The Impact of Global Economic Downturn on Sport Management

Abstract

This special issue was inspired by the challenges faced by sport managers in our global community in the face of the economic downturn. During the calls for the special issue, society faced one of its most unprecedented challenges, COVID-19. This provide significant shock waves to the daily rituals in sport and society. The manuscripts in this special issue provide an insight into sport management during this period. The research presented is both rich and diverse and we believe provides readers and the global sport management community with important contributions for reflection and learning from a policy, management and practical level.

The quest for sustainable sports management: evidence from the football industry

“…Academics have, indeed, unequivocally asserted that more contributions would expand the embryonic literature on the management of large sports events during pandemics (Parnell et al, 2020(Parnell et al, , 2021Davis et al, 2020;Ludvigsen and Parnell, 2021;Bond et al, 2021;Ludvigsen et al, 2022;Sato et al, 2022). There have also been calls for papers to investigate all aspects of the game, such as its organization, financing, sustainability, operations management, links to local communities (also in terms of negative externalities, e.g.…”

“…It has indeed evolved from one that generated most of its revenues from in-person spectators attending their games to one essentially reliant on “virtual” global spectators (Keshkar et al ., 2021; Feiler et al ., 2022). However, opinions on whether this change in business operation would be destined to disrupt the overall sports industry in the long run or not are not yet unanimous (Parnell et al ., 2021; Bond et al ., 2021; Ludvigsen, 2022). This study is grafted precisely onto this open debate.…”

“…Academics have, indeed, unequivocally asserted that more contributions would expand the embryonic literature on the management of large sports events during pandemics (Parnell et al ., 2020, 2021; Davis et al. , 2020; Ludvigsen and Parnell, 2021; Bond et al ., 2021; Ludvigsen et al ., 2022; Sato et al ., 2022).…”

“…Prior literature has already investigated the re-start of professional competitions (Bryson et al ., 2020; Reade et al ., 2020), the football operations recovery (Carmody et al ., 2020; Corsini et al ., 2020; Dores and Cardim, 2020; Buldú et al ., 2020; Mohr et al ., 2020; Parnell et al ., 2020) and the short-term COVID-19 impacts on the European football ecosystem (Fühner et al ., 2020; Clarkson et al ., 2020; Webb, 2020). Yet, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as a catalyst in the transformation process of sports management towards sustainable practices in the long-term remain an open question: this study aims precisely to contribute to this debate, fitting into the wider discussions on organizational change within the football business, as sports governance has evolved to meet new environmental challenges and uncertainties in the context of crisis management (Parnell et al ., 2021; Sato et al ., 2022; Byers et al ., 2022; Comoli et al ., 2023).…”

“…Moreover, and with specific regards to this last group of forward-looking stream of research, the body of literature is limited, albeit well solicited by a multitude of stakeholders and by several academics (see, inter alia, Parnell et al ., 2021). This has also been confirmed by implementing the Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) methodological approach (Comoli et al ., 2023) and the application of VOSviewer technology.…”