Effectiveness of National Elite Sport Policies: A Multidimensional Approach Applied to the Case of Flanders

Abstract

While the results of nations in international sport competitions are most often used as an evaluation of effectiveness of elite sport policies, they do not take into account the long-term duration of an athletic career, nor the many confounding variables influencing international success. This paper argues that output evaluation is a one-sided approach to policy assessment. It applies a multidimensional approach to the measurement of the effectiveness of elite sports policy evaluation (meso-level) by examining a four-year cycle of elite sport policies in Flanders. This study endeavors to advance the development of a framework to assess effectiveness of elite sport policies of nations. Data were collected at multiple points of the input-throughput-output and feedback cycle. It was found that in spite of the increasing elite sport expenditures in Flanders (inputs), and notwithstanding the development of the throughputs (processes), this has not as yet lead to acceptable results (outputs) at an international level.

Keywords:

• Effectiveness
• elite sport policies
• policy evaluation

Notes

1. Flanders is the northern, Dutch speaking part of Belgium (6.3 million inhabitants), Wallonia the southern, French and German speaking part (4.0 million inhabitants). In Belgium the Flemish community (Flanders) and the French/German speaking community (Wallonia) have separate sport policies at each level, from local to national (including three separate ministers of sport). Apart from the Olympic Committee (BOIC), whose main task is to select athletes for the Olympic Games, there is no national (federal) policy or structure for sport, nor are there expenditures on sport at federal level. Therefore Flanders is seen in this research as if it was a distinct nation. Similar policy evaluation could be done separately for Wallonia. It was an established fact that policy analysis for Belgium as a nation could not be determined by summing both regions.

2. As not all events take place yearly, the points of an event in year x are transferred to the next year until a new similar event takes place. As such, scores for European championships and World Championships change every two years and scores for Olympic Games every four years. A number of studies examine medal points, the first six or eight places using a weighting of 3-2-1 6-5-4-3-2-1 or 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 respectively. When these methods are compared—as a general rule—it does not make much of a difference if and how the number of medals won are weighted, nor whether the first three or the first eight places are taken into account. Correlations (Kendall's tau) of various indicators of absolute success during the Olympic Games in Athens 2004 (total number of medals and gold medals, weighted medals, first eight places and number of participants) are all significant (r>0.8) (De Bosscher, Heyndels et al., 2008).

3. Collective sources are interpreted by van Bottenburg (2009) as the sources at national level, from government and lotteries. The data in the table also include private funding at national level (from the Olympic Committee, spent in Flanders), because of the definition of a system resource approach, in terms of the ability to attract resources.