SUMMARY
- Psychosocial aspect of integration where the spectator role prevails more than the participatory one, of integration. Individual formative aspect, commitment, improvement, competitiveness of improvement, life habits, effort, sacrifice, all this is found in the dynamic practice of the activity, not thus in the passive, where the show prevails. Health aspect: healthy lifestyle habits due to the benefits it can bring to health, through the imitation of leading athletes. Within professional sports there is a conflictive aspect in relation to health, the use of stimulants that can represent an undesirable social model. This is totally related to the commercial / business aspect of sport.Mercantilist / business: this component of professional sports affects the athletes themselves, the sports entities (clubs, associations, etc.), the media, sponsoring companies and the spectators themselves.
It is a phenomenon that feeds itself, as it spreads more, attracts more viewers and is ultimately a “marketing phenomenon”.
It sometimes entails an inequality of opportunities between the most powerful Clubs and others that are more disadvantaged.
"For Real Madrid the market will be the world, for Recreativo de Huelva the market will be Huelva"
- Aspirational aspect, as a means of achieving higher status, a well-paid way of life. Famous athletes become symbols of reference for young people. Political aspect, sport is sometimes transformed into a political instrument used by regimes of all kinds. Playful / entertainment aspect in the case of professional sports, the show is more important, as a show it is more passive than active. It is a clear phenomenon of great masses.
CONCLUSIONS
Our first conclusion, as is clearly evident in all groups of subjects, is that sport integrates a large set of related factors that define it as a (non-physical) object of consumption today. It is practiced as healthy fun or professionally; it is enjoyed as a show in front of the television or by attending the event and acquiring merchandising or other related products; it is lived passionately when it is internalized.
- Young people show what sport is for them around five aspects: educational, health, economic, social, cultural and recreational. And they distinguish two clearly separate areas:
- Professional: entertainment, business, emotion, competitiveness, aggressiveness, fanaticism, hatred, physical activity, racism, companionship, help, support, and teamwork. Playful practice: satisfaction, effort, self-improvement, fun, friendship, health, and relationships social.
In both spheres, when sports are internalized, passion is the dominant feeling.
- Elite athletes rank the traits that characterize their concept of sport: health, profession, social integration system, leisure, social and economic success, expressing their aversion to the business factor, and giving it little importance as a social system of transmission of values. The traits most valued by teachers are: leisure, health, games, spectacles, values transmitting system; the one that is furthest from its concept is the business factor. For them, the most important sectors, due to the role they play today, are: entertainment and professional sports, the (specialized) media, manufacturers of sports goods, the health sector and sports such as The experts establish a clear differentiation between professional sports and sports,recognizing aspects of its components: psychosocial integration, individual training, health, playful / entertainment, commercial / business, political and aspirations. Sport also has negative attributes: doping, fanaticism, extreme rivalry, violence, and a macho environment.
These same results show another clear conclusion: the essence of sport is three-dimensional, since it is a "whole" that participates in the essence of a material good, an idea and is fundamentally specified as a service as illustrated in figure 1.
Essential nature of the sport product
As shown in figure 2. Products and services of the sports system, we have collected all the components of what we consider constitutes the sports product, in the certainty that the sports system fosters the relationship of all of them to configure an essentially three-dimensional and unique concept from a marketing point of view.
Products and services of the sport ecosystem
In the yellow area, the products related to professional sports are collected and that are more visible through the media, but not the most important, as demonstrated by Gratton (2002) and other authors, protected by a determining factor such as the brand, as a fundamental part of corporate identity. The green area corresponds to products related to the massive practice of sport whose importance, in addition to the economic volume of difficult calculation that it represents, lies in the functions on which the European Union frequently insists:
- an educational function: sports activity constitutes an excellent instrument to balance the training and human development of the person, whatever their age; a public health function: physical activity offers the opportunity to improve the health of citizens and of fight effectively against some diseases, such as heart damage or cancer; and can contribute to the maintenance of good health and quality of life at an advanced age; a social function: sport represents an appropriate instrument to promote a more inclusive society and to fight against intolerance, racism, violence, abuse of alcohol or the use of narcotics; sport can contribute to the integration of people excluded from the labor market; a cultural function:Sports practice allows citizens to take root to a greater extent in a territory, get to know it better and better integrate into it and, in relation to the environment, better protect it; a recreational function: sports practice is an important component of free time and leisure. individual and collective fun.
We also want to highlight, with the gray area, that new technologies have already caused the appearance of new sports / communication products, especially in the professional field, but the most important thing we believe is yet to come.
The management of the sports service
Finally, to complete our contribution, it is essential to affirm that the most frequent form that the type of offer that the sports product adopts is as a service.
Figure 3. Management of the sports service shows the three elements involved in the production of sports and their relationship on stage (front stage) and behind the scenes (back stage). What Teboul (2005) calls a dual corporate culture (dual partnership culture) is established where employees and customers are at the same level, and where the process is as important as the content.
The sports product as a service (consumer oriented)
The management of a sports service is more complex than that of a pure good. In a service there are always two parts, stage (Frontstage) and backstage (Backstage), that must be put into play and that can create conflicts, especially in professional sports and vital to the interests of the media. The service takes place on the "stage" and takes place "behind the scenes."
The service must be made tangible, making it memorable and showing the value for the customer. We have to be very persuasive on stage and offer the highest quality. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we must be very flexible with the needs, tastes and preferences of the clients, try to standardize the production of the service and reduce costs as much as possible. A good service is one that perfectly adjusts the value for the customer (value to customer), the value for the institution (value to company) and the decisions in the service mix (operations and decisions).
The mix of a sports service (sport service mix) involves the management of six elements: product, price, promotion, distribution, process and people (the latter two are inseparable).
It is in this context that the value for the client and the value for the institution are generated, making the appropriate operational decisions in the service mix, as shown in figure 4.
In this way, our redefinition of the sports product is configured, which we are convinced will evolve more in the direction determined by the needs, tastes and preferences of consumers, than in the will of those responsible for marketing. They need to be on the lookout for signs to create new ways to meet consumer demands.
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