The National Lottery
This is the largest single grant giver to sport with about £300 million a year. It is administered by the Sports Council. Grants are given for capital projects (I.e. buildings, equipment etc.)
Governing bodies
All major sports have their own governing bodies. Their role is mainly to develop their sport. However, some also give grants to organisations and individuals.
Central and local government
Most government money for sport goes to the Sports Council or to local authority departments of sport and leisure.
European money
Some sports organisations have received substantial grants from the European Community. These are usually for building projects or employment training initiatives, but there are also some sports specific programmes.
Companies
Company sponsorship for sport is a big money area. However, it is not all for test match cricket or premier league football. A lot of sponsorship takes place at the local level and involves sums of a couple of hundred pounds.
Sportsmatch
This is a scheme which matches some sponsorship payments. This means that sponsorship income can be doubled at no extra cost.
Grant-Making Trusts
These are charities which give money to other charities. Some are for specific sports, most are for wider community benefit either locally or nationally.
The Foundation for Sport and the Arts
A massive grant-making trust (about £40 million a year for sports). One of the largest of all funders of sport.
The Local Community
Possibly the largest of all funders of sport as donors, events organisers, sponsors, fundraisers, collectors, buyers of raffle tickets etc.
One thing that I have noticed over recent years is the increased success by British teams and athletes. England won the Rugby World Cup, England won the ashes, The British Relay team won gold and The England football team has possibly more recognised world stars than ever before. This I feel is due to more money being put into grassroots sports over the last ten years since the national lottery started funding sport.
The National Lottery has been a major factor in changing the face of sport. Had it not been introduced in the early 90’s then sport in the UK today would paint a fairly bleak picture. When capital funding for sport was slashed in the early 90’s the National lottery along with sky TV saved sport. Without either of these I wouldn’t like to think what the state of British sport would be like today. Since 1993 sport has received over £1.5 billion from the national lottery this has allowed crucial funding regarding facilities such as leisure centres, pitches, sports halls and tennis halls which were all upgraded over the years. Money was also put into sports medicine and science organised at recognised centres by governing bodies. This funding made sure that current and potential athletes were able to train in the best facilities possible in order to achieve their potential. If we want to breed the next set up sports superstars we need to make sure that they have the best facilities possible that is what the national lottery helped to do. Australia is renowned for its centre of excellence and France is renowned for the training schools that young footballers attend. National lottery money issued through the sports council has allowed Britain to stay on par with the other nations, which is why we are suddenly now starting to notice an improvement in our sportsmen because most of the major funding started fifteen odd years ago. As well as facilities a lot of money has been put into research often done by the sports council which they sell as publications. These publications have led to improvements in sports dieting, psychology and medicine which are all very important parts of any sport. By investing in these sorts of sporting disciplines it has also enabled sportsmen to improve over the years. This is because our sportsmen are eating better through nutritional research thus reaching their full training potential and learning how to deal with psychological problems through sports psychology. Also advancements in sports medicine allow our players to come back quicker from injury or to prevent it all together. A lot of this would never have come to fruition without national lottery funding.
The national lottery has done more than help athletes that have made it. It has helped to fund deprived areas helping children and the community. These projects have helped kids get off the streets and involve themselves in sport as well as building new community facilities. The sort of impact that this has is that schemes like these can bring a community together. For those in the community that take part it will make them healthier and most of all it gives people something to do as well as preventing some petty crime. It also brings employment into the area if new facilities are being built such as the builders building the establishment and those that are staffing it.
The future looks bright we have the Olympic games coming in 2012 and even though a lot of people aren’t excited about it at the moment I’m sure nearer the time the media bandwagon will get on it and influence the mass public to get into athletics for the summer. It will also help the economy because tourists will come to see the Olympic games and may stay to view other sporting activities. With the Olympics coming in 2012 a lot of money is being invested in facilities which can only be a benefit for the sports industry in the future. There is unquestionably a tremendous feel good factor associated with the staging of any major sporting event. Both Spain and Australia achieved their highest medal tally in the year of hosting a Games. The inspiration will also drive many of our youngsters to take part in sport and developing their dreams of becoming an Olympian. Provisions will have to be made of facilities for both elite and grass root sports which will leave a lasting legacy for British sport as over 100 training venues will be required within the region. Holding the games will raise the profile of athletics again and hopefully we will develop more outstanding athletes and bring back the glory days of Linford Christie and Colin Jackson. Also Daniel Levy the Chairman if Tottenham Hotspur has made suggestions that Tottenham may be able to move into the 70,000 seater Olympic stadium after the 2012 Olympics which can only be good for the development of football. Having a stadium that big will bring in more money through ticket sales and enable us to farm more money into grass roots football and keep another London club on par with the other big clubs across Europe. The sports industry will be further developed by the investment that has been put into Wembley stadium which will bring massive benefits to local people. A massive £120m of Lottery funding has been invested by Sport England to give the nation’s football, rugby league and athletics teams a world class stadium that everyone can be proud of. Thousands of new jobs will be created and improvements to the local transport system are already underway. Sport England, who are partnered in funding the £757m development by WNSL (Wembley National Stadium Limited), the Football Association, the Department for Culture Media and Sport and the London Development Agency, hope it will inspire young people to succeed in sport as well as providing a world-class venue to support our national teams. This funding will insure the future development of the sports industry because 1% of the stadium turnover will be paid to the Wembley National Stadium Trust. This will be invested into grassroots sport across the country. Regarding cricket they are putting their funding in the right direction as the English Cricket Board has established its National Academy at Loughborough University, and expects to spend over £4 million in building there, providing accommodation and playing facilities. Proximity to the university offers other benefits in terms of sports science and medical backup, as well as association with the prestigious image of the university in sports teaching. I can only suggest that funding is kept on being put into all the major sports in England and then and only then will we reach the top of these sports.
Education
The development of physical education has come on leaps and bounds in recent times. There was a time when there wasn’t a PE A-Level. Now there are a multitude of sports courses at University level and the opportunity to take BTEC or PE A-level courses at college. The curriculum gas been changed to put an importance on physical education and put it on par with other subjects, as at one time it was considered a lower level subject. This year primary school teachers are required to teach modern dance and gymnastics as well as the other standard sporting activities. Physical education was eventually put on par with other subjects due to the boom in the fitness industry. Many people find their secondary school qualifications do not apply to modern life and have no place in a lot of people’s world of work. This is not true in the case of physical education as gradually as a nation we are realising and understanding the importance of good health and staying active.
After a study undertaken by the department for culture, media and sport showed that only 17.5% of children are spending two hours or more a week on sport, PE sessions were added to the schedule of nursery school children. This is so that they learn all the basic motor skills early on and get into the habit of enjoying physical activity.
As well as in primary and secondary schools our young athletes are being further educated and groomed in elite sporting facilities around the country. These national centres of excellence have been set up in key cities countrywide and are designed to meet the needs of young aspiring athletes. These players are put on technical and educational programmes designed to produce sporting excellence in conjunction with personal development.
Education in sport has numerous benefits associated with participation in sport. A good standard of physical education in the young will contribute to a sportsperson development at a young age. By this I mean the type of person the player will develop into and whether or not they fulfil their potential. Assuming the player is willing to learn through a good sports education the player could develop into a role model type football instead of your Jermaine Pennant’s out there. It’s the players that make it to the top that have learnt about their sports nutrition and don’t drink and eat the wrong’s foods. You learn the basics of nutrition in secondary school P.E and it can make a difference for me whether a player makes it not. Thierry Henry has a great attitude and has developed into a great player whereas the binge drinking Jermaine Pennant has not quite fulfilled his early promise. I’m not saying this is a rule of thumb as you could look at Real Madrid’s Ronaldo who’s one of the world’s greatest whilst being a complete party animal. Physical education in school is where kids learn some of their early social skills and develop their physical skills. For many children, school is the main environment for being physical active, whether through school sport or physical education programmes. It is through school teams where some kids begin their pathway to becoming a professional athlete. Consider those kids who don’t get taken to a local team because their parents are too busy. Those same kids who never would have been given a chance can be by their school, for if they are good enough they can play and train for their school team and maybe get spotted by talent scouts that way. This is of a benefit to sport as a whole because it gives the kids without opportunities a chance. There are also the health benefits of physical education. Regular participation in such activities is associated with a longer and better quality of life, reduced risk of a variety of diseases and many psychological and emotional benefits. In Primary schools as well as Physical education they teach a subject called PHSE and cookery which both emphasise the benefits of healthy eating and leading a moral lifestyle. Everyone remembers the kids at school that wanted to be footballers some made it and some didn’t. If they are willing to learn then these subjects give them the opportunity to better themselves and give themselves a head start towards a healthy lifestyle. This benefits clubs who expect their professionals to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Basic movement skills like those developed in school sports, gymnastics and athletics form the foundation of almost all later sporting activities. There is evidence that those who have a strong foundation in fundamental movement skills are more likely to make it the highest level.
We are in a rapidly expanding sports industry and the importance of physical activity and remaining free from injury and disease has increased the need for qualified professionals in the sports and exercise area. Scientific and practical knowledge is now readily more available to students who are eighteen and over and looking to meet the demand in the growing sector. There are a range of qualifications these days from sports rehabilitators, to health and fitness professionals, coaches, sport development workers, educators and many more. Education has not just affected people wanting to be professional sportspersons but people who want other jobs with sports such as physio’s and coaches. With a range of qualifications it is far easy for someone to reach their dream of working within sport than it used to be. The standard of education is higher and sport is benefiting from professionals who have learnt there respective trade well. An example of ways sport has benefited is through better quality physio’s meaning injuries being recovered from quicker and psychologists who have more of an understanding of a player’s mind than they do themselves sometimes and can help them to deal with their problems.
The sports industry has further benefited from the introduction of centres of sporting excellence around the country. At these centre’s teenagers are educated in a traditional sense as well as working on there sporting ability. These centre’s can continue to develop our industry because it is proven that they work. When France’s football team suddenly won the world cup and the European cup back to back a lot of questions were asked why? It was because they had set up centres of excellence around their country and England followed suit. We haven’t had quite the same success but sport in this country has noticeably improved and we if continue to run centre’s of excellence to a high standard England should win many trophies in the future. These centres were set up because there were not enough opportunities and too many obstacles for a lot of teenagers to make it professionally and generally they lost interest. The centres gave a lot of teenagers Joe Cole for example the opportunity to train at a centre and be given hope for a future. So education as a whole has affected sport in a positive sense because it has helped to improve the sporting education and has given more opportunities to our athletes which in turn is increasing the quality of our athletes that are taking part in sport.
Media and sponsorship
Sponsorship and sport have a symbiotic relationship as in they both need each other. Almost every team you encounter from the professionals all the way down to grassroots you will find sponsors. The sports club benefit through the sponsorship money given to them and the sponsors improve themselves in areas such as public image, sales and raising awareness of their brand. At the highest levels, sport involves gold medals, world records, championship cups and global awareness. A world-wide, leading brand such as Coca-Cola wants to associate itself with such excellence so has chosen the Olympics and football World Cups for its sponsorships. But in order to personalise and localise its image and activity, Coca-Cola also supports grass roots sport to reinforce its global message. The amount of sponsorship money that flows through sport is immense and there are many teams mainly at the lower levels who need sponsorship money in order to help stay afloat.
Sponsorship has made an impact on sport in that it has given clubs yet another monetary resource which clubs have been able to use to better themselves.
Over the years the relationship between sport and the media has been of great importance. The two of them go hand in hand, like Ali with boxing, and like Pele and football. We live in a world where technology is constantly changing and constantly improving. A world where people are relying more and more on the Internet, television, radio, and print to give them their sports coverage and keep them up to date in the sports world. Sports wouldn’t be the same without the media. Many of England’s icons and heroes would be no longer. They both keep each others coffers full as the media makes money out of writing about sports stories and situations and sport makes money out of the sale of rights to the TV, radio and computer game manufacturers. TV has become a major outlet for sports fans to turn to whether it’s to watch their favourite teams, to see a spectacle like the World Cup, or even just to get the latest sports news with the simple click of a button on the remote control. For the true sports fan, sports are ideal television and radio subjects: real life events that occur on predictable schedules yet are filled with suspense. TV has drastically helped to promote the sports industry during the second half of the 20th century. Within sport TV rights money has become a very important player with many teams practically living of these rights. In football there is a lot of money nowadays, since the advent of live football on sky and satellite TV the money in football has in many people’s minds gone mad. Transfer fees and wages of players have rocketed since 1990 and will only get higher (With Chelsea around) and agent’s fees are into millions now, for securing the transfer of a player. Many clubs are floated on the stock exchange and are run like complete businesses with the odd chairman clearly thinking only about the profit he can make, not what he can do to improve the club. Many negatives have come with Sky TV money and the media continually making English players sound better than they are. In the Premiership it has made top English players so expensive now that managers go abroad to buy foreign players. Gone are the days of young English talent being scouted and bought from lower leagues, wages for players have gone up so much, some players are on £100,000 a week now which is incredible. From a fans point of view as well it has become increasingly harder to watch your team play as season tickets seem to go higher every year and the cost of going to watch a match on the day also goes up every year. Clubs are doing this so that they can attempt to cover their increasingly huge wage bill! However there are positives as well as this has not weakened the English league as most of the foreign players are top class. Without sky’s money who knows what state the premiership would be into today? Also Wembley Stadium is being built with a capital grant but sky is also contributing greatly to the funding of the stadium as well so much so that it would not be built on time without it. With all of that said I must admit that this would be a tough world for me to live in if I couldn’t hang out on the weekends and watch my favourite teams and my favourite players. It would be a tough world for me to face everyday if I the heroes I have because of television were taken away from me. I think that this is how the television part of the media has impacted sport because of the way it has become a part of so many people’s lives.
Radio also has some contributions to the sport. It allows that hard-core fan sitting high up on the last row of the stadium to find out stats play-by-play. We all know how hard it is to see each aspect of the game in those “nose-bleed” seats. Radio can draw in a totally different sports fan too, depending on who the broadcaster is and his background and sport helped bring radio into main stream England. Huge audiences across England tune in to hear the latest football game being played. This is where the revenue part of the deal came into play. Companies saw huge opportunities on advertising to these fans and took advantage by advertising their brands during breaks such as half time. This was especially important in the past when there wasn’t any television.
Print media has been around sports since the very beginning. Newspaper and magazines have captured moments, pictures and sayings that have gone down in history. Newspapers have been dedicated to bringing out the facts and stats of sports. Today’s newspapers have separate sections just dedicated for sports. In the past Newspapers were the easiest and cheapest way to find out scores and news on games, especially for those people who couldn’t afford television and radio. But there is a new media giant that has hit called the internet which has impacted sport in a big way. One of these is the area of fantasy games. These are games that fans play among them selves using actual statistics from professional athletes. A good example is fantasy football. Drafting a team of professional football players and using their game day statistics to score points is how it is played. The Internet allowed this form of sport to grow at an incredible rate. Before the Internet, players were limited to statistics that were in the newspaper or on television. Now they can retrieve up to date statistics any time of the day or night. Another reason the Internet expanded this game so dramatically is by geographically allowing any one with a computer to get involved with the games. Before the Internet, players had to communicate by phone. This tremendously limited the people that could play. One of the most interesting applications of the Internet into the sports business world is the ability of the fans to access statistics or live game footage at any time from any game being played in the world. This has significantly increased the amount of companies that want to be involved with the Internet. Another reason that companies are becoming involved with the sports end of the Internet is because of the rate at which merchandise sales over the net are growing. This is a huge part of the pounds spent in the sports and entertainment businesses. The merchandising aspect of the net allows consumers to access any kind of sport accessory of licensed apparel that is made. The net also allows consumers to shop for these kinds of things form their own home and at any time of the day or night. With this being said there are already thousands of dot-com companies on the web distributing all kinds of merchandise. Therefore the net has increased the amount of equipment and apparel that is sold each year.
The one biggest reason that businesses may want to become involved or are already involved with the Internet is because of its future. There are a couple of companies that offer small messages to be sent to a wireless phone. This is already creating a whole new aspect for the Internet. With this feature it allows people to get up to the minute scores and highlights at work as they happen. An example of this is for those unfortunate people who have to work Saturdays but still want to keep track of how their team is doing. This does enable fans to keep track of all the games as they happen. Another aspect that is a around is a mobile phone device that has short 90-second clips to be e-mailed to the user along with a message. This enhances the ability to not only read what your favourite team is doing, now one can see clips of goals as well.
With all of these implications that the Internet currently has and the development of new ones it has changed sports forever. The way that we view statistical information, purchase our goods and watch games. Another thing that the Internet has done is brought the fans and their opinions close to the world of sports. This is a very big thing considering that before the Internet fans couldn’t do much more than watch sports on TV. Now they can interact with players, coaches, and other fans. Media coverage on sport is bigger than ever with sport being more popular than ever before. One of the major impacts that the media has in sport are the subliminal messages that they can put in the public’s head regarding sport. They can make us love or hate a sportsperson we otherwise may not have loved or hated in the first place with a click of a finger. The media builds people up such as David Beckham and Sven Goran Erikkson and then destroys them with a whim. Much of the nation’s attitudes to sport and the athletes that represent their chosen sport are down to what we read in newspapers and what we watch on TV. Sometimes we even argue over issues that we wouldn’t have risen up had we not read about them in the paper. In the future I believe the media will continue to influence the sport industry in the same way it always has making heroes and villains for its own profit.
The biggest impact that I can think of regarding the media will always involve sky. In 1992, the new FA Premier League signed a ground breaking deal with Rupert Murdoch's satellite sports channel Sky Sports, giving the channel exclusive rights to live coverage of the newly formed breakaway League consisting of the top 22 clubs from the old English League Division 1. This £304 million deal (including highlights fees from the BBC) constituted a massive rise in the fees paid for the right to show live football. It was the catalyst that made the Premiership arguably the biggest footballing league in the world and helped all the British clubs that profited to get on par with the other big European clubs. I remember the days when I used to have to watch Serie A on channel 4 to see the world’s best players. Not anymore because over the years with sky’s money football clubs have been able to compete and bring the world’s biggest starts to the premiership. Sky had a major impact on sport in this country. Not just regarding football sky over the years has coveraged many sports bringing them into the mainstream from cricket all the way down to darts where we all recognise a few of darts legends. As long as sky’s money continues to flow into British sport it will enable all the British sports teams to compete at the highest level in the future because they will have the financial status to do so!
With more and more options becoming available to watch and learn about our favourite sports such as MANU TV and a golf coaching channel sport is becoming increasingly popular. As long as there are continued high quality media coverage channels like Sky Sports TV and our newspapers I see sport getting more and more popular because these days it is a bit of a status quo to love sport. So the future looks bright on all fronts for British sport (Apart from Chelski and their impact on British football).
