Is prioritisation of funding in elite sport effective? An analysis of the investment strategies in 16 countries

ABSTRACT

Research question: This paper explores the extent to which nations prioritise elite sport funding; whether such nations are more successful than those whose funding is more diversified; and, if the sports that receive the most funding are also the most successful.

Research methods: Data on public expenditure for elite sport programmes (2011/2012) were collected on a sport-specific basis in 16 nations (n = 445 funded sports). The Herfindahl index and concentration ratios of the four/eight most funded sports (CR4/CR8) are used as proxies for prioritisation. Success was measured using top three and top eight places during the Olympic Games and World Championships. Descriptive analysis and linear regression are applied to identify the relationship between the distribution of funding and success.

Results and findings: Generally, all sample nations are prioritisers. Nations with smaller total elite sport budgets tended to prioritise more. There is a slight negative association between the distribution of funding within a country and subsequent success, indicating that the sample countries that prioritise more tended to be less successful. Sample nations that diversify their funding more, are found to be successful in a wider range of sports. In addition, the data illustrated only low allocative efficiency for some nations.

Implications: The study produced ambiguous conclusions that prioritisation as a deliberate strategic choice is an efficient way to invest funding. The findings have important implications for high-performance managers and suggest that a more diverse resource allocation policy may help to avoid unintended negative consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Targeted funding
• elite sport policy
• allocative efficiency
• prioritisation
• SPLISS

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the dedicated research partners involved in the SPLISS-2.0 study, among others (sorted by country): Hans Westerbeek and Camilla Brockett (Australia, Victoria University), Popi Sotiriadou and Ben Corbett (Australia, Griffith University) • Stephanie De Croock and Jasper Truyens (Belgium (Flanders), Vrije Universiteit Brussel) Mathieu Winand (Stirling University) and Thierry Zintz (Belgium (Wallonia), Université catholique de Louvain) • Maria Tereza Silveira Bohme & team (Brazil, University of São Paulo) • David Legg & team (Canada, Mount Royal University) • Henrik Brandt, Rasmus K. Storm, Lau Tofft and Nynne Mortensen (Denmark, Danish Institute for Sports Studies & University of Southern Denmark) • Eerik Hanni (Estonia, National Audit Office of Estonia) • Patrick Mignon and Emanuel Lelore (France, Institut National du Sport et de l'Éducation Physique-INSEP) • Jari Lämsä, Jarmo Mäkinen and Mikko Kärmeniemi (Finland, KIHU - Research institute for Olympic Sports) • Yoshiyuki Mano, Hiroaki Funahashi and team (Japan, Waseda University) • Maarten van Bottenburg and Bake Dijk (the Netherlands, Utrecht University) • David Baret (Sheffield Hallam University) and Paul Donnelly (Sport Northern Ireland, UK) • Pedro Guedes De Carvalho and Rui Canelas (Portugal, Beira Interior University) • Anna Vilanova, Eduard Inglés and team (Spain, National Institute of Physical Education of Catalonia, INEFC) • Eunha Koh (South-Korea, Korea Institute of Sport Science) • Hippolyt Kempf,  Marco Stopper & Andreas, Christophe Weber (Switzerland, Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen SFISM).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary information

Supplementary material is accessible via the Supplementary Content tab on the article’s online page at https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2018.1505926

ORCID

Veerle De Bosscher http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6516-2030

Simon Shibli http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4420-115X

Andreas Ch. Weber http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5322-5068

Additional information

Funding

The coordination of the SPLISS research was funded by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel SPLISS has largely depended on institutional investments to ensure the national coordination of this large-scale project. The SPLISS consortium partners did not seek any financial contribution from the participating nations as a return for the massive coordinating work. All such costs were met by the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and supported by the consortium members and engaged researchers from the partner countries. The authors would like to thank the policy institutions that funded the national data collection and contributed to assistance in data analysis (see De Bosscher et al., 2015, pp. 24–29 for an overview).