Chapter Four: Masterminding Innovation and Change

Elite sport is by its very nature hyper-competitive. The drive to win has led many athletes, their clubs, federations, and even national governments to adopt a mentality of ‘win at all costs’, with real and irreversible implications for athlete welfare. Sport has from its very inception encouraged athletes, their trainers, and affiliated organisations to ‘bend the rules’ to the point of breaking, in pursuit of achieving a competitive advantage. High-profile cases of ‘cheating’ are too numerous to discuss here, however, the reality may be that in many professional sports cheating has become so endemic, as no longer being ‘optional’, but ‘essential’ if the athlete is to compete on an equitable level with their peers. The use of performance enhancing drugs, covert surveillance of opposition preparation (tactics and strategy), creative accountancy methods (to circumvent league and governing body financial regulations), match-fixing, and corruption of officials provide the backdrop to the sporting landscape in which the contemporary CEO operates. Balancing the expectations and demands for success within a culture which promotes a ‘duty of care’ towards its employees and strict adherence to best practice within governance and regulatory compliance is a challenge for the C-suite. The attraction to circumvent rules, simply because other teams, athletes, and business owners are too, presents an ethical dilemma for the CEO. The reality is that stakeholders increasingly appear to require that their C-suite be ‘values led’ and can be trusted in terms of their behaviours towards governance, social responsibility, performance, and risk (Edelman, 2020). Expectations placed upon the contemporary CEO appear to be increasingly focussed upon ethical behaviour around transparency, payment of ‘fair wages’ to all employees and business that are a ‘force for good in society’, as well as making profits for owners and shareholders. Self-evidently, professional sport has the capacity to convert and elevate rational, mild-mannered, and tempered individuals into unrecognisable levels of disinhibition, hysteria, and ‘fanaticism’. The motives for becoming a sports fan are typically assigned to the need for ‘eustress’ (positive stress), escape, entertainment, economic, aesthetic, group affiliation, self-esteem, and family needs (Wann & James, 2018). The implications for the CEO are that they are not working for and with ‘conventional’ stakeholders or consumers of their product, in search of a stable ‘bottom-line’. Sports fans are ‘atypical’ customers whose passion, excitement, and involvement are crucial for event implementation and value co-creation (Zagnoli & Radicchi, 2010). Recognition and a shared emotional commitment to ‘our’ team are key requirements of a successful (and long lasting) sports CEO. The passion, commitment, and drive to achieve success ‘now’ empowers the C-suite to leave no stone unturned in the search for innovation and competitive advantage, not just on the field of play, but within the broader entertainment industry that it operates. For example, according to Nielsen (2020) the upsurge of ‘direct-to-consumer’ offerings is disrupting the sports content industry, by offering greater choice and personalisation than ever before and forcing any organisation which carries or produces sports content to evolve rapidly. In addition, the production of high-quality sports media content is expanding beyond traditional boundaries with the introduction of new kinds of creators, ranging from athlete-owned platforms to fully fledged creative collaborations between rights-holders and fans. Adding to this complexity, is the need for the C-suite to better understand the wants and needs of ‘Generation Z’ (born in the mid- to late-1990s) and in doing so encourage executives to evolve their organisations so they can attract and engage a new generation of fans. In addition, executives can be expected to take advantage of the momentum that appears to be developing around women’s sports and the opportunities for the creation of new professional leagues, franchises, corporate sponsorships, and increased ticket sales. Finally, sports industry analysts anticipate that the esports landscape will continue its rapid evolution with an acceleration of relationships amongst teams, leagues, and players with implications for streaming, branding, and sponsorship opportunities (Deloitte, 2020a, 2020b). With sport undergoing exponential digital disruption, there are several common challenges that sports executives are currently faced with. For example, how existing and emerging technologies can be used innovatively and creatively to work smarter. For the CEO, the challenge of being a digital ‘leader’ and not an analogue ‘follower’ has driven what appears to be an incessant need to constantly adapt their businesses to develop new products, services, and systems of operation to keep pace with rapidly changing market conditions.