Olympic Games Environment Overview

Olympic Games are globally valued and nations embrace them as an economic and political vehicle to exhibit their country and promote their reputation. These potential gains influences nations to place substantial importance on Olympic achievements, and this has resulted in Olympic Games being very competitive. The Olympic Winter Games are equally competitive following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision to increase the number of medal events and the number of competing nation. At a national level, countries are investing more strategically in their elite sport systems in order to produce Olympic success (Weber et al. 2019). While Team GB as any other Olympic team and nations is working at enhancing the performing of its members, the global Olympic Games and Winter Games are controlled by the IOF and international federations. This implies that Team GB has no control over the number of competitors it will send to every Games since the eligibility criteria is defined by IOC and international federations. Furthermore, Britain is considered a strong nation (based on political, economic, social and technological factors) thus the IOC has to inhibit its strength through limiting its number of athletes eligible to compete. The competitiveness of countries at the Olympic Games is principally determined by macro-economic factors such population and GDP per capita (Arnold et al. n.d.). This regulation has been essential as it favours weak skiing nations to qualify athletes. This regulation means that for a significant number of Team GB members to continue participating in athletes, it not only has to invest in developing athletes but also in developing officials so they can serve in the boards of international federations. When serving in these boards, Team GB will be able to advocate national interests in governing international sports, which is a market-governing strategy to protect and increase the fan’s interest in international sports.

Competitor analysis

The Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games are open to all countries across the world and therefore every country is expected to send participants in the athletes. In addition, every country seeks to win as many medals as possible and therefore countries send their most talented and skilled athletes. This implies that Team GB will be competing against the most competent athletes from all over the world. Based on the past Olympic Games, the major players are United States, Russia, Germany, and the Great Britain. US has most medals (2520), followed by Russia (1865), followed by Germany (1681), and Great Britain comes fourth with 847 medals (IOC 2019). It is therefore clear that Team GB is facing stiff competition from US, Russia and Germany among other teams across the world, which are dedicated to winning the highest number of medals.

Porter’s five forces analysis

In light of the above information, strategic management is imperative to help Team GB create a competitive advantage and maintain the support of its fans. The Porter’s five forces model provides a valuable tool to comprehensively analyse the underlying forces that influence competition in the Olympic Games. This analysis focuses on threat of new entrants and rivalry among existing firms, which are part of the five forces developed by Porter.

The threat of new entrants is a strong force for Team GB. Weber et al. (2016) state that all countries are allowed to participate in Olympic Games but the number of participants they send is determined by international federations. This implies that all countries are free to join Olympic Games and send their best-performing athletes, which threatens the competitive position obtained by Team GB. Similarly, the rivalry among existing firms is also a strong force that threat Team GB’s competitive position. As earlier noted, the four major players based on number of medals are Team US, Team Russia, Team Germany, and Team GB but Team GB occupies the fourth position. According to (Weber et al. 2019), the competitiveness of countries at the Olympic Games is primarily determined by macro-economic factors such as GDP per capita and population. Countries such as China are undergoing rapid economic growth, which enhances their competitiveness thus further threatening the competitive position of Team GB. If Team GB loses its position in Olympic Games, its fans are likely to support other superior teams. As a mitigation strategy, Team GB is committed to building its identity as Team GB, which influences people in the Great Britain to support the team regardless its position. This can be supported by group identification theory, which purports that fans support different teams in Olympic Games based on identify (Norris et al. 2015). Team GB is also investing in increasing European nations’ interest in international athletes, a culture that will unite them in supporting Team GB. In the process of increasing the number of people interested in Olympic Games, Team GB adopt socialisation, which according to Pu and James (2017) helps the target population to understand and live in a culture by internalising its beliefs, values, norms, and attitudes.

Segmentation and the target audience

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According to Fan et al. (2015), sociodemographic backgrounds of fans vary, which implies that that sociodemographic variables such as age, gender, and education could inform the process of market segmentation. Middle-aged males and females are more likely to be interested in Olympic Games while professional athletes are more devoted to Olympics as compare to amateurs (Sung et al. 2016). On the other hand, Lee et al. (2016) write that the middle-aged persons seek pleasure, satisfaction, sensation, and happiness and therefore are more likely to be motivated by games. Still, Turbutt (2015) write that fans are attracted to a team to identify with the achievement of others, gain knowledge, share success, and satisfy their own needs; which majorly influences the behaviour of professional athletes.

In light of the above information, the target audience for this plan is university students in Hull regardless their gender or orientation in games. The plan will consider the needs of those that have interest in games (seeking to reinforce supportive behaviour) as well as the needs of those that have no interest in Olympic Games in order to socialise them in the sports culture and obtain their support. Team GB is well-known in Hull, thanks to its competitiveness, which will ease the socialisation process as people want to identify in its achievements.

References

Weber, A.C., De Bosscher, V., Shibli, S. and Kempf, H., 2019. Strategic analysis of medal markets at the Winter Olympics. Team Performance Management: An International Journal.

Arnold, R., Hewton, E. and Fletcher, D., greatest team: The design and delivery of a preparation camp for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, 5 (4). pp. 1-23. Link to official URL (if available).

Weber, A.C., Kempf, H., Shibli, S. and De Bosscher, V., 2016. Measuring competition in the Olympic Winter Games 1992–2014 using economic indices. Managing Sport and Leisure, 21(6), pp.399-420.

Norris, J.I., Wann, D.L. and Zapalac, R.K., 2015. Sport fan maximizing: following the best team or being the best fan?. Journal of Consumer Marketing.

Pu, H. and James, J., 2017. The distant fan segment. International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship.

Fan, M., Su, M., Tan, Y., Liu, Q., Ren, Y., Li, L. and Lv, J., 2015. Gender, age, and education level modify the association between body mass index and physical activity: a cross-sectional study in Hangzhou, China. PLoS One, 10(5).

Sung, J., Koo, G.Y., Dittmore, S.W. and Eddy, T., 2016. Factors that drive team identification in intercollegiate athletics: a perspective on product involvement. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 16(3), p.752.

Lee, M., Jeong, H. and Han, J.Y., 2016. An Investigation of Attendance Motivational Factors among Intercollegiate Fans for Non-revenue Sporting Events. International Journal of Human Movement Science, 10(1), pp.81-105.

Turbutt, P., 2015. Motivation, segmentation, and the mega-tournament experience: a study of English football tourists at World Cup 2014.