This page is by courtesy of Leo Isaac, Sports Academic (website now gone)
Anyone with an interest in working in the sport industry needs to have an understanding of the industry’s structure, peak bodies, government agencies and other key organisations.
The following diagram provides an example of what is meant by the “structure” of the sport industry. Key organisations identified and the terms “Elite Sport”, “Government Agencies” and “Peak Bodies” are explained below.
Sport and Government
The role of government in the sport and recreation industry is similar across all levels of government (national, state, and municipal). However, there are important difference as well.
Governments, at all levels, seek to encourage increased participation in sport as this beneficially impacts on the health and welfare of citizens, the nation’s productivity and the cohesion of the community. This is achieved by providing assistance to sporting organisations so that they have increased capacity to
- Develop and improve sporting facilities
- Create opportunities to provide education and training to enable people to become sport coaches and officials, and administrators of sport organisations
- Provide sport and recreation programs that meet the needs of people.
The assistance usually takes the form of funding (money) but organisations have to meet specific criteria to gain this funding. Examples of criteria include –
- The organisation provides open access to sport and recreation to all members of the public, i.e. the organisation is not exclusive
- The organisation is incorporated, i.e. it provides limited liability to the members of the organisation
- The organisation provides a safe environment for participants by actively identifying, assessing and addressing risks of injury to participants. Organisations often need to demonstrate they have a risk management plan.
- The organisation has a child protection policy
Local government
The role of national, state and local government also differ in a number of significant ways. The majority of outdoor sporting facilities are created by local government by the setting aside and development of land for community use. Local government works with community organisations to manage and maintain these sporting facilities and will inject funds, from time-to-time, to assist improve facilities to increase access of the public to quality sport and recreation facilities and programs.
Local government is not really in the business of sporting excellence, but will sometimes provide limited financial help to individuals who are selected for important sporting events.
National government
The role of national government in the sport industry tends to reflect the national desire for success in the international sporting arena. For this reason, the role of national government is to facilitate sporting excellence so that representatives of Australia do well at the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, World Cups, etc. The national government works with national sport bodies and injects funding to increase their capacity to:
- More effectively promote and administrate their sport across the nation
- Identify and nurture people who have a high level of talent through the Australian Institute of Sport and other elite sport pathways
- Send Australia representative teams to international events overseas, and in some cases bring international events to Australia.
- Create systems for the education, training, and accreditation of coaches and sport officials.
Not all national sport bodies require or receive funding from the national government. Some professional sports generate sufficient funds from their own operations that they little need for public funding. Much of the funding (taxpayer’s dollars) goes towards sports that are included in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, particularly those sports where Australia does well e.g. swimming, rowing, cycling, etc.
The Australian Sports Commission (ASC)is the agency of the national government that deals with the administration of funding to national sport bodies and ensures that government policy with regard to sport is implemented.
The objectives of the ASC, as set out in this legislation, are
- To provide leadership in the development of sport in Australia.
- To encourage increased participation and improved performance by Australians in sport.
- To provide resources, services, and facilities to enable Australians to pursue and achieve excellence in sport
- To improve the sporting abilities of Australians generally through the improvement of the standard of sports coaches.
- To foster cooperation in sport between Australia and other countries
- To encourage the private sector to contribute to the funding of sport
State Government
The role of state governments has some similarity with the national government in encouraging sporting excellence but also has similarity with the role of local government by assisting in the development of facilities and programs for participation in sport at the grassroots level.
State governments work largely with state sporting associations and provide funding that assists them to:
- More effectively promote and administrate their sport across the state to increase participation and standards of program delivery
- Send state teams to national championships
- Develop and / or improve sport facilities, particularly if the facilities have regional significance
What is a Peak Body?
In the sports industry, there are well more than 100 national sporting bodies recognised by government. Separately, it is difficult for any national sporting body to influence governmental policy on sport. However, when sport bodies form an organisation to represent their collective views and interests, governments are bound to take notice. This is the purpose of a Peak Body, an organisation formed to represent the interests of its member organisations and to lobby government on matters relating to policy on sport.
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and the Australian Commonwealth Games Association (ACGA) act in many ways as a peak body, but with a significant difference. The primary role of the AOC is to ensure that Australia sends a full team to each Olympic Games. This role encompasses:
- Raising funds to send and support a full team (more than 400 athletes) at the Olympic Games
- Distributing funding assistance to national sport bodies to prepare athletes for the Olympic Games
The role of the ACGA is much the same as the AOC, but the end result is the sending and supporting of an Australian team to the Commonwealth Games which occurs every four years.
Elite Sport
The Australian Institute of Sport has been in existence since 1980. One of the factors that propelled it into being was the Australian team’s performance at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. The team could only manage to win one silver and four bronze medals. For such a sport loving nation as Australia, this was deemed a lack of success and there was a great deal of support for the idea of funding by the national government to help Australian individuals and teams to be more competitive in the international sport arena.
The basic principle of the Australian Institute of Sport was to offer Australia’s best athletes the opportunity to be coached by outstanding coaches in facilities that are conducive to high performance. Furthermore, this opportunity would be given to selected athletes without charge.
About 10 years after the inception of the Australian Institute of Sport, state institutes of sport (or Academies of Sport) were founded with a similar purpose to create pathways for athletes into the highest levels of sport. In Australia, the state institutes of sport are: