The primary purpose of management is to enable people to work together to attain specific objectives. Sports management entails a combination of different skills related to organizing, planning, controlling or directing, evaluating, leading, and budgeting within an organization whose main aim is connected to sports or physical activities. Like other businesses, managing a sports team involves different aspects: managers, marketing professions, accountants, and other organizational processes. Sports managers and coaches are responsible for guiding or taking control of the activities of the organization. Coaching teams involves several concerns, such as paying attention to details and organizational skills, which need to be considered. Therefore, this paper looks into the details of sports managers' roles or coaches in sport management.
Leadership
Leadership skill is crucial for any manager in an organization. Likewise, team managers and coaches need to have these skills to reach the club's goals successfully. Effective leadership involves far much that only being visionary and passionate requires sports managers to be more flexible and have enough leadership skills to enable them to work under pressure (Rekha, 2017). Furthermore, creating teamwork is essential among organizations, athletes, and clients, which a leader needs to excel as a team leader (). Sports managers also have to be motivators, that is, to enable them to inspire people to work as one to experience the achievement as a team (Rekha, 2017).
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Problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making are vital aspects that coaches and sports managers need to have while engaging in sport management activities (Sidd, 2015). This demands the coaches to be more knowledgeable about the sports laws, general management, the sports industry, panning, negotiation, etc., to make the right decision or solve problems (Sidd, 2015).
Communication skills are essential to sports managers as they meet with many different people and various occasions (Rekha, 2017). Being able to communicate well to athletes and other people enhances the excellent relationship between the athletes and other people involved in the management. Writing athletes' contracts and legal documents understanding is part of the communication skills that sport managers need to portray as leaders (Rekha, 2017).
The Hiring Process
At times, sports management enrolls new athletes to their team either due to a replacement or athletes' additions. Sports managers are mandated to hire and fire athletes as part of their responsibilities (Frank, 2018). This happens mostly at the professional level whereby the managers and other staff members work together in negotiations with the athletes and finally sign up contracts with each of the athletes who reached the agreements (Frank, 2018). The contract includes the athlete's duration of being in the team, the contract's payments, terms, and conditions.
At the college level, the recruiting teams and the sports managers are responsible for recruiting new athletes. The process involves checking out players in different high schools and pick out the best athletes from the schools (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). Often sports managers use scholarships and some other benefits to bring the new athletes into the school. Also, sports managers usually take the role of sports agents of athletes, whereby they assist them in negotiating contracts with teams (Demir & Sertbas, 2018).
Management Obligations
The sports managers have varieties of responsibilities to take care of depending on the levels that they operate. For instance, in professional teams, the sports managers have to coordinate with the coaches and trainers to ensure that they have the training resources they need to deliver their best (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). Sports managers that work at colleges play their roles as sports directors. They are entitled to manage the school's athletic programs and can also be mandated to be a facility manager (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). As facility managers, they must supervise sports facilities, emerging game schedules, oversee the maintenance of sports facilities, and appoint food and service staff (Demir & Sertbas, 2018).
Budgeting and Finance
Budgeting is an essential aspect of the management of a team or an organization. Being one of the sports managers' responsibilities, they make budgets for the teams and consider the operating expenditures, potential revenues, and salaries of every individual, from coaches and athletes to staff members (Mat, 2019). Furthermore, Sports managers are also responsible for sorting out equipment, travel, and uniforms' expenses and ensuring accountability is retained (Mat, 2019). They are also aware of players' injuries that can happen anytime in the field thus need to consider these issues and many other issues that may emerge that would interfere with the budget (Mat, 2019). There are also other professional duties that the sports managers can support, such as selling sporting products or working at sport promoting organizations.
Marketing
Regularly, sports managers are the representation of the team and also the spokesperson. Therefore, they are fully involved in conducting press conferences and interviews on behalf of the team and the organization. Some sports managers engage in sport marketing activities to know their team and what they do (Tomi, 2018). They also act as sports fundraisers to bring in endorsements and corporate sponsors to support the team at large. The sports managers can also serve in professions such as director of sports information or public relations personnel (Sidd, 2015). The duties entail organizing media days for the whole team, linking the interviewing media and the team, and the current team and scores updates (Tomi, 2018). They can even fit to be event planners as they regularly organize for teams and also athletic organization.
Styles of Management
Style of management in sports are three and generally accepted for coaching. They include democratic, autocratic, and holistic. There are also benefits and demerits of each style, and they are effective in their own right. For autocratic, the coach presents a visualization of what should be done by the athletes, and the athletes are to follow or perform what is expected of them (Frank, 2018). This style of management is win-focused and involves a fixed training structure. The autocratic style works better in team sports (Frank, 2018).
For a democratic style, athletes contribute to the goal-setting and decision-making of matters related to the sport (Frank, 2018). The coaches do not dictate the athletes' instructions; they figure out their directions and development (Frank, 2018). In this style, the coaches only provide a framework while the athletes form their objectives, which they will be adhered to. This style is suitable for individual sports like tennis, etc.
For holistic style, coaches are mandated in creating a suitable environment for the athletes where they can be comfortable pursuing and exploring skills improvement on their own time and ways (Frank, 2018). In this style, the coach allows the team to create their own goals, thus not acting as the central authority. For the coach, this style requires commitment and building relationships with each athlete.
Legal Issues
Every sport has policies and regulations that need to be considered when a team participates in an event and its well-being. Sports management is usually faced with various legal concerns, such as employment and labor, contracts, and liability (Mirsafian, 2016). The sports managers must understand the athletes' legal rights; this entails understanding the laws that concern hiring, supervising, training, and firing of the athletes (Mirsafian, 2016). The athletes' handbooks often contain policies that the sports managers need to understand, based on discrimination and labor laws like wage and regulations, affirmative and equal opportunity rules, safety codes, and security values (Mirsafian, 2016).
Contracts are often used when signing up athletes in almost all sports organizations. They are also essential for coaches and members of staff. Sports managers are entitled to handle different types of contracts necessary for sports organizations such as athletes' benefits, advertising, liability insurance, travel and transportation, property and equipment purchasing, etc. (Mirsafian, 2016).
Quality and Strategic Management
Sports organization requires strategic management and proper leadership skills to enable its success. As much as a team's success depends on the athletes' performance, excellent strategic decisions also contribute to success (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). Strategic management involves three stages: strategic formulation, evaluation, and implementation (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). Strategic formulation entails the development of a vibrant mission and vision statement. The sports managers are responsible for ensuring the long-term objectives of the sports organizations are met. Quality management needs appropriate control and evaluation. This process requires sports managers to put their hands-on financial estimates and balanced records and ensure that everything goes as planned. Strategic implementation is an essential part of strategic management as it includes project management, budgeting, proper leadership, and staffing (Demir & Sertbas, 2018). The sports managers and the management teams are responsible for identifying tactics used to achieve the strategic objectives.
Conclusion
Conclusively, Sports managers have many responsibilities in managing athletes and sports organizations in general as they are involved in planning, directing, organizing, evaluating, and leading sports organizations. There are many different aspects that sports managers cover. It consists of a lot of skills and qualities to run and achieve sports organization objectives. The sports managers must be knowledgeable, motivated, flexible, organized, high moral standards, and personalized to handle athletes and other staff members in the organization and the sports industry.
References
Demir, A. & Sertbas, K. (2018). Total quality Management Applications in Sports. Web of Conferences. Vol. 48, 25-29. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20184801018
Frank, D. (2018). Coaching Style of Management for the Development of Individuals, Teams, and National Federations. Coaching Style of Management. Vol. 3, 323-330.
Mat, I. (2019). Finance Management in Sport Management. Sport Management Hub. https://www.sportmanagenthub.com
Mirsafian, H. (2016). Legal Duties and Legal Liabilities of Coaches Towards Athletes. Physical Culture and Sport Studies and Research . 69(1), doi: 10.1515/pssr-2016-0002
Rekha, N. (2017). Leadership in Sport Management. International Journal of Advanced Educational Research . Vol. 2, 397-399. https://www.educationjournal.org
Sidd, S. (2015). Leadership and the Role of a Leader in Sports. Believe performer . https://www.believeperformer.com
Tomi, W. (2018). Strategic Management in Sports. Sports Management. https://thesportdigest.com/2018
