More sustainable sports organizations' operation as a result of fan involvement into the processes of decision-making and community building

Abstract

Sports clubs and other sports organizations are important to modern society because their activities provide important values linked to sports. This article focuses on the passive consumption of sports as a leisure activity that brings fans joy, a sense of belonging, and other values associated with their favourite sport and club. For sports club managers to achieve sustainable operation associated with sufficient funds obtained from fans, they can apply various ways of involving the fans themselves in creating a loyal community and in selected managerial issues. The article’s aim is to describe the current level of knowledge in this area and follow it up with practical recommendations for the effective setting of the involvement of fans in selected processes. The applied methodology uses several methods, such as case studies, analysis of statistical data, storytelling, or the creation of flow charts describing the new setting of the processes in question. Data describing selected examples from practice and case studies were obtained from available Internet sources. However, the research results were supplemented by the analysis of data provided by the football association, which covers this sport at the national level within the Slevensk Republic. The main findings of the presented research include the fact that the involvement of fans in sports club management issues is often associated with concerns on the part of managers. Therefore, it is recommended to plan and implement the successive steps of this involvement, starting with involvement in the creation of a loyal fan community.