Goals of sports clubs

Abstract

Sports clubs do not strive for maximum profit. They aim to offer their members the opportunity to practise sport and to pass leisure time actively. This paper analyses the goals of sports clubs from the perspective of the theory of action. The collective goals of the club are developed from the members’ interests. The methodological approach applied in the study is a combination of a quantitative survey and case studies.

Six goal-profiles have been identified based on the three central goals of sports clubs, namely “competitive sports”, “mass sports” and “sociability”: (1) clubs focusing on sociability, (2) clubs focusing on mass sports and sociability, (3) clubs focusing on mass sports, (4) clubs focusing on competitive and mass sports, (5) clubs focusing on competitive sports and (6) clubs focusing on manifold goals. It has been found out that clubs focusing on mass sports tend to take up new sports activities and to employ paid employees more often than the clubs focusing on competitive sports and sociability. Beyond that, it was confirmed that a correspondence between club goals and the interests of individual club members is a crucial factor for the members’ commitments.

Keywords:

• goals
• sports clubs
• action theory
• goal-profiles

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Siegfried Nagel

Prof. Dr. Siegfried Nagel received his doctor’s degree in 2001 and habilitated in 2005. He is Professor of Sport Science (Sociology of Sport/Sports Management) at the University of Bern since 2008. His main fields of research are sport development, sports clubs, life course and socialization, research methods in sport science (contact: [email protected]).