Olympics Boosts the Development of Sports Management in China

2008/08/15 13:00:00 US/Central
text by Amor Mao

The Beijing 2008 Olympics and Paralympics will leave the city with numerous legacies; a number of sport management talents are one of them. The Beijing Organizing Committee of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) appointed 28 Chinese competition managers, who will become part of the city’s sports management talent pool after the Games. This will greatly help ease the situation facing sports management in China.

Talents Needed for Sports Management Industry

When Beijing won its bid to host the 2008 Games, in 2001, it was estimated that Beijing had a shortage of 10,000 professional sports managers. With the 2008 Beijing Olympiad approaching day by day, China's sports industry greeted its period of flourishing development. At the same time, the cultivation of sports management talents became more important.

The Olympic Games was in want of talent. Just take the sporting goods industry as an example. China's sporting goods market is now growing at an annual rate of more than 50 percent, and Chinese products now account for 65 percent of the world's sporting goods market. Such a huge market and such prosperous demands have inspired the development of three sporting goods production bases in Guangdong, Fujian and the Yangtze River Delta. Because of this boom, more than 10,000 sporting goods manufacturers, relying on a new type of management and managers with modern professional knowledge and skills are needed. Also, numerous sports clubs and sports service facilities are in want of managers.

For a lack of sports management talents in China, people responsible for the industry are taking action: cultivation of sports industry managers has been made one of the 25 new disciplines for the 2006 student recruitment process for higher education. The General Administration of Sport has put forth plans on the cultivation of sports industry administrators and managers, and experts in organization of international sporting events.

Educational and Training Programmes

Higher education institutions like Fudan University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing Sports University, Beijing Normal University, Capital Institute of Physical Education and certain social institutions have also created sports management programmes. For instance, Fudan University's sports MBA programme is the first MBA programme focused on the sports industry in China, usually for medium- and high-level management personnel involved with the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and China's sports systems. Courses of sports industry management account for more than 40 percent of the total credit hours. Tsinghua University has started a master’s programme in sports management jointly with the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), and the Beijing Sport University has started workshops for in-job postgraduates that teach courses for the discipline of sports management and administration together with the China Youth Advanced Talent Training Center.

Recently, Beijing Sport University's College of Management announced that the professional sport manager training and authentication programme jointly sponsored by the Asia Association for Sport Management and the China Training Center of Senior Civil Servants under the Ministry of Personnel would be launched in August. This programme will be launched with the aim of training senior management personnel with excellent professional accomplishment and with a mastery of professional knowledge and professional skills for China's sports industry.

Qin Chunlin, dean of the College, said a sport manager training and authentication programme had been started by setting up an examination and assessment system. The goal is to create a team of professional sports managers, to develop a professional qualification system for the sports industry and a system for market access, providing qualified managers and administrators for the healthy and rapid development of China's sports industry.

The sports MBA programme of Fudan University, Tsinghua University's master programme in sports management, and Beijing Sport University's professional sport manager training and authentication programme will all become driving forces for the development of China's sports industry. With the spreading of such educational and training programmes, China will have increasing numbers of professional sports managers.

Games Cultivates Sports Management Experts

According to Zhang, all the 28 competition managers appointed by BOCOG are Chinese.

“Organizers of the Sydney and Athens games hired foreign experts in these positions, but we considered the Beijing Games a great opportunity to leave China with many sport management experts of its own,” he said.

Olympic competition manager appointments need approval from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and international sports federations (IFs). These managers, who must speak fluent English or French, are responsible for organizing competitions and coordinating with relevant international sports federations.

China sent 11 people to the Athens Olympic Games organizing committee for study and many more were sent to other international events after that to help with organization and at the same time to accumulate experience, said BOCOG Vice-Director Liu Wenbin.

BOCOG also set up a competition organizing team of 612 people, recruited from all over China. And 6,507 volunteers have also helped in organizing the on-going Beijing Games.

体育人才培养多层次推进

文/杜秀平

相关资料显示，在过去的近20年时间中，中国企业在体育赞助方面的花费超过了100亿元，但结局大都以失败而告终。VOLVO盛事管理公司总裁及首席执行官梅尔·派亚特指出，出现这种局面的主要原因是中国企业对赞助管理人才缺乏，以及对体育运动既有深入了解又具备管理经验的人才太少。

为此，北京奥组委早在2005年就将奥运培训工作正式提上议事日程，并制定了为奥运会服务的20万名体育人才的目标——培养一批既懂体育规则、了解国际惯例、懂外语又善于交往的体育管理骨干。

多所大学开展体育人才培训

据有关专家预测，几年前中国体育行业从业人员中既懂经营管理又懂体育的人才仅数百人，2008年奥运会前后，中国至少需要1万名左右的体育专业管理人才。在3年多的时间里完成从几百人到近万人的体育人才扩充，必不可少的首选途径就是系统而集中的体育管理人才培训。

事实上，在具体培训实施方案尚未得到明确之前，就有培训机构率先推出了多个层次的体育人才培训，如清华—悉尼体育管理硕士项目、复旦体育产业方向MBA等项目。此后，北京大学、北京师范大学、首都体育学院等高校和一些社会机构也纷纷推出了各自的体育管理项目。所有这些项目都被冠以“奥运”的名义推出，并不约而同地将培养目标锁定为——为2008年奥运会培养体育经营管理人才。

清华经管学院与悉尼科大商学院联合推出3期体育管理硕士，是中国国内第一个偏重于大型体育赛事运营管理的高级学位教育项目，也是国内第一个由中外合作推出的体育管理硕士项目。在3期体育管理硕士合作培训项目中，大多数学员的工作与北京2008年奥运会有着直接或间接的关系。其中，一部分人直接服务于奥运会的各个环节，另外一部分人则服务于与奥运会相关的其它服务行业，如体育经纪人、体育产品的开发和营销策划等。

如今，这些高校和机构培养出来的体育人才，大部分已经走上了服务奥运的岗位。在北京奥运会开幕前夕，北京奥组委体育部部长张吉龙表示，2008年奥运会28个比赛项目的竞赛主任全部由中国人出任。这比起2000年悉尼奥运会和2004年雅典奥运会部分项目的竞赛主任由外籍人士担当的状况有所改变。并且，所有竞赛主任都是按照相关要求严格挑选出来，均得到了国际奥委会及相关单项体育联合会的认可。

三类体育人才最热门

中国体育产业作为国内最热门的产业之一，正受到社会和企业的普遍关注。业内专家介绍，目前中国体育产业三类人才最为热门，分别是负责体育产业、体育市场规划、监管职能的行政干部；高素质的体育企业家和体育经纪人；体育营销人才和体育产品研发人才。

三类人才简单的划分是体育管理人才、体育经纪人、市场营销和产品研发，就业方向都是与体育产业息息相关。体育管理人才是直接服务于体育产业；体育经纪人与体育运动员关系密切；市场营销与体育产品研发同样与体育关系密切。

为了满足国内对于这三类体育人材的需求，2005年10月，北京体育大学与美国俄亥俄大学合作，将俄亥俄大学体育经营管理硕士课程引进国内。而俄亥俄大学是全球体育管理学科的发源地，是美国惟一一所颁发体育管理硕士学位的大学。体育管理硕士课程的设置以体育产业运作为核心，涉及与体育相关的的各个领域，涵盖了体育竞技管理、体育休闲管理、体育商业运作等诸多内容。此外，复旦大学与挪威管理学院增设的体育产业MBA双学位硕士项目，课程设置结合中国体育产业现状，设有体育资产管理、体育旅游与赛事管理、体育消费者行为学、体育赞助和体育媒体沟通、体育经济人理论与实践等。培养人才的目标也是目前国内最需要的这三大类体育人才。

事实上，几年前中国体育产业的状态类似于20世纪60年代的美国。当时，美国所有体育组织的管理人员都是运动员出身，退役后直接从事管理工作。与北京体育大学合作开办这个项目，实际是将中国对体育产业感兴趣的高素质人才吸纳进来，借助俄亥俄大学几十年积累的经验，将他们培养成中国体育产业亟需的高端管理人才，掌握美国最前沿的学科知识，满足中国体育产业对于三类人才的需求。

据了解，体育管理硕士学位培训项目以培育复合型的高级本土体育产业经营管理人才为己任，被称为中国体育产业经营管理领域的“黄埔军校”。

培养中国体育产业的CEO

与国外体育用品行业相比，中国在经营理念上还有比较落后的地方，不少企业还在采取自产自销的模式，将大量的资源投入到销售渠道建立的过程中，这无疑会影响企业的开发和发展。中国体育用品联合会副主席郑泽云认为，应该根据中国实际，吸纳国外成功经验，采取“产销分离”的形式，厂家把所有精力投入到开发和生产中，销售权交给专业的销售网络。而进行市场产销分离式的营销，需要更多的有专业知识的高素质的管理人才。

为此，教育部2006年公布的高考招生25个新专业中，新增了体育产业管理人才。北京体育大学教授、北京奥运经济研究会理事林显鹏表示，作为体育产业自身，要抓住产业结构调整和2008年奥运会的机遇，引进开拓型体育经营管理人才，培养体育产业自己的CEO。

设立CEO已成为国际上通行的一种公司治理方式。在世界500强企业中，绝大部分企业都设有这一职位。伴随着经济全球化步伐的到来，CEO一职在中国许多公司尤其是传统大公司中陆续出现，海尔的张瑞敏、春兰的陶健幸、康佳的陈伟荣、长虹的倪润峰等等，他们从事的产业不同，但是却有着一个共同的特点，就是在自己的位置上显现出越来越令人瞩目的能力，在不同的时间、地点用精彩诠释着CEO的内涵。

而体育行业的CEO就是要全权负责企业的日常业务，通过对企业进行科学的管理，准确地把握市场机会，对企业的产品进行卓有成效的市场化运作，来实现对全体股东负责，实现公司股东的权益的最大化目标。这些中国与国际先进院校联合培养出来的自己体育产业CEO，将会有利于与国际市场接轨，为中国体育产业带来新的辉煌。



	Article featured in Business Beijing, August 2008 Publication sponsored by Information Office of the Beijing Municipal Government, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, Development & Reform Commission of Beijing Municipality, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (Beijing Sub-Council)