THE PARADOX OF PERFORMANCE AND OTHER SPORTING CONUNDRUMS

This piece is the Editorial from Volume 3, Issue 2 of the Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal


As we draw to the close of one sporting year and head towards the start of the next, there is simultaneously deep reflection on the year just gone and feverish anticipation of what is to come. Annual award ceremonies abound for those athletes, teams, coaches, managers and officials who have performed best over the last twelve months. At the same time, cyclists, racing drivers, tennis players and others are training ahead of a new season, honing their skills and technique in order to improve on last season’s performances. Inevitably, athletes, teams and sport fans will view winning as the ultimate performance, but in reality many will have to accept something other than winning as an ultimate outcome. In which case, ‘performance’ and its improvement become relative concepts and rather more complex than many might imagine. For a journal of this nature, this raises some interesting issues.


At its most fundamental, one has to ask what performance, more specifically ‘good performance’, actually is, and does performing well always mean having to win? Indeed, this raises some pertinent questions about how, where and on what basis athletes, teams and other sporting organisations ‘perform well’. Consider the case of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Manchester United, arguably the three best performing teams in world football over the last couple of decades, having won competitions across the world. Yet consider too their financial performances: currently, these three clubs are the largest financial debtors in world football. This apparent paradox raises some interesting issues, not least the implication that on-field performance and financial performance are inversely related to one another. That said, managers at Bayern Munich or Arsenal might well disagree with such a hypothesis because their financial prudence has not necessarily brought these clubs the level of playing success achieved by the aforementioned three clubs. Critics of recent developments at football clubs like Manchester City and Malaga CF might also question the hypothesis; significant financial expenditure, allied to growing debt, have not led to significant playing achievements, certainly at the European level.


Closer consideration of on-field performance poses further questions: is victory the only true measure of successful performance, or are other measures relevant as well? In recent years, there has been the growth of a statistics industry around sport, with a plethora of performance measures being generated ranging from the number of successful (or unsuccessful) passes through to the number of shots on target and so forth. What such statistics mean is a moot point: are they simply ways of measuring performance or do they have real and tangible meaning in terms of managing and improving performance? Such issues are at the heart of the growth in sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of baseball player performance, most notably elucidated through the ‘Moneyball’ phenomenon. The essence of sabermetrics equates performance management with scientific method, using quantitative data as its basis. Many working within sport, particularly coaches and managers, nevertheless still believe that performance and its management remains an art not a science, and is founded on interpersonal relationships and an understanding of individual nuances in athletes’ psychologies. This ideological and methodological schism is in itself a debate that continues to build and is yet to be resolved.


Some commentators believe that performance can be bought, while others believe that performance can only be achieved through sustainable internal growth. Understanding such processes is a challenge for managers in sport: while there is evidence that the acquisition of playing talent can deliver success, throughout sporting history there is clear evidence of high expenditure on individuals and teams in an attempt to secure success. Yet the latter is often observed to have delivered poor returns on investment in terms of performance on the field or track. Such acquisition nevertheless often addresses sometimes pressing short-term demands to deliver successful performances, something that is especially significant when fans of a sport demand instant success. The development of internal competence can be a rather more laborious process, something that may be unacceptable to sport fans who demand instant success for their team. But through careful and considered management, long-term sustainable performance can be achieved through the creation of formal scouting networks, of structured training and development programmes, of appropriate reward and remuneration systems and so forth. For many advocates, internal or organic growth equally can have more a more positive impact upon financial performance that simply buying-up the best talent.


The importance of performance (and its management) in sport is indisputable. While many people and organisations have understood it and continue to do so, there are just as many that have not and have wrestled with the secrets of getting the very best from themselves, their athletes or their teams. There would seem to be a great deal that businesses can learn about performance from sport organisations, as Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s recent lecture to executives at Harvard Business School testifies. Yet at the same time, in the quest for the extra metre, the one second less, or one place higher, it is equally the case that sport can learn a great deal from business. As such, this issue of the journal makes a contribution to developments in thinking about performance, most notably through the first three papers appearing here. One hopes that readers will derive some value from reading them, as well as from reading the subsequent two papers.