Part Three: The playing field
Context for SPARC’s Plan
In delivering our priorities, there are several key challenges that must be addressed.
Economic trends
We are currently experiencing a challenging global financial and economic environment. The sector is likely to find securing revenue from other commercial sources increasingly challenging, and this trend is likely to continue in the short term as a result of:
- a difficult corporate sponsorship environment
- the impact of the exchange rate on international sports
- reducing revenues from gaming trusts, on which many sport and recreation organisations rely
- the impact of the economic situation on community trust funding
- the impact of the economic situation on the expenditure of individuals (leading to falling memberships, a reluctance to increase membership fees, lower gate receipts and diminishing broadcast rights)
- pressure on local government to reduce expenditure – 2009 will be a critical period as local authorities adopt new Long Term Council Community Plans.
Cohesion
There is a lack of cohesion among community sport providers, particularly between schools and clubs. This has resulted in increased competition between schools and clubs to retain young players, and a lack of efficiencies of scale to deliver sport and recreation.
Volunteers
There is increasing pressure on the community volunteer base, with concern growing over the retention of skilled volunteers. The capability among community sport providers is also variable.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure to support the ever-growing seasons and codes wanting to share space and facilities is under strain. Further to this, non-traditional sports and recreation activities have continued to grow over the past years, placing additional pressure on organised sport and recreation to respond to demands for a range of quality experiences.
Winning
Winning on the world stage is challenging for a small country like New Zealand. We need to support the next wave of high-performance athletes – those who are six to eight years away from success at the highest level.
Meeting the needs of participants and remaining viable
We need to ensure that community sport and recreation providers are equipped to meet the needs of future participants. If everyone in the sector focuses on what they can do best, we will reduce inefficiencies and duplication and improve the overall performance of the sector.
Sport and recreation organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to remain viable. There are already too many organisations struggling to sustain themselves in the long term. The tightening economic environment will place even more pressure on these organisations.
Organisations are struggling to diversify their revenue streams and often place a high degree of dependency on SPARC and on community and gaming trusts. Many sport and recreation organisations struggle with management and governance, retention of capable people and a lack of robust planning.
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Updated | 31 Jul 2009.
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