Blog-v1 – Page 6 – Sportidealisten

3 ways to express passion for sports jobs

08/01/202513/08/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

highlighting sports experience, demonstrating how to showcase passion for sports careers.

Every day we are experiencing people with a strong motivation to work with their dream job, which is mostly in the sports sector. But, please don’t just say that you love sports and think that you can work in the sports industry. You have to think deeper and identify your values. In this article, we will share why thinking about values is also thinking about your passion. But we will also be sharing three ways to express passion for working with sports and why people want to work in the sports industry.

A sustainable career starts with strong values

At Sportidealisten we believe that working with a passion makes you work in a sustainable way. If you don’t have a burning desire to wake up every morning in order to go to work, you probably don’t have a passion to that job. Starting with identifying what you feel happy about, what task you do when you are confident is key to finding your passion. Now, let us think one step further. How would you describe those working environments when you feel passionate? At Sportidealisten, we strongly believe in values like Transparency, Innovative Mindset, Open-Minded, Trust, Inspiration and Loyalty. Values will steer you towards a sustainable career because when you identify your work’s values with your own, you will feel more involved and part of something bigger. You and your colleagues will collaborate better than ever before.

We know how much it would mean to work with your passion, sports and we know the importance to support and work together. Our mission is to help you reach your own goal in the sports sector.

Why do people want to work with their passion, sports?

This is the second part of our new mini-series of learning more about why people have a passion for working in sports and what makes them tick. From a project that was developed from the Covid-19 outbreak, we started to gather likeminded people that align with Sportidealisten’s values and drive.

Find the first article here

In this second article you will learn why:

passion in sports is all about raw emotions,
the greater impact sports can do is a passion and,
it is a culture that knows no boundaries, and that is passion

It is all about raw emotions

As it is a subject close to my heart, I could not resist explaining my emotions just in a paragraph. It is a bit long, I hope you will still go through it.

Working in the sports industry will give me an experience unparalleled to what I can get in any other sector. In sports, It’s all about raw emotions that are being marketed, be it through social media platforms or through traditional ways.

The hype around the build-up to a game or a sporting event is unmatched, so is the vibe during a game and post it. This provides brands to position themselves perfectly capturing all these emotions and reaching out to global audiences in a single shot. After all, any major sporting event grabs the eyeballs of the whole world in one frame, thus this space has no metric to evaluate its value in this data-driven age, and as Mastercard’s ads say, “it’s priceless”.

In the day and age when people consume content like water, it becomes the biggest KPI (Key Performance Indicators) amongst the rest. With the exponential growth of the use of social media platforms, the world has become a small place to live in. This proximity has helped brands, famous personalities, governments, and sporting entities to reach out to the world with their vision, strong political and social messages very quickly.

By making the use of the podium of any sporting event, which back in the days was although slow, but still was very effective because of the coverage it got and still gets. Also content around Stories of struggle or daily lifestyle of the athletes inspires people to be a better version of themselves, as Nike will put it “Just do it”.

Careful planning and implementing strategies around these emotions, struggles, and messages, help the brands associated with any sport to convert its target audience to its customers.

— Animesh

Individual expressing passion for sports, illustrating enthusiasm vital for sports job applications.

Animesh Kumar – Sport Management student

PS. He is looking for entry-level positions in Administration, Communications, Sales, Marketing, Manager, HR, Digital, Economy and Facility (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Animesh.

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THE GREATER IMPACT SPORTS CAN DO IS A PASSION OF MINE

Sport has been a passion of mine since I was three years old. It was always a way for me to express myself and be who I am without any judgment. Growing up surrounded by sport, I witnessed the impact that sport can have on society and people’s lives. When I first realized that feeling, I knew I wanted to work in sports and to use my passion to make a positive change in other people’s lives.

The campaigns Nike runs to address social issues and the strides in equality in sports have further ignited my passion to work in sports and hopefully have a positive impact.

— Emma

Job applicant conveying enthusiasm during a sports industry job interview

Emma Baker, A hard-working sport enthusiast, currently working toward her bachelor’s degree in International Sport Management, The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

PS. She is looking for opportunities in Communications, and Media (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Emma.

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A culture that knows no boundaries, and that is my passion

With the COVID-19 pandemic paralyzing most of the world, the importance of sports in any form has become obvious. Sports is not just sports, it is an important cornerstone of any functioning society. Sports are more than just physical activity and competition. It is a culture that knows no boundaries, it is emotions, achievements and great venues but it is also the fun and healthy spark in your everyday life. No matter the perspective, sports are for everyone and that is something that truly appeals to me.

— Andreas

Andreas Høgfeldt, Associations Developer, Härryda Municipality.

PS. He has interests and experiences in Administration, Coordinator roles, Developing roles, Manager roles, Marketing (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Andreas.

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3 ways to express passion for sports jobs

Thank you, Animesh, Emma and Andreas for sharing your reasons why you have a passion for sports and why you want to work in the sports industry. These are three unique stories and people, and they are all three determined to share their passion and values in the sports industry.

It is really cool to hear how people from different places in the world are capturing and framing their passion for sports. As you can read, there are actually more than three ways to express and tell about a passion. Sports could be a good memory from an early age and it could be a complex thing that we all can relate to as an athlete, as fans or in business. But to summarize, three ways to express what a passion could be like working in sports from Animesh, Emma and Andreas:

passion in sports is all about raw emotions,
the greater impact sports can do is a passion and,
it is a culture that knows no boundaries, and that is passion

If you liked this article, may want to read these:

How to become a successful and transformational leader

The modern leadership – how to be efficient

How to build a sustainable career in sports?

3 Smart Recruiting Tips – Find The Best Talent for Your Organization in the Sports Sector

08/01/202523/07/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

People in a meeting discussing Recruiting within the Sports Sector

When you are recruiting, you want to find the right candidate and preferably within no time at all. Question is, are you a smart recruiter and do you know how you can save yourself and your sport organization even more time?

There are three tips you could do to become a smart recruiter and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector. The secret to all three is thinking about the job seekers first, instead of creating the best looking sports job ad. If you can save the job seekers’ time, you will eventually save your own time. In this article, we will show you three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). The second one towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network first.

With inspiration from Lever, we have written three tips with our perspective of what you could implement to your recruiting process in order to become a smart recruiter in the sports sector. Instead of the classic saying “customer first”, think about “job seekers first”.

The average cost of one bad hire is nearly $15,000; average cost of losing a good hire is nearly $30,000
CareerBuilder

Overview of employment in sports

Before sharing three good tips to become a smarter recruiter in sports we have to clarify and get a good sense of the sports sector and employment. You don’t want to make a bad recruiting process, you want to be smart. If you think it is hard to find great candidates you are not alone. From a European study (ESSC-SPORT 2014) about employment in sports, the results showed that:

37 % have difficulties recruiting paid staff in sports.
however, 35 % report a growth tendency for their workforce in the next 2 years
47 % have difficulties in engaging their unpaid staff/volunteers

Getting a good sense of the global sports employment is hard. But looking at the EUs sports employment could provide you a good overview. Compared to the total employment of all sectors in the EU, jobs in sport still account for relatively small shares but the contribution of sport has steadily grown. Between 2013 and 2018, sport contribution to total employment increased slightly in nearly all EU Member States, and, at the EU level, it rose from 0.7 % to 0.8 % (Eurostat).

Eurostat has disseminated statistics on sport and specifically employment in sport together with DG Education and Culture. In 2018, employment in sport represented 0.8 % of total EU employment, ranging from 0.1 % in Romania to 1.7 % in Sweden. For the majority of EU Member States, sport employment shares reached 1 % at maximum; in addition to Sweden, only in the United Kingdom, Finland, Ireland and Spain, did this share exceeded 1 %.

Recruiting strategies in the sports sector — Image: Eurostat

Employment in sport represents more than 1.7 million people in the EU and is steadily rising
Eurostat

In 2018, 1.76 million people worked in the field of sport in the EU-28: more than half are men (55%), a percentage in line with total employment. People in the age group 15-29 make up 38 % of the total employed in sport, more than double the share in overall employment, while the 30-64 age group accounted for almost 60 % (20 % less than the share for the total employment). Around 46 % of persons employed in sport have a medium educational attainment level (ISCED levels 3-4), 38 % have a high level (ISCED 5-8) and 16 % have a low level (at most ISCED level 2); these percentages are close to the proportions observed for overall employment.

Almost half (46 %) of the employed people in sports have a medium educational attainment level
Eurostat

Now, let us show you three smart recruiting tips on how to become a smarter recruiter. The first solution is called Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

FAQ

No matter if a potential candidate visiting your sports job ad or just looking through your company profile you should be prepared that not all information is clear to everyone. There will always be questions from potential candidates. Most people will try to contact you either via email or calls in order to ask more about additional details around the sports job, the culture, etc. Maybe you have already experienced those calls about simple questions regarding a job ad, which you perhaps can give quick answers about, however, this will take up most of your time from your daily work.

So what do we mean with FAQ? You should write down a list of potential questions you might get and provide answers to those and then publish these on the sports job ad page or a link to it. This will help the potential candidates but also you by adding value to the recruiting process. Make sure not only to make a FAQ for your sports job ad but also think about one FAQ regarding working at your organization.

Another good section to have in one FAQ is potential questions for an interview, but also additional things prior to the interview, for example, how to get there, what to dress or how an interview looks like at your work. You can ask your colleagues or someone in your network to help go through potential questions a job seeker might raise. This will help you identify questions from people that haven’t created and already know what the vacant sports job is about. These tips will make a great impression on future colleagues and for your employer brand.

Employer branding, is simply how you market your company to desired job seekers. You can do this by showcasing your organization’s unique cultural differentiators, and then working to amplify them so you can position yourself as a top place to work.
– Sarah Lybrand, Freelance Writer/Producer/Content Creator

With a FAQ section, you as a recruiter will not only reduce the number of phone calls, you will also save time to work on something else. You will also increase your employer branding and interests from job seekers by showing that you think about everything.

By helping your potential candidate, you will increase the likeability and the passion for that person to work for you.

Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.

Get in toucH with Sportidealisten

Recruit where your future candidate is

The next step towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. When you have set up your ideal candidate persona, you should also know where this person exists, on social media channels, or via email or a phone call. But also knowing how to talk to them.

– Nearly 4 in 10 workers in sport employment are aged 15–29

– Over one-third of people employed in sport completed tertiary education
Eurostat

Once again, make sure to save time by saving the time of your potential candidate too. Are you looking for a person who is more used to a computer or a smartphone? Have you built your sports job ad or marketing plan with these behaviors in mind? If your website or sports job ad is designed to a desktop version and your ideal candidate persona only uses a smartphone or vice versa, you might lose out that person’s attention because of the wrong format.

The second aspect is if you are sharing and posting your sports job ads on social media channels if your ideal candidate is a daily and an experienced social media user. Sharing and posting your sports jobs where your future candidate is will be one of the differences between recruiting and smart recruiting.

Another aspect of this is your language. Is your language attractive to your ideal candidate? Do you use words that are more attractive to women or men? One service that is changing this problem is Textio, they help you find the right words by putting hiring and language data insights right where you need them.

Great job candidates walk away when you don’t speak their language
– Textio

Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.

How to hire someone smarter than you?

Last advice on how to become a smarter recruiter. When you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, you should talk with your network. If you are the responsible person for the recruiting process you might not know what the right skills are within a certain role you are trying to recruit for. This applies to the interviewer too in the recruiting process. The responsible people need to make sure that you know what you write about or talk about.

No matter if you work with HR and recruiting in a local grassroots sports club or a bigger organization, you should reach out to your network with people who have a similar experience. Ask them questions about the role you are looking for. Make sure to get the core so you feel confident when interviewing people for the role that you have less experience in.

Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.

Three tips about how to become a smarter recruiter

When you are recruiting, you want to find the right candidate. But you also want to do this in no time. Question is, are you a smart recruiter and have already done the tips we have shared?

What steps could you take in order to become a smarter recruiter and also improve your employer branding?

The first thing is to think about the job seekers’ perspective. If you can save the job seekers’ time, you will eventually save your own time and this solution is called Frequently Asked Questions. The next step towards a smarter recruiting is recruiting where your ideal job candidate is. Lastly, when you are hiring a role you have less knowledge about, talk with your network in order to know what to look for and ask about.

Want to get help knowing where and how you find candidates? Become a smart recruiter, contact us and we can save your time and find the best talent for your organization in the sports sector.

Get in toucH with Sportidealisten

If you liked this article, may want to read these:

For employers and job seekers in the sports industry

For Sports Employers

10 questions that every recruiting manager should ask

Why is passion important working in sport?

08/01/202512/07/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

people expressing passion for a career in sports

Do you want to work in the sports industry? Do you love sports? Don’t just say that you love sports and think that you can work in the sports industry. You have to think deeper and identify your values, which can get you closer to your dream job. In this article, we will share why passion is important in order to work in the sports industry and also share three reasons why people want to work in the sports industry and what their passion is.

Values are your toolbox to your passion

At Sportidealisten we believe that working with a passion makes you work in a sustainable way. With this, we mean that you want to work at that job forever and that you hopefully will not feel tired and forced to go to work. Working for a long time will be and feel better if it is something you are interested in. One great example to understand and identify your passion is to think about what values you align with. At Sportidealisten, we strongly believe in values like Transparency, Innovative Mindset, Open-Minded, Trust, Inspiration and Loyalty.

We know how much it would mean to work with your passion, sports and we know the importance to support and work together. Our mission is to help you reach your own goal in the sports sector.

Why do people want to work with their passion, sports?

This is the very first start of our new mini-series of learning more about why people have a passion for working in sports and what makes them tick. From a project that was developed from the Covid-19 outbreak, we started to gather likeminded people that align with Sportidealisten’s values and drive.

In this first article you will learn why:

giving help and joy is a passion
sharing the best benefits of sports is a passion and,
it is easier to work if you have a passion for the work

Gratification as a passion

Shrey Upadhyay sharing his motivation to work in the sports industry.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – sorry to repeat it again! However, this ‘overused’ quote by Steve Jobs explains the best why I want to get involved in the sports industry.

My biggest motivation to work in a sports organization is the gratification of my soul with my utmost passion. I always had a desire to live a fulfilling life comprising of fun, joy, thrill, drama, challenges, and love. I want to live in a place where I can share my views and thoughts freely. A place where the people have the same interests as mine. An office where staff discusses new ideas, the match that happened last night, a workspace that has more friends and fewer colleagues.

I have always loved sports because it brings people together irrespective of their nationality, language, ethnicity, color, and any other means of discrimination. It fills people with joy and provides them a reason to live. Most importantly, through sports one could achieve the penultimate human satisfaction by improving the lives of others and making them happy. Fortunately, I have found myself the “work” that I love. It is only a matter of time until I find the right opportunity. Till then, can you suggest me a more satisfying life?

— Shrey

Shrey Upadhyay, MSc Business Management in Sport

PS. He is looking for opportunities in Media, Marketing, and Business Development (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Shrey.

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Physical activity is a free tool to bring well-being

Xiangyi Liu sharing his motivation to work in the sports industry.

My passion for sports came from a story in high school. Physical activities are, in general, not encouraged much at schools in China. Without regular sports activity, I remembered that even I couldn’t reach the national standard’s test for 800 m running.

I once became overweight and struggled to get the perfect body for years until I entered the sports and fitness industry. I started to know why people were passionate about sports and their stories. After some time I finally chose to pursue my Master’s degree in Sports Industry Management at Em-lyon Business School. For me, sports can be life-changing. I am proud to be part of the field of sports and how sports can get people engaged and bring well-being to society.

— Xiangyi

Xiangyi LIU, Master’s degree in Sports Industry Management, Em-lyon Business School

PS. She is looking for opportunities in areas like Administration, Communication, Coordinator roles, Management, Marketing, Sales and Support (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Xiangyi.

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From working on the pitch to around the pitch

Sanchit Bhat sharing his motivation to work in the sports industry.

I have played football for my school and college at the national level and have represented them in various tournaments. I always wanted to become a footballer but couldn’t do it because of the limited resources in my country, India.

That was when I thought of pursuing a career in sports after my college graduation because then I could still continue to work in the field that I liked the most. I believe that if you are passionate about something then it becomes easy to follow that thing and you can also progress in that with a smile on your face.

And, since I was once part of a team myself I would like to be directly associated with the playing team of a club as I know I will understand it better and that it would bring me closer to what I wanted to pursue.

— Sanchit

Sanchit Bhat, MBA in sports management, Real Madrid Graduate School

PS. He is looking for opportunities in areas like Administration and Management roles (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Sanchit.

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3 reasons why passion is important for working in sport?

Thank you Shrey, Xiangy and Sanchit for sharing your reasons why you have a passion for sports and why you want to work in the sports industry. These are three unique stories and people and they are all three determined to share their passion and values in the sports industry.

If you liked this article, may want to read these:

3 ways to express passion for sports jobs

How to build a sustainable career in sports?

For employers and job seekers in the sports industry

Revenue-generating ideas for sports teams

08/01/202525/06/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

We had a great conversation with one of the innovators in the sports sector and we have already published one part of that discussion. Here is now the second part of that. In this second part, we will get great revenue-generating ideas for sports teams. We will learn how to involve and engage your stakeholders, how to become more creative as a grassroots sports club, and then advice for sports employers, and much more.

To go back to the first part of the interview, click on the button below.

Part 1 – How to be innovative in a sports club

Engage your stakeholders in order to make a project from good to great

There are so many things we could ask you about, but one of all the projects you have been involved with happened this spring 2020. You helped the floorball club, IBK Dalen, to make one of the greatest floorball players ever, Niklas Jihde to do a comeback. Can you please tell us more about how that all started and how and why you did it?

Everything started with the Diabetes gala 2019, where Niklas Jihde’s brother Peter, auctioned Niklas for one day. IBK Dalen won that bid. Their club director and coach actually paid with their own money. I, myself had already started to help this club with other events. As soon as this happened it became an obvious project to do something with. We set up a strategy on how to make most out of this opportunity, with one of the greatest floorball players ever being with this club for one day.

The set up became more or less a copy of the one I did with Scottie Pippen. Niklas Jihde held a talk, he met the youth teams and took part in some practices and played one game with the senior team.

So, what happened when Jihde actually came to IBK Dalen?

Well, there was this energy in the atmosphere. Since he is a big role model for the players, he seemed to be powering up the team. Sure, he hadn’t played a real game during his past 10 years, but the original plan was to have him at one game. But in the early plans, we didn’t even know what team Dalen was going to go against for this date. However, the aim was to at least have him starting the first minute of a game.

During that gameday, I myself was there and you should have seen the audience, the sponsors, they were very excited about this game. They played against IBK Höllviken and let Jihde start the game. After his minute he was on the bench until the end of the game when he played some more minutes. He managed to make an assist and IBK Dalen won the game with 12-6. However, he wasn’t only sitting on the bench throughout most of the game, he also took part in an activity during the brake, where he and old legends of the club had a penalty shout out.

Looking back at this project, what are your reflections and lessons learned?

Well, you could notice from the players that they were thrilled and leveled up one level as the club director told me. I was also told that the players created this “Yes Sir” mentality when Jihde was around. Furthermore, we got a lot of money from this project, where we could give away a large amount to an orphanage in Umea, called The house of the heroes (it is a temporary home for families with children that has a long-term disease). In the end, the club made some revenue, they got good publicity and we could also give away money to an orphanage.

Watch the assist by Niklas Jidhe from the game here. From Expressen TV.

How can a local grassroots sports club get creative and increase their revenue?

You have been part of the world of sports for a long time, and you know how challenging it is for sports clubs to survive. Not only the challenge to make the economy work, but also to find new revenue streams. Can you perhaps give us another advice like the one with Niklas Jihde, how a small local club can become creative in their work with different revenue streams?

Take for example the football club, IFK Sundsvall that I am helping. This year is their 125th anniversary and they are playing in the fourth division. And considering these difficult times we got today with Covid-19, you have to not only think about the club, but you also need to be passionate about the club. There are for sure a lot of local entrepreneurs that would like to support the local club. As a club it is important to be there for everyone, open to both the kids as well as to the senior people. You have to think about how to reach out but in a smart way and think about all ages. For example, what about the senior people, how can we reach them? And how can we find a role for them in the club? Try to find collaborations with the local grocery stores, the coffee place, etc. And don’t be afraid to reach out and bring in old legendary players and icons from the sports club or from the area around. You have to ask and build collaborations.

Solidarity is important, now more than ever. A lot of people would like to support especially during times like this. I believe we all gotten time to think through what is happening and what will happen from now on. Let us all use this situation in a smart way. Reach out to those local entrepreneurs and dare to ask the question of how you all can help each other!

Live by your values

Think about the sports movement in Sweden, the more your local club can show and live by values, the better for everyone. Communication and engagement will become much better. Show that your club can take care of both the old ones but also the youth and show that the club is open to everyone, a club where everyone is welcome. I mean, even the small local club could open up their cafeteria and allow the older people in the area hanging out there (obviously after the Covid-19 situation). But you could also ask and allow the youth players to hang around the first team’s practices or games. This will send a message that the club can work as a meeting place for everyone.

How to communicate in grassroots sports

Those are some good advice about generating more revenue for sports teams. The question now is, how can those who are reading this communicate and reach out like you are mentioning? A lot of sports clubs barely have any time at all and therefore one challenge is to know where to start.

Start with reaching out to your network, to your social media followers, and via your club’s website. Try to reach out to the kids, the youth, parents, and grandparents, etc. Invite them to come to your sports facility and have a coffee break at the club. Either whenever during the day or during practices.

Then start with creating a marketing plan! For a Division 5 club it is enough to write down activities like “coffee break during practices”, meanwhile bigger clubs can run activities like we have seen during this pandemic, selling tickets to a game that never happened. And if you belong to a club in the middle of these two scenarios, you might be thinking about running a social media campaign with your sponsors. At a sports club you are all working with improving and staying in a good health, therefore show some good workouts and allow your sponsors to show those at their social media channels. The sponsors will be happy and proud to be a sponsor to you and you can get that good word of mouth out to potential members and fans.

Sports communication grassroots — Photo by Richard Boyle on Unsplash

The employer in sports

All sports clubs have a board to support. How can the club’s offices involve and also suggests their board about these different and creative plans?

Yes, it is the board that usually is the employer at sports clubs. But nonetheless, it is important that a board can give some space and freedom to the office. Don’t let the office only do those administrative tasks, also give them some space to be creative. Let hem think and plan new initiatives and plans like sponsor activities that can provide new revenues to the club.

In cases like small local clubs, they might need to get together with other sports clubs in the neighborhood. Try to create a collaborative and common project that everyone could gain from and potentially you could also fundraise from bigger companies to invest in this collaborative project. I mean, who doesn’t want to support a healthier future and brand your company as a strong community member?

Three advice on how to be productive working in sports

Lastly some additional advice to sports clubs in order to generate more revenue. What are your three most important advice to create time and space for development projects that can bring in new revenue streams?

1. Give the club office oxygen and allow them to think and make new projects.

2. Take a look from another perspective. Don’t think as we have always done. For me, I tried new ways of thinking and doing. I got Scottie Pippen from the US to Sweden, we sold doping tests and we got a motorsport athlete to the stadium. Try to think differently, dare to be creative. Selling that sponsor sign is good, but there are other ways too.

3. Try to look for opportunities.

Several revenue-generating ideas for sports teams

Thank you so much Anders. We highly appreciate this. A lot of great experiences that you have shared with us. To wrap up here is a summarized list of several great revenue-generating ideas for sports teams that Anders have shared:

Bring over famous people to the stadium and bringing sponsors together to make it happen. And don’t be afraid to reach out and bring in old legendary players and icons from the sports club or from the area around. You have to ask and build collaborations.

Think about how to reach out but in a smart way and think about all ages. Try to find collaborations with the local grocery stores, the coffee place, etc. Reach out to those local entrepreneurs and dare to ask the question of how you all can help each other!

The small local club could open up their cafeteria and allow the older people in the area hanging out there (obviously after the Covid-19 situation).

Ask and allow the youth players to hang around the first team’s practices or games. This will send a message that the club can work as a meeting place for everyone.

Try to reach out to the kids, the youth, parents, and grandparents, etc. Invite them to come to your sports facility and have a coffee break at the club. Either whenever during the day or during practices. Start with reaching out to your network, to your social media followers, and via your club’s website.

Sell tickets to a game that never happened.

Run a social media campaign with your sponsors.

Create a collaborative and common project that everyone could gain from and fundraise from bigger companies to invest in this collaborative project.

This is the end of part 2 of the interview with Anders. Do you want to go back to part 1? Click in the button below to get to part 1 – How to be innovative in a sports club.

Part 1 – How to be innovative in a sports club

If you liked this article, may want to read these:

How to create a sport federation

Leadership through sport management – How to be innovative

The modern leadership – how to be efficient

How to be innovative in a sports club

08/01/202527/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

Sports Entrepreneur, Basketball, Interview

Imagine if we told you that if you become a youth coach at 12 years old that you one day could be a club director in a top division sports club? Now lets us tell you that this is not an imagination, this is a true story and we are happy to have a chance to tell you more about this in this interview. We have met Anders Jansson who found a passion for the leadership role and developed himself as a good coach but also a creative thinker and an entrepreneur. Through his passion for basketball, he made sure that you can grow a team and the club with new revenue streams. We will talk about all of these experiences and how he managed to bring one of the world’s best basketball players to Sweden. Lastly, Anders will give some tips on how to find your passion and working in sports.

Meet the sports industry from the inside

Anders Jansson

Consult – Savoy Consulting

Former Club director – Sundsvall Dragons

Basketball coach level 3

Anders Jansson interview, sport entrepreneur

EXPERIENCES as a youth coach CAN GET YOU the dream job in SPORTS

Thank you Anders for taking your time, sharing your experiences and lessons learned from your work in the sports industry. Let us start by letting you introduce yourself to us.

My name is Anders Jansson and at the moment when we are talking, I am 57 years old. As of today, I am running my own consultancy firm, Savoj Consulting. Now you might be thinking, “what is he doing when he runs his own consultancy”? Well, I am working in several areas in the sports industry. A few of those areas I am involved with are sales, events, marketing, branding and coaching.

Before my consultancy career I was the Club Director at the basketball club Sundsvall Dragons (we reached 10 semifinals and won 2 Swedish Championships and Finnish/Swedish Champions). Additionally, to this I have been awarded “the best marketer of the year” in Sundsvall, as well as been awarded “The Dragon of the year” twice (an award that is given to a person that has made a great contribution for the city of Sundsvall. Last but not least, I was one of the initiators of the local sports gala in the district of Medelpad.

Oh wow! Sounds like we have a lot to talk about. Let us start with one thing I know the readers want to know. How is it to work in sports? Furthermore, the question we all want to get an answer from:

Why did you take the step to work in sports?

I started to play basketball and football at the age of 9 years old, and I remember that I thought basketball was the most fun sport. Only three years later I became a youth coach in basketball. This gave me added value to further look into the coaching and leader role. I got myself educated into the different levels of coaching in basketball, I made it to level 3. And in between all of this I slowly grew my passion and joy of coaching people and to have the opportunity to teach the game and then also winning games.

However, that was just the beginning, my bigger involvement and actual work in sports came later in my life. At the age of 31, a job request as the club director at one of the top division teams in basketball in Sweden came from nowhere. I remember that I was thinking something along the lines “that sounds interesting, but I might try this for a few years”. But, slowly during these “few” years, I developed new values within my leadership style, and those “few” years turned into many years as you might understand from the achievements I mentioned during my introduction. My new values were not only winning as much as possible. I started to look into the club with a broader perspective. I wanted to develop one thing after another, if the team could do good, then the whole organization could do better outside of the court too. This was also the moment when the entrepreneur inside of me came into the picture. I started to notice that I could do more in sports than only coaching.

It is easy to think that your plans will always play out as they were planned, but this is very rare in sports. New tasks and opportunities have taken my plans into new directions. I have had to adapt to new situations, which taught me to be as ready as possible and open for changes. You can probably recognize this from an entrepreneur’s lifestyle.

Dare to be an entrepreneur when working in sports

Interesting, please explain how you mean with an entrepreneur’s lifestyle?

For me, an entrepreneur needs to take risks and try to think differently than others. From my own experiences, I started to think differently and one situation like this happened when we brought Scottie Pippen to Sweden and Sundsvall Dragon. I traveled to the United States of America and met Pippen. We tried to figure out how he could be able to get over to Sweden and play with the Dragons.

If you are not aware of Scottie Pippen, he is one of the greatest basketball players ever. He played together with Michael Jordan at Chicago Bulls (one way to understand his greatness is to watch the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance from Netflix). 2008 was the year we did it. During 2008 Scottie Pippen came over to Sundsvall and while he was here, he visited the youth teams, he met with sponsors and talked about how businesses and sponsorships are being done in the US. This wasn’t the only thing he did, Pippen also met the municipality and talked about his social engagements in the states. And of course, he played a game in the league with us. We won again Akropol with 102-74 And Scottie Pippen made 21 points, All of these activities provided great value to all of our stakeholders. And all of this gave us an extra boost to do new similar innovative activities again.

Scottie Pippen Highlights – Sundsvall Dragons

Added value for win win win

To give you another example, we also brought over one of the world’s best F1 drivers, Mika Häkkinen (also called The Flying Finn) and of course his car to the stadium in Sundsvall. Sure, there is no connection with basketball like the one with Pippen, but a lot of people showed up and listened to his talk he did. This activity was also built to give our sponsors some added values in a similar way as the one with Scottie Pippen.

So why was this idea with Häkkinen a good one?

Well, we had heard that he did this show in Finland where it was something special and then we started to look into the possibilities to host that show over in Sweden. Once again, the entrepreneurial spirit made me take that chance and ask him and his team.

The Flying Finn, Mika Häkkinen

Finding the dream job with your passion

As you have told us, you love basketball, how come you fell in love with the sport? What makes you want to keep working in the game?

The biggest carrot (as we say in Sweden, which means an inner drive) is the love for the game, but also to improving the club I work with, which means create new revenue streams and figuring out how to increase a club’s revenue. To get back to my experience, this is what I did with bringing over famous people to the stadium and bringing sponsors together to make it happen.

Please explain how you mean with love?

The love is the game basketball, the split vision and the knowledge and tactics in basketball, which are excellent. I mean, you can’t kick the ball and you only have 8 seconds to do something with the ball, so you really need to take action all the time. You can’t stand still too long. It is a game where things always happen.

Three important skills to become a good sport manager

What are three important skills according to you that are needed in order to get into the sports world as a good leader/manager?

Heart: Love to the sport, in my case basketball.

Passion: A drive to go forward, you have to have that passion from your inner drive to be able to do something.

Entrepreneurship: Find everything you can to sell. We made it successful to sell everything from doping tests to motorsport and of course the basketball event with Scottie Pippen. You have to dare to take your idea into businesses.

How to be more creative in the local grassroots sports club?

Since Anders is very generous with his time he has more experiences to share and therefore we actually have more in this interview. He has more knowledge to share about grassroots sports and how he made one of the greatest in floorball to do a comeback. But in order to make sure you can take it all in we will post the second part of this interview in one of the upcoming posts. Be patient and stay safe. Keep an eye out for the next one.

If you liked this article, may want to read these:

A young innovator with an innovative idea

Leadership through sport management – How to be innovative

The modern leadership – how to be efficient

Introduction to programming courses

27/10/202415/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

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27/10/202415/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

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27/10/202415/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

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27/10/202413/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

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27/10/202413/05/2020 by Jakob Wikenstaal

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