Understanding Sports Industry

This essay report provides an overview of sports management and its role in the sports industry. It focuses on Sported UK, a charity organization that supports young people in sports. The report discusses the target market, marketing strategy, and the 4Ps of the marketing mix.

Understanding Sports
Industry

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Sports management involves the process of handling the administrative aspect of the
sports team, athletes, sports club, sports venue, sportsperson and the sports events. The
management in sports is required at every level where the sports are played be it in schools,
universities or at the national, local or international level. It requires the skill relating to the
planning, organising, controlling, directing, leading, evaluating and budgeting in an organisation
or the department whose main product or the service is relating to the sports or the physical
activity. Sports management is referred to as the field of the business which deals in recreation
and sports (WANG and et. al., (2017)). The organisation chosen for this report is Sported UK,
which is the largest community group supporting the young people to overcome their barrier to
reach their full potential in the sports. It is a charity based organisation which promote fairness
and equity for the young people through physical activity and grass root sport. This essay report
shall cover the key target market of the company and the marketing strategy including business
plan relating to financial aspect and the five year plan for marketing program of the organisation.
MAIN BODY
Sported UK is a charity based organisation which operates in the deprived area of the
country UK. This organisation has an open network to any of the community group who wants to
make difference in the lives of young people through the sports and physical activity. The groups
which are associated with the organisation are small and voluntary who are often under
resourced and under funded. The Sported UK provide the groups with the professional expertise,
operational support and resources which are free of cost and also which helps in thriving and
surviving.
The segmentation, targeting and positioning model is the strategic approach in the
modern marketing which is useful in creating the marketing communication plans as it helps in
prioritising the propositions and deliver and develop the relevant and personalised message to
engage different audience (Jewell, (2017)).
Segmentation is referred to as the process which helps in identifying the needs and find
new markets in order to deliver the effective marketing message. It helps in dividing the
customers into smaller groups which is based on their characteristics like income, age, gender,
etc. It is basically a practice which divide the target market into the approachable groups. There

are different ways in which segmentation can be done which is illustrated as Demographics
which breaks the market according to any combination which involves age, income, education,
gender and many other. Second is Behavioural where audience is differentiated on the basis of
the consumer behaviour which the customers have regarding the offering of the company. It
includes shopping habit, action taken on the website and many other. Third is Psycho-graphic
which is similar to demographic segmentation but draws the distinction on the basis of emotional
or mental characteristics and lastly the Geographic which makes the distinction on the basis of
the geographical location of the audience like state or country.
In context to Sported UK, the market segment of the organisation is on the basis of
demographic and also the geographic.
Targeting is the process which involves braking the larger audience into small segment.
Instead of reaching the entire market, the companies focus on its target market so that it can put
its energy in connecting with the defined and specific group of that market (Campuzano, (2018)).
The target customer of the Sported UK are the young people of the age group 6- 18 years who
are willing to play sports. It also focus on providing its service to the people who are situated in
UK and are deprived of necessary resources and income to build their career in sports.
Positioning refers to the ability of the company to influence the perception of the
customers. The main objective of this is to establish the identity or the image of the brand or
company. The organisation Sported UK have collaborated with different voluntary groups which
are small and often under funded and resourced. It position itself into the market by building the
largest network of the community group and through their website, they appeal people to join the
organisation and become volunteer to it in order to help young people to overcome their barriers
to reach the full potential.
The marketing strategy is the overall game plan of the business which helps in reaching
the perspective customers and turn them into their customers for the product or service. It
involves the strategy of the marketing mix which is a set of marketing tool which helps the
companies to pursue their marketing objectives in the target market (Devlin, (2020)). The 4Ps of
marketing mix in relation to Sported UK is discussed below-
Product refers to the goods or service which the company offers to its customers. The
product or service must be such which fulfil the expectation and needs of the customers. In
context to Sported UK, the organisation provide sports and physical activity to the young people

in order to empower them by giving them required resources, professional expertise and
operational support free of cost.
Price refers to the cost which the consumers have to pay in order to consumer the
offering of the company. The price of the product or service must be such that matches the real
and perceived value of the offering (Vrontis and et. al., (2019)). The Sported UK is a non profit
voluntary organisation which provide its service to its target market free of cost. It works to
empower the young people in order to pursue their career in sports.
Place refers to the area where the product or service is to be delivered to the market. In
relation to the Sported UK, the organisation is expert in engaging the young people in the sports
and physical activity. The organisation reaches the young people and have various groups where
around 45% of the groups are working in the deprived area of UK.
Promotion includes the activity of advertising, promotional strategy and public relations.
The main aim of this is to promote the offering to the potential customers. The Sported UK
offers to join the organisation through its website and appeal people to join as volunteer to help
the young people and also reaches its target market through physical presence in the local areas.
It promotes through newspaper, pamphlets, etc.
Business plan involves the planning for the financial assistance which the company needs
in order to perform the operations. The organisation Sported UK raises funds for the community
groups which provide service to the young people in order to overcome their barriers to the full
potential (Lee and et. al., (2016)). The financial assistance and the five year plan of marketing
program of the Sported UK is given below-

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay report that sports business management involves
areas like economic and the financial management in the sports. It covers both aspects like
international and national of the sports industry in an advanced level. The sports management is
the inter disciplinary field which draws on aspects like marketing, finance, law and business. It
involves the combination of the skills which relates to planning, directing, organising and
controlling the organisation which relates to the sports and physical activity. The Sported UK is
a non profit organisation which works for the young people in order to make them empower in
this field so that they can over the barriers of their full potential. The target market of the
organisation are the young people of UK who are willing to pursue their career in sports. The
marketing strategy involves the tool of marketing mix which involves 4Ps where the Sported UK
involves offering of sports and physical activity through the professional expertise, resources and
operational support, price is free of cost as it is a non profit organisation, the place involves
different areas where the target market is situated and the promotional activities in which Sported
UK is involved includes advertisement, website and many other.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Campuzano, M. V. (2018). Rules of the Game: Understanding the Experiences of Latina
Executives in the Professional Sports Industry in the US: An Exploratory Qualitative
Study (Doctoral dissertation, The George Washington University).
Devlin, M. (2020). Sports Industry. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Media Management
and Business, 265.
Jewell, R. T. (2017). Sports economics: The state of the discipline. In Handbook of sports
economics research (pp. 9-18). Routledge.
Lee and et. al., (2016). Collaborative strategy in sports industry: team co-branding. The Service
Industries Journal. 36(11-12). 595-613.
Vrontis and et. al., (2019). Managing technological innovation in the sports industry: a challenge
for retail management. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal.
WANG and et. al., (2017). The Development of the Chinese Sports Industry under the New
Norm. Journal of Harbin Sport University. (3). 2.