for NOTC Helsinki, it would be important not only to recognize the potential partners but also identify the values the partners want to highlight through high-performance sports. The fact that these questions are not being answered in this paper does not necessarily mean they would not have been answered somewhere else. However, today the organizations are able to actually create their own media through the internet and various social media channels, so it would be crucial to invest on communication about what the NOTC Helsinki and Urhea really consist of and do to raise awareness of their values as well. The

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The analysis through the seven variables of the marketing mix, the seven P’s, indicates that there are many issues that create competitive advantage to the NOTC Helsinki. First and foremost, the high-performance athletes of various sports involved with the Urhea campus and the NOTC Helsinki create an asset comparing to other organizations around the main capitol city area competing from the possible partners. The question is how to capitalize that advantage. Furthermore, the main issue is to understand the differences between the core interest of the sports and the core interest of the market. This requires wide understanding of those needs. Consequently, a larger knowledge about communications and marketing is needed to reach the crowd interested in sport, yet crowd outside sport.

Regarding service design and planning of fundraising the recommendation is to join forces at least between the two NOTC’s, Helsinki and Vuokatti- Ruka. As these facilities will be the two main locations for the Finnish Olympic athletes and their staff, a logical way would be to connect the NOTC’S and their planning with FOC as well. According to the interviews and observations during this study the three organizations share the same mission. Even though Helsinki and Vuokatti-Ruka are on completely different sides of Finland, their staff as well as the athletes using the facilities come from around the country and could benefit from mutual understanding regarding marketing activities. As the FOC’s elite sport unit steers the sport activities throughout Finland, it might be logical that the FOC’s marketing unit would steer the marketing activities or at least be the uniting and advisory force.

When making the analysis through the marketing mix the results can and are likely to look different than when looking at the variables from the sports point of view. From the sports perspective the facilities are important to be easily accessed, but from the marketing point of view facilities may not be accessed at all. Or the people may have the knowledge on coaching but that makes no difference from the marketer point of view. The motives, advantages and added value for the marketer should be addressed specifically to succeed in making private partnerships. The research results suggest that specific marketing-oriented staff would be needed to understand the special features of sports business. Additionally, it might be beneficial to include marketing-oriented staff in the planning procedures in the future to identify the possible chances to create products to commercialise.

Regarding this study the research process was longer than expected, but still less than one year. Considering that the researcher was working full time almost half of the time of writing, the study finished to

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be successful. Moreover, the observation and further analysis could have suffered from a shorter time of writing. The time enabled a larger interpretation of the results and, at the same time, helped the researcher to clarify the essentials of the paper. However, a more systematic planning could have helped the writer to form a clearer structure to the process.

7 RECOMMENDATIONS

Regarding Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki the situation is different from a regular new business launch: the mission and vision are clear, the operations are already running, most of the key resources are there, the construction site is operating through main partners and will be finished to be opened as new facilities in 2021 and most of all, the customers or in this case main users already exist too. Nevertheless, the seeking of partnerships may need a fresh start like a new business. Traditionally, a plan of the business model intentioned is created before opening a business. One option is to utilize a specific Business Model Canvas to notice all the necessary things at the beginning, such as what are the main activities, what value does the new business create and to whom, how to cherish customer relationships and what are the key resources and main partners, how does the cost structure look like and how are the profits flowing in. (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010, p. 16—19) Another option could be to use a New Business Exploration Canvas for idea creation and business modelling (Liikkanen, 2019).

One important issue could be to raise the societal need to support high- performance sport and, in that way support the wellbeing of our society as whole – in other words, make the shared value of societal and economic benefits visible (Porter & Kramer, 2011, p. 5). For example, supporting values such as healthy and active lifestyle could bring added value to the sponsoring organization in the eyes of its employees and add their work ethics, and thus be remarkable (Bjerke & Kirkesaether, 2020, p. 726).

According to Artal-Tur, Kozak & Kozak (2019, p. 21) sports tourism can be described simply through two different segments: taking part oneself or watching others compete. Regarding NOTC Helsinki this fact can be utilized and processed even further by continuing the segmentation also to individual and organizational segments. In fact, these segments complete each other. An individual can be interested in taking part in a sport event or watching one, as well as a company can offer its employees a possibility to participate or be a spectator. In comparison with the Colorado Springs facility, the USOPC upholds an Olympic museum and a Visitor Center (United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, 2021d). Regarding Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki a specific museum might not be of relevance because of the Finnish Sports Museum already existing at the

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Helsinki Olympic Stadium. However, some elements of this kind of visitor center could be adopted where applicable, to make the NOTC Helsinki more available for public. Another option would be to launch a co- operation with the Finnish Sports Museum to create more interest in both the museum and the NOTC Helsinki. This kind of co-operation could possibly be of interest to a private partner as well.

The future trends have not been discussed in the results so far. However, it would be very useful to familiarize with the trends for the following 10 years. It is well known that the sport world is changing very slowly compared to the surrounding society, therefore Urhea and the NOTC Helsinki would benefit from following the trends earlier rather than later. Being able to utilize some future trends can open various opportunities that have not been considered earlier.

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INTERVIEWS

Köngäs, V. Director of marketing and customer relations. Finnish Olympic Committee. Interview 23 April 2021.

Penn, K. Chief of business operations. United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Interview 18 September 2020.

Schellens, J. Director. High performance centre and Hotel Papendal. Interview 20 October 2020.

Tarvonen, S. Executive director. The sport academy of the main capitol area Urhea and the Helsinki national Olympic training center. Interview 4 September 2020.

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Toivo, J. Facility and administrative coordinator. The Vuokatti- Ruka Olympic training center. Interview 22 September 2020.

Vuorinen, J. Executive director. The Vuokatti-Ruka Olympic training center. Interview 22 September 2020.

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Appendix 1 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR SIMO TARVONEN

The current state of the training center

Can you describe the current state and the organizational structure?

Which things are you satisfied at the moment?

What is the current model of funding of the training center?

The future of the training center

How will the current state change?

How does the future look like for the training center?

What are the key success factors that indicate success and why have these factors been chosen?

Who defines these factors?

How and when are these followed and evaluated?

The funding of the Olympic Training Center

How does the funding form and why have you chosen this structure?

What part of the costs is covered by - Public parties, and what are they - Shareholders - National sport governing bodies - Athletes - Private users from outside - Which partnerships do already exist

What are the future plans for funding, what part of it is planned to be private funding, how much private funding there already is and what kind of plans have been made to obtain private funding in the future?

On what basis does the funding define the choices that are being made?

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Appendix 2 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR KEVIN PENN

The current situation of the Colorado Springs Olympic & Paralympic Trai ning Center

Can you describe the current state of the OPTC?

Which factors have been the most critical ones in order to get to the situa tion where the OPTC currently?

What things or issues are You content/satisfied/happy about in the current situation of the OPTC ?

Regarding the olympic and paralympic training center status, which places are entitled to use the name Olympic and Paralympic Training Center? What are the conditions and is some center able to purchase the status or trademark for itself to use?

The future of the Colorado Springs OPTC

How does the future look like, what kind of development will there be?

The funding of the Colorado Springs OPTC

What is the financial structure of the OPTC and why?

How have the private partnerships been found and how have the funds been collected?

On what values, arguments or other things are the partnerships based on, what are the things that attract the partnerships?

In your opinion, what are the most popular things, people, places or issue s that attract people regarding the Team USA merchandise or locations and why?

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Appendix 3 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR JANNE VUORINEN AND JUHA TOIVO

The current state of the training center Can you describe the current state and the organizational structure?

Which things are you satisfied at the moment?

What is the current model of funding of the training center?

The future of the training center How will the current state change?

How does the future look like for the training center?

What are the key success factors that indicate success and why have these factors been chosen?

Who defines these factors?

How and when are these followed and evaluated?

The funding of the Olympic Training Center

How does the funding form and why have you chosen this structure?

What part of the costs is covered by - Public parties, and what are they - Shareholders - National sport governing bodies - Athletes - Private users from outside - Which partnerships do already exist

What are the future plans for funding, what part of it is planned to be private funding, how much private funding there already is and what kind of plans have been made to obtain private funding in the future?

On what basis does the funding define the choices that are being made?

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Appendix 4 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR JOCHEM SCHELLENS

About the current state of Papendal

Which factors have been the most critical ones in order to get to the situa tion where the Papendal CTO currently is?

What things or issues are You content/satisfied/happy about in the curre nt situation of the Papendal CTO?

The future of Papendal

What are the key success factors to indicate the success (other than medals and success) and why have these exact factors been identified? Who defines these KSF’s?

The funding of Papendal

What is the financial structure of the Papendal CTO and why? (Public funding / fees from the national governing / bodies private funds)

How have the private partnerships been found and how have the funds been collected

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Appendix 5 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR VILLE KÖNGÄS

About the marketing of the NOTC Helsinki

What is the reasoning a facility can call itself an Olympic Training Center? Are there different levels of OTC’s and does the title cost something?

What kind of discussions have there been between the FOC and the NOTC Helsinki about marketing of the NOTC and the roles in the marketing?

What are your views about how the common understanding about marketing should be built or has it been built already?

What kind of instructions are there, has been planned or will be coming about the marketing of the NOTC?

What kind of products have been planned regarding the NOTC’s and how has the price been defined?

Is there a plan about common marketing activities with the NOTC’s in Helsinki and Vuokatti-Ruka?

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Appendix 6 ANALYSIS SHEET FOR SEVEN P’S