Determinants of non-profit sports clubs’ perceived competition from commercial sports providers

Lea Rossi, Christoph Breuer and Svenja Feiler

Sport Management Review, 2020, vol. 23, issue 4, 736-749

Abstract: •Competition is investigated from the perspective of non-profit sports clubs.•The majority of non-profit sports clubs report to be unaffected by competition from commercial sports providers.•Especially clubs offering health sports see themselves in competition to commercial sports providers.•Competition can present clubs with challenges in terms of price and costs for instructors.•Organizational characteristics need to be considered in analyzing strategies in the non-profit sports market.The purpose of the study was to investigate if non-profit sports clubs are affected by the growth of the commercial market and, if so, which clubs are affected and why. The authors employed a mixed-method design, collecting quantitative data from a sample of 4456 non-profit sports clubs in Germany and then conducting a follow-up qualitative study including semi-structured interviews with 6 sports clubs. Descriptive results showed that 35.3% of clubs perceived competition from commercial sports providers as a problem. The logistic regression analysis revealed that clubs offering sports for health and fitness, rehabilitation sports, martial arts, and dancing are more likely to perceive competition as a problem. Clubs aiming at social integration are also more likely to report a problem, while clubs following a strategic management approach are less likely to be affected by competition. The interviews unveiled that the reasons for competition are the different types of sports offered, financial aspects, characteristics of clubs, and markets. The findings suggest that organizational characteristics and types of sports offered are better suited as strategic group variables in the sports market than organizational strategies. Measures to counteract competition include the use of strategic management principles, cooperative relationships with commercial providers, and quality and specialization of services.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.smr.2019.10.001 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Journal Article: Determinants of non-profit sports clubs’ perceived competition from commercial sports providers (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:23:y:2020:i:4:p:736-749

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsmr20

DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2019.10.001

Access Statistics for this article

Sport Management Review is currently edited by Sheranne Fairley

More articles in Sport Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().