In sports, most people don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. All we see are a bunch of athletes competing, coaches yelling orders and other supporters yelling from the stands. But there is a lot more to sports than what happens on the field. Behind every sport is a sports administrator.
What is a sports administrator?
Sports administrators are pretty self-explanatory. They carry out the administrative tasks across various functions within sports clubs and organisations. These functions can include marketing, fundraising, procurement, supply chain management or general admin tasks. They also help organise and schedule sports events, manage the budgets and oversee the recruitment and training of staff.
What are a sports administrator’s responsibilities?
A sports administrator’s responsibilities can range from routine admin to managing complex projects, budgets and resources.
These are some of the responsibilities sports administrators can have:
- Making use of systems as well as processes that are relevant to the organisation
- Responding to enquiries as well as requests for information from other organisations in addition to members of the public
- Managing admin systems, processes and databases efficiently
- Providing admin support to managers and heads of the organisation
- Organising meetings, training, coaching, festivals, conferences as well as other events
- Promoting sport in schools
- Working with students or, alternatively, young people
- Liaising with local sports councils, regional committees in addition to national governing bodies
- Consulting with clients, members, the community as well as local sporting organisations
- Advising sports clubs regarding areas such as organisation, funding, promotion as well as regulations
- Regulating budgets, controlling finance allocated for community activities and sometimes coordinating or, alternatively, raising sponsorship
- Undertaking or, alternatively, commissioning research as well as collating, mapping and monitoring data
- Producing promotional literature, reports as well as event materials in addition to liaising with marketing and media organisations
- Making presentations to grant-making bodies and authorities who are relevant
- Managing, supervising and training staff as well as sometimes running an office
- Supporting colleagues in order to encourage as well as develop sport in the local, regional, national or international community
- Serving on regional as well as national government think tanks and task groups
- Participating in the resolution of political and ethical issues, for examples conflicts of interest between partner organisations, the use of banned substances and breaches of regulations.
What hours do sports administrators work?
Sports events usually happen on weekends and holidays. This means that the sport administrator, along with their 9 am to 5 pm working hours, sometimes needs to work over weekends and holidays, especially during tournament and professional league seasons.
As teams have to travel around to sports events, so does the sports administrator.
Sports administrators are what make sports organisations and clubs function properly and successfully. They are responsible for ensuring that the administration that goes into events, marketing, finance and more gets done. From something as simple as answering calls to something as complex as managing budgets, sports administrators do it all!
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Are you kneen to become a sports administrator? If you are then you need to do our Sports Administration Course. For more information, please follow this link.