Sports Risk Management

Risks & Responsibilities

Important areas of responsibility for the sport organization:

Provide a safe environment for participants. This means having policies and standards that promote safe programs in safe facilities, overseen by qualified personnel and trained volunteers.
Make decisions fairly, especially decisions that affect members. This means having and following proper policies and procedures when making important decisions and handling disputes among members.
Properly caring and protecting assets and resources, including money, equipment, facilities and intangible property such as data, corporate image and marketing rights, etc.

Levels of Responsibility

Risk management activities will occur on different levels depending on the mandate of the sport organization, as expressed in its constitution, objects and bylaws. A local sport club that offers programs to individual members can adopt a narrower approach to risk management, which means the club manages risks only for those program activities it engages in directly.

A sport organisation that is the governing body for sport activities must instead adopt a broader approach, which means the organisation manages risks for its own activities as well as for activities carried out under its supervision and for activities carried out by its members clubs and associations. Therefore, sports governing body, risk management should occur for three types of activities: direct, indirect and supported.

Some sport organisations, in addition to offering programs and services, also operate facilities and organise events. Typically, facilities are intended for the use of the organisations' members and participants, but occasionally, they might also be made available to other users. The organisation of sports events is another source of wide-ranging extended liability.

Failure to Meet Responsibilities

Failure to meet responsibilities may lead to:

Injuries to participants generating lawsuits and greater costs, also in terms of time and resources, together with possibly higher future insurance costs.
Poor conflict management again giving rise to lawsuits taking an emotional toll on individuals as well as a financial toll coupled with a waste of time.
tarnishing an organization’s goodwill and public image Disputes harming important relationships, burning out spirit and drive,
Harmful financial and legal consequences relating to assets.

Any one of these consequences – whether an injury, a dispute about decision-making, or a loss of property – will cost a sport organization money and other valuable resources, leaving less available for the sport organization’s most important business: providing program opportunities to participants.

Weisserberg's Role

As certified risk managers, Weisserberg offer outsourced specialist risk management services to sports organisations. The focus is on “risk areas” or “loss exposures” definable as potential events or occurrences that could lead ultimately to financial loss, either through:

liability losses resulting from the organisation being held responsible or sue:
liability losses arising from damage to property (either the sport organization’s own property or the property of others for which the sport organization has responsibility)
loss of revenue or earnings
loss of key personnel (including volunteers)
loss of public image

Risk Management for Sports Managers

What does “risk” mean for the sport manager? Risk is defined as “the chance of injury, damage or loss”. For the sport organization, this can be extended to mean “the chance of injury to your members or participants, damage to your property or property of others which you may be responsible for, or other loss to your organization, directors, volunteers, members, or to someone else”.

Ultimately, the effect of risk is a financial effect: the injury, damage or loss is going to cost money. And often, this cost is because the risk has resulted in some form of legal action or dispute.“Risk management” is defined as “reducing the chances of injury, damage or loss by taking steps to identify, measure and control risks”. This isn’t very complicated and simply means that the sport manager and others within the organization should be spending time thinking about potential risky situations, deciding which situations or circumstances might pose serious risks, and then determining what practical steps they can take to minimize those risks.

The common ingredient in all of these tasks is common sense. This task is also made easier when there is a “culture” within the organization that promotes safe and prudent conduct by all staff and volunteers.

Success

At Weisserberg, we believe that risk is a double-faced concept. Sometimes, it involves the probability of a loss, other times it represents an opportunity. In this regard, we assist our Clients in classifying risks and selecting which to transfer, control or avoid, and which to embrace, in order to grow and succeed.