Future of Sports Operations and Sports Event Management in Uncertain Environment: A Critical Review

Gaining competitive advantage through proper management of operations function is a common practice in many organizations and businesses including the ones involved in sports. A major challenge most companies confront is how to deliver high-quality products/services to meet ever-changing customer demands in a timely and cost-effective manner. It has also been realized that the operations function must integrate into the overall corporate planning and strategy to achieve such an advantage. Sports facility creation, utilization, and maintenance require application of knowledge on various aspects of operations discipline such as project management, maintenance scheduling, supply network management, to name a few. Sports facility management is an all-encompassing term referring to the maintenance and care of commercial and non-profit buildings, including but not limited to sport facilities, including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); electrical; plumbing; sound and lighting systems; cleaning, groundskeeping, and housekeeping; security; and general operations. While facility management focuses on the overall maintenance and care of a building, operations management focuses on administrating the processes to produce and distribute the products and services offered through a facility. This would include the processes of production (tangible and intangible), inventory control, supply chain management, purchasing and sourcing, logistics and distribution, scheduling, staffing, and general services—with the goal of maintaining, controlling, and improving organizational activities. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, and the lockdowns associated with attempting to arrest its spread and the calamity in terms of health and medical issues caused by the pandemic have impacted greatly both elite and grassroots sport, and related businesses. Professional sport teams and organizations have suffered an immediate financial impact with loses due to a lack of live spectators and associated revenue streams. The physical and psychological trauma on sports persons and others engaged in sports has also impacted them negatively. This paper, as descriptive research, looks into the existing body of knowledge to assess the challenges faced by and the impact of pandemic on sports operation and sports event management and attempts to develop a risk management framework to deal with uncertainties. The paper also outlines the potential future directions that the sports industry might take to manage the pandemic-related risks better.