Sports teams evolved a lot in the past few years. We are now looking at much more than just training the team and trying to win some competitions. There is now a culture that is developed in a team in a similar way to what we see in business. With this in mind, it is easy to understand why sports team management is much more similar to business management than what many believe.
Unfortunately, most people do not manage to make the needed changes to deal with the modern evolution of sports. Ryan Grigson, highly experienced sports manager, knows this better than many. He highlights the fact that numerous mistakes are done by sports team managers these days, highlighting the following as being those that need to be avoided at all costs.
Not Taking Advantage Of Social Media
If we take a look at the online presence of most sports teams, it is easy to notice that it is really bad. This is because of the fact that many sports team managers do not understand how important this is for future development. A sports team does rely on its fans. What better way to communicate with fans than through social media? Sports fans often use social media to express their opinions. When the presence of the team is high on the channels that are used by people, like Facebook and Twitter, it is much easier to build the loyal following that puts people in seats.
Not Taking Players Into Account When Making Business Decisions
It is the job of the manager to make many financial decisions that impact the team but this does not mean it is a good idea to not take the input of the players into account. This is because the players are directly connected to people that buy merchandise, fans and other players that play at other teams. The information that is offered by players can easily lead to smart management choices. At the same time, you do want to be sure that players are happy. If they are not, team results will be low.
Lack Of Appropriate Merchandise
A rather big part of the income a sports team has comes through merchandise. The problem is that many sports team, especially the small ones, believe that they need to do what others do. This is not something that works. It is really important to take fans into account so that you can see exactly what merchandise they want.
As a simple example, you might think that t-shirts with a specific player will sell better but if you do not have real data to prove that this is the case, you make a huge mistake when you rely on that. There might be a much better opportunity available, like producing more team caps if the demand is as high as it should be.
On the whole, the best sports team managers work really hard in order to keep growing the business side of things. Avoiding the mistakes mentioned above surely helps, no matter the team.
