Playing the game

This coming week, I will be attempting to play the game at Play the Game, a major sport conference taking place at Coventry University (www.playthegame.org/conferences/play-the-game-2009.html). That is, I will be trying to blog and Twitter about the main issues each day. Ahead of the conference, it is worthwhile considering its main themes:

• Ethics in governance: Will sports federations come clean?
• Between Beijing and London: Mega-events as drivers of development
• Business battles: The power struggles in football
• Match-fixing: A blow to the core of sport
• Terrible teenagers? Sport’s quest for the hearts and minds of the youth
• Anti-Doping: Will the technological arms race come to an end?
• Paralympic athletes: More different than the rest?
• Sport for the Good: What is it good for?

Do these themes represent the biggest challenges facing sport at the moment? Are there other key themes that are missing from the programme? In which case, how should a conference of this nature actually address these issues?

Break-dance

Back to F1 - while the crisis talks that took place between FIA and FOTA at the Monaco Grand Prix are likely to get F1 through to the end of the season, the debate about regulations for next season rumbles on. Indeed, the Toyota team has actually come clean and said that a 2010 breakaway championship is one of a number of options that FOTA is considering. We have been here before: in 1980, a stand-off between FIA and FOCA (the Formula One Constructors Association - the 80's incarnation of FOTA) led to the emergence of break-away threats. What can F1 learn from the precedents and politics of 1980s motor sport? Can history provide any lessons to help in eliminating the potential threat of a massive and permanently damaging split in F1? From here, how best should decisions be taken to ensure that FIA and FOTA both emerge from the current impasse, satisfied and having saved face? Is there a role for an independent arbiter, and is this person already in waiting? Could it be Bernie Ecclestone? Should it be Bernie Ecclestone? Or is there a need for someone from outside, and independent of, the sport to become involved? Is the role that Lord Stevens (a former Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Force) played in investigating football player agents for the English Football Association a model that might prove useful in F1? Or is F1's current predicament tantamount to a domestic dispute that is best resolved privately between partners? Whatever the correct course of action, surely the governing bodies and the teams have to get their acts together? At a time of economic hardship, with several sponsors due to withdraw from F1, but with a number of historic teams threatening to withdraw, surely there has to be an obvious, consensual way forward?

Suits you, sir

FINA (the Fédération Internationale de Natation), essentially the main international swimming federation, is facing legal action after swimwear brand blueseventy expressed concerns about FINA's bodysuit tests, which led to the banning of several blueseventy suits due to air trapping (which apparently gives the suits more buoyancy). Notwithstanding arguments about the testing procedure and the meaning of 'air trapping', blueseventy are especially concerned about having lost a month's worth of business already due to the ban, and about the impending World Championships from which the aforementioned suits could well be absent unless the company's products are reinstated into swimming. How could such a situation arise in the first place? Surely the company must have taken into account the rules concerning 'air trapping' during its product R&D phase? Was the product tested, and how did it perform? Were the tests used by the manufacturer different to those that are used by FINA? And how is FINA defining, quantifying and measuring 'air trapping'? Is measurement possible and, if so, how is it carried out? Is it a precise science or something that has gross margins of error? With millions of pounds presumably invested in the product, should blueseventy have the right to litigate against FINA if it is proven that FINA has made an incorrect, inaccurate or careless ruling? In which case, how might one calculate the damage to short-term profit and long-term brand health? And what are the lessons here for other sports, where governing bodies could enforce a ruling which is subsequently overturned? Should individuals, teams and clubs and sports be able to readily and freely litigate against the governing body, or would this be against the spirit and morality of sport?

Obsessive-compulsive sport sponsorship

The obsessive compulsive part of this is this blog's continuing preoccupation with football (even though the football season has ended and I promised not to write about it). Reports have surfaced that Manchester United has signed an £80 million shirt sponsorship deal with the Aon Corporation, a US-based insurance company. The deal will start at the beginning of the 2010/11 football season and is being hailed as the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in history. In the context of reports late last year when it was becoming clear that AIG would pull their deal with United, how do we read the Aon deal? Are United now established beyond all doubt as the world's leading football club brand? Are Aon being commercially naive, over-estimating the power of football to reach out to customers across the world? Is this the ultimate recession-busting deal, a testament to the power of sport and of football? In short, what is this deal all about?

OK, OK, OK, OKaka

OK, OK, OK.....I know I said I wouldn't blog about football again for a while, but with an (un)reliable source having told me me that Kaka will sign for Real Madrid tomorrow, I couldn't resist. Apologies to the non-football lovers. Real's seemingly imminent signing of Kaka from AC Milan has been brought about by the re-election as club president of Florentino Perez, the man who splashed the cash when he was previously Madrid's president thereby ushering-in the 'galacticos' era of Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham et al. What are we to make of Kaka's signing, and will it be followed by the signings of Ronaldo, Fabregas and Ribery? Are we on the cusp of a new galacticos era? What does Kaka's signing reveal about Real Madrid's commercial strategy, their marketing strategy, and their approach to on-field performance? How will this and other possible signings impact upon the club's brand, and the targetting of overseas fans? Will the size and nature of such transfer deals further skew an already highly distorted transfer market? Will Kaka's departure undermine Italian football, causing even more problems for the nation's football leagues than they have already? To what extent will Kaka's expected arrival reinforce the position of Spain's La Liga as one of the world's 'Big-2' (alongside England's Premier League)? And a final question: where is Florentino Perez getting the money from to engage in such player acquisition and remuneration? Last time round, he sold Real Madrid's training ground as real estate, netting the club upwards of Euros 400 million. Where is he getting the money from this time and what problems, if any, might these cause for the club?

Personality crisis?

A posting on this blog a couple of months ago highlighted state payments that had been made to Tiger Woods in return for the player's appearance at the Australian Masters golf tournament this November. Early indications are that there will be record demand for tickets as a result of Woods playing in the competition, something that has been reinforced by a sensible ticket pricing policy which will only lead to in an increase in prices for the finals day's rounds. Are the expectations surrounding the event merely hype on the part of the organisers, who are no doubt keen to ensure that the $3 million outlay on Woods is recouped? Is the potential success of the event down to the creation of an appropriate pricing strategy? Or are we to conclude that golf is now simply a personality-driven sport? More damningly, a one-person personality-driven sport?

Racing to an end

In a recent interview in the Racing Post, BBC commentator John Inverdale lamented the current state of British horse-racing. Inverdale commented that the sport has too little to offer, especially to TV audiences (sometimes there might only be three or four races, each lasting less than 10 minutes, over a three or four hour period). In addition, he complained that races are scheduled to appear on TV at times when the total audience size is very small, and that racing is becoming evermore elitist. Indeed, Inverdale regrettably noted that 75% of people who go racing for the first time, never go again. Is Inverdale right, perhaps horse-racing really is in desperate trouble; or are these the views of an unnecessarily pessimistic racing fan who hankers after a return to a former golden age of racing? Given the role that the media plays in sport, its coverage, its popularisation and its financing, surely racing must therefore have to change in order to remain solvent, popular, relevant and contemporary? Is there a further, equally as important, and inextricably linked issue: does competition structure and race format have to change in order to bring horse-racing into the 21st Century? Would this mean resorting to new short-format racing, in much the same way as cricket, snooker and golf have introduced new short-format competitions? Could there be another way, other than the short-format option, whereby the configuration of media, competition format, horse ownership, course utilisation and betting activities changes? And what role should the latter - betting - play in shaping the future for horse-racing? (Thanks to Graham Daniels for the 'heads-up' on horse-racing's problems).