Ownership structures

General business structures for sport facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Sport facility ownership and governance structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Models of organizational effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

This chapter will cover the various business, ownership, and governance structures for sport facilities across the globe. Sport facility owners must first understand the legal authority under which the sport facility can operate as a business, including as a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or under a number of forms of corporations. At the same time, the sport facility owners must determine how they want to structure their sport business. Sport business organizations are generally structured in three ways: public, non-profit, or commercial. While these categories are general and independent in definition, many sport business organizations can operate under multiple structures. As a result, the ownership must also make choices regarding the governance of the structure, which may be as a public entity, a private entity, a public-private partnerships, or under a voluntary structure. Each of these structures will be examined to provide the reader with a holistic understanding of the various configurations of sport facility ownership. In addition, models of organizational effectiveness will be presented to assist the sport facility manager to efficiently manage the ownership structure. Models to be covered will include the goals model, the system resource model, the process model, and the multiple constituency model. The chapter will conclude with an explanation that ownership and sport facilities managers, in order to be most effective and efficient, must use a contingency approach in all they do, because there is no other best model – which is only an optimum solution for a specific set of circumstances.