The Attraction, Retention/Transition, and Nurturing Process of Sport Development: Some Australian Evidence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore and map the sport development processes in Australia. A grounded theory approach identified sport development processes by examining 74 annual reports from 35 national sporting organizations (NSOs) over a period of 4 years, before and after the Sydney Olympic Games. The 3 frameworks presented in this article representing the attraction, retention/transition, and nurturing process illustrate the generic processes and strategies described by NSOs. The results show that each sport development process requires human and financial input from various stakeholders. These stakeholders initiate or implement sport development strategies for each process and each process has different sport development outputs. These results contribute to the extant literature of sport development by demonstrating that sport development is more complex and encompassing than previously described. It is proposed that the generic frameworks derived from this study be subject to more specific testing using other sport systems, as context and case studies could lead to tailoring the frameworks to represent specific sport development processes and systems.

Retaining Sport Coaches: A qualitative Assessment of Retention Strategies at Sport Clubs in South Africa

“…Following the approach used by Sotiriadou, Shilbury and Quick (2008) the text was examined and crystallized thoroughly. Recurring words, phrases and comments were grouped together and given a conceptual label (strategy).…”

Officiating Attrition: The Experiences of Former Referees Via a Sport Development Lens

“…In particular, the results suggest that for referees, the sport itself was a major attractor to the role, as well as part of the ongoing enjoyment for them throughout the time they were involved in the activity. It seems that the sport itself, and the elements of competition, fun, socialization that are known to be useful in building promotional and organizations strategies for the recruitment of athletes (e.g., Green, 2005;Sotiriadou, Shilbury & Quick, 2008) are equally as relevant for referees. Currently, one might argue that the nature of the sport itself has been ignored as part of any scholarly investigation of refereeing.…”

Exploring new models of elite sport delivery: the case of triathlon in the USA and Australia

“…Elite sport development policy and management is of significant importance to governments internationally for various social and financial reasons (Houlihan and Green, 2008;Shilbury et al, 2008;Sotiriadou et al, 2008). As a result, nations are copying and adopting various elite sport developmental policies and practices from others.…”

“…There is a growing body of knowledge that examines the processes of elite sport development (De Bosscher et al, 2009a, 2009bGreen, 2005;Green and Collins, 2008;Green and Oakley, 2001;Sotiriadou et al, 2008). Green (2005) describes three basic tasks for effective sport development -they are athlete recruitment, athlete retention, and athlete transition (or nurturing) to higher levels of competition.…”