Funding elite sport

2 Activities

Activity 1: Shelly Woods, funding and organisation

View the tasters  video where you will see Shelly Woods in action during a tough fitness test.

Next visit the websites for WheelPower (the national charity for wheelchair sport) and UK Athletics. Using these websites as a starting point note down:

1. who might fund elite athletes such as Shelly;
2. signs of sponsorship on any of the websites you visit and the companies involved.

You may also need to use an internet search engine to expand your search further.

Discussion

1. Since 1997, National Lottery money has been permitted to be used to fund elite athletes? preparation and training. UK Sport distributes these funds to national governing bodies, such as UK Athletics, which fund top athletes. The British Paralympic Association, a charity, sends a multi-sport team to the Paralympic Games.
2. In terms of sponsorship, keep in mind any observations you made, and we will return to this in the Discussion of Activity 2.

Thinking about elite athletes such as Shelly brings us to the reading in Activity 2, which addresses the organisation of elite sport. Note that the the reading excludes professional sports since, although played at an elite level, they ‘are self-financing commercial (private) operations and therefore not within the scope of this discussion?.

Activity 2 Reading

Open the extract below and read the section entitled ‘Elite sport?, which includes a flow diagram about the funding of elite sport (Figure 3.3 in the reading). As you read this short section consider where Shelly fits into Figure 3.3.

Click ‘View Document? to read the extract.

Discussion

Athletes such as Shelly fit into the bottom part of Figure 3.3 under the heading ‘Coaches/athletes/equipment/training camps?. We know that the National Lottery is the main funding source (via UK Athletics) but high-profile athletes and sports often supplement this with corporate sponsorship. This links back to Activity 1 since there was evidence on the UK Athletics website in 2007 that its sponsors were Norwich Union (an insurance company), while the British Paralympic Association website had the support of Lloyds TSB (the bank). This represents private sector input to Olympic/Paralympic sport.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence