A Report on Customer Satisfaction in the Sports Event Industry

This report delves into the sports event management industry, with a specific focus on customer satisfaction within the United Kingdom. It begins with an overview of the industry's revenue and growth, highlighting the significance of customer satisfaction for event success. The report explores various aspects of customer needs, including organization, pricing, convenience, personal experiences, and the desire to feel special. It then examines how the industry responds to these needs, emphasizing the importance of understanding the target audience, assessing customer needs, and gathering feedback. The report also discusses the application of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the sports event industry to understand customer behavior. The paper concludes by reiterating the critical role of customer satisfaction in driving positive event outcomes and revenue generation within the sports sector.

Running head: SPORTS MANAGEMENT
SPORTS MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
This paper talks about the sports and the event industry and reflects the different needs and
importance of customer satisfaction that will help in making an event successful. This paper
focuses on the needs of the customers during the event and what are the measures that can
help in satisfying companies in order to make an event successful.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Brief overview of sports or events industry, United Kingdom..............................................3
Customer needs or motivation...............................................................................................3
Organization.......................................................................................................................4
Price....................................................................................................................................4
Time and convenience........................................................................................................4
Personal experience............................................................................................................5
Feeling special....................................................................................................................5
Response of the industry to satisfy customer needs...............................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Event management is a kind of project management that is involved in the creation
and the development of events. This involves studying and analyzing the brand, recognizing
the target audience, conceptualizing the event, planning the event’s logistics and making sure
everything is going smoothly and to see to the coordination of the technical aspects before the
launch of the event. The responsibility of the event management is to plan and effectively
execute the event. This paper is going to talk about sports event management industry and
address about the customer service management.
Discussion
Brief overview of sports or events industry, United Kingdom
The sports industry has been one of the most bankable and popular industry. This
popularity has raised the sports events industry. The key factor to organizing successful
sports events is to satisfy the customers. In United Kingdom the sports events sector
generated revenue of 1360.5 million U.S dollars in 2018 via online platforms like eServices
and it is expected to grow and is estimated to be 1,913.4 million U.S dollar by the year 2023
(Statista 2019).
Customer needs or motivation
There are many sports that are popular in the United Kingdom like Cricket and
Rugby. People love sports and are very enthusiastic about it thus want to attend the events
that are organized. There are certain customer needs that need and are catered to attract
people to attend these events.

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Organization
Customers like to attend events that are well organized and detailed. An event needs
to function systematically that will help to cater to the needs of the customers. The
organization of the event needs to be precise. In sports events the coordinators should take
steps to ensure the entry of the people attending the event is in an organized way and there is
no chaos (McFarlane, Giannikas and Lu 2016). There enough space for parking cars or other
vehicles owned by the people attending the event so that they can watch the event peacefully
without any concern. Adequate food and beverages are available in the event to satisfy the
people attending the events and many more. There must be LED video display solutions and
scoreboards resent in sports events that will help in enhancing the experience of the people
and are convenient for the people to watch the important aspects of the sports so that they do
not miss it.
Price
Every customer has different needs and has different budgets as per their preference.
It is necessary for the event manager to introduce tickets of different price range that will
cater to the needs of the people (Martine and Cooren 2016). This is an important factor as
there are people who may not be able to afford to watch the event but want to attend the
event. Different price range will help all interested people to attend the event. Different
tickets should be available according to the position of the seats available in the events.
Time and convenience
Time and the convenience is an important aspect and factor of customer needs while
planning an event. Most people like to attend sports events during the weekends as a
recreational purpose. Working people do not get a chance to attend sports events that are
organized during weekdays because of work commitments. This is a factor that the event
organizers should consider as less people attending the events means less revenue.

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Personal experience
Live experiences have a different and a long lasting effect on the minds of the people.
It is important for the organizers to make sure this is the best experience. It has been seen that
live sports events contribute to social connection and the happiness (Liu, Sparks and Coghlan
2017). The customer needs a personal experience that they can take back home. According to
researchers live sporting event attendees have had a positive impact. The feeling of being
there with crowd cheering and music between breaks helps the customers have a good
experience. This good experience makes people want to visit again for events like these (Lee,
Gipson and Barnhill 2017).
Feeling special
Every customer wants to feel special and have a memorable experience while
attending an event. In a sports event there are certain creative games that hosts play with the
people who come to attend the events before the event or between the breaks and the one who
wins may get a merchandize autographed by their favorite players or may get a small gift that
will make their experience and satisfy the customers.
It is important for the event managers and coordinators to understand the needs of the
customers and to implement strategic measures that help to satisfy the needs of the customers
and help the customers feel nice so that they want to attend more events like these.
The theory of motivation that was put forward by Maslow is one of the greatest
theories that explain the behavior of the human and the needs of the human beings. This
theory is also known as the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Liu and Jie 2017). This theory is
adapted to the sports event industry to understand the customer needs.
The first represents the physiological needs that are the necessities that are required
for the survival of a person. This when applied to the event industry the first layer would be

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the organization of the event. The second layer states the safety needs. From the event point
of view it will be the basic necessities that will be provided for the safety of the people that is
the venue where the event is going to be organized. Whether they are providing the customers
with the basic necessities like food and proper equipments that the customers need while
watching the event. The third layer talks about love and sense of belonging (Zorfas and
Leemon 2016). It is important for the customers to feel wanted and important part of the
event. The event must be organized to show the people that emphasis has been put to satisfy
and cater to their needs that make the attendees think that they are an important part of the
event. The fourth layer talks about the needs of the people that appeal to their self esteem.
Measures are taken to make the customers feel special. The last one is self actualization, for
event organizers is to collect feedback and purpose their position to make effective changes
that will help to satisfy customer needs in a better way.
Response of the industry to satisfy customer needs
Customer needs change with time thus it important for the industry to keep a track
about the change in needs of the customers that will help them to take effective measures that
will help them to cater to the needs of the customers.
Firstly it is important to understand the target audience and how they function and
what are their needs. It is important to assess the occupation, the interests and the lifestyle of
the customers to understand their preferences and what are the things they will like and need
that can be arranged by the event organizers.
Secondly it is important to understand the needs of the customers. Each customer has
different needs that are equally important. Understanding the needs will help the event
organizers to make changes and make arrangements as per the needs.

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Thirdly it is important for event organizers to get feedbacks from the customers. The
event organizers need to take the feedbacks seriously and try to make changes according to
the feedback so that in the next event they can make positive changes that will satisfy the
customers (Jaimangal-Jones, Fry and Haven-Tang 2018).
There have been many events related to sports that have been organized in United
Kingdom. People of all age groups like watching sports and thus people of all age groups
come and watch sports events. There have been times where there were people who were old
and were not capable of walking too much in order to get food and beverages for themselves.
There were also people who did not want to get themselves food and beverage when they
needed as they did not want to miss any important part of the match. Volunteers had been
appointed to cater to the needs of the customers by taking their orders and bringing food and
beverages so that they did not have to get up from their seats and also so that they did not
miss any important moments of the event. Being a volunteer later when the feedback by the
customers were shared it was seen that most people had given positive feedback for the
volunteers who were providing services by bringing food and beverages to the customers.
Conclusion
Event management and organization highly depend on the satisfaction of the
customers. Customer needs are one of the most important factors that help to make an
organization successful. It is important for an event organizer to get proper feedback about an
event from the perspective of a customer that will later help the event organizers to make
effective changes that will satisfy the customer. A satisfied customer paves way for the
positive and good reputation of the event and helps the event to generate and raise revenues
that is beneficial for the industry.

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Reference
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