Sport Management & Development

This area of research has many different aspects to it. Empirical work continues to be undertaken in a multitude of different areas and recent work has investigated the effectiveness of sport and physical activity initiatives (e.g. free swimming), as well as how sport can be used as a mechanism to grow communities or indeed, work with hard-to-reach groups.

The sports governance stream has produced extensive research relating to gaining competitive advantage and capacity building within developing sporting nations and their national governing bodies. Work also continues to be undertaken on the global, as well as the local context and research is looking at how sporting organisations plan and deliver strategy, alongside how sport policy is enacted by the relevant stakeholders.

Sporting events are an integral stream for the research group. Projects have looked at the role of volunteers in the planning and delivery of sporting events of all sizes. Empirical work has/continues to be undertaken looking at mega sporting events, with a specific focus on their governance and legacy planning.

This area investigates the changing nature of sport and physical activity in relation to the different sectors. For example, a decline in the participation of traditional team sports is now meaning that people are consuming sport and physical activity in different ways. Physical activity is now becoming more alternative and the growth of niche activities such as crossfit mean that there is competition for business between the sectors. Future work could also look at the role that technology plays in the consumption of sport and physical activity.