Aligning a sports property’s organizational structure with its strategic goals is an important step as leaders reshape their technological, commercial, and governance frameworks. By tailoring their vision to workforce needs and employee tasks as part of the entity’s strategic re-design, an organization is better positioned to boost productivity and its return on investment (ROI) during periods of rapid change. This – in turn – reduces the likelihood of operational disruption through innovation.

By adapting team frameworks within their operating models, sports properties make it easier to adopt the latest trends and technologies into their ecosystems, while evolving their personnel capabilities with the times. With the restructuring of departments and how they communicate, employees are also presented with a clear understanding of their personal goals and responsibilities within the organization’s new strategic direction.

As part of this strategic-planning process, employment-engagement and change-management programs optimize the transfer of knowledge, the deployment of new skills, and the monitoring and reporting of company performance. Outlined in our recent article From Strategy to Reality | Re-imagining the future of sports organizations, N3XT Sports’ Strategy and Consulting Lead Eloi Pomé emphasizes the importance of stakeholder engagement during strategy development, while ensuring “everyone understands and feels invested” in the process. 

N3XT Sports adopts this approach across its client projects, offering ongoing communications and support to employees throughout each organization. One of the objectives within the assessment phase of a sports property’s existing operations is to better understand how strategy and transformation can serve employee performance – both individually and collectively – while informing frameworks for optimal collaboration between stakeholders. 

For example, this was a crucial stage of the Professional Footballers’ Association’s (PFA) data and digital transformation, whereby N3XT Sports designed and implemented the footballers’ unions new strategic plan for data and digital transformation based on intelligence gathered from regular employee workshops and executive committee meetings. 

“The PFA’s award-winning digital transformation initiative serves both the union’s members and workforce to create a cohesive, centralized ecosystem which puts people at the heart of every decision,” explains Mounir Zok, N3XT Sports CEO. “As the industry evolves, it’s our role to support our clients’ digital transformation to respond effectively and efficiently to the changing needs and demands of all stakeholders.”

N3XT Sports’ Strategy & Consultancy department addresses different streams of strategic development, covering the critical ‘R’s of a sports organization’s strategic performance and planning. They include: (1) revenue generation & re-imagining new realities whereby expert business planning and business-model innovation help organizations anticipate and ready themselves for future market trends, and social and economic shifts; (2) re-defining organizational structure as part of a governance-framework re-design within a focused Target Operating Model (TMO), which is essential for adapting organizational structures to meet new technology integration and transformation; and (3) risk management & reputation, which involves implementing legacy planning and risk management within the organization’s clear mitigation strategies.

Adopting a TMO is the process of defining how an organization should operate and evolve its organizational structure to achieve its strategic goals. It represents the intersection of how people, processes, technology, and governance work together to deliver operational value. This identifies how work is carried out across the organization, the different roles, skills and structures required to complement its processes, how to integrate new systems, and the frameworks for measuring performance and accountability across the organization.

As part of the organizational re-design process, N3XT Sports has developed a strategic outlook for the future of sports organizations, including the different areas of transformation (see accompanying image). Whereas defining a company’s vision is always essential for developing a tailored-made strategy – whatever the organization’s key objectives – N3XT Sports supports its clients on a catalogue of interconnected touchpoints sports properties can focus on.

These include: (1) vision and strategic foresight; (2) governance planning and stakeholder alignment, (3) operations and process optimization, (4) infrastructure development and connectivity, (5) scaling the organization’s value proposition across markets, (6) talent and culture development, (7) communications and content marketing, (8) digital and data maturity, (9) sustainability and social impact, (10) commercial growth and revenue diversification, and (11) audience growth, retention, and personalization.

“Discovering the purpose behind a sports organization’s business goals is imperative to designing its business strategy,” Eloi says. “For some, this involves hosting collaborative sessions between the key stakeholders in the early stages to define their vision and goals. For others, the focus is on re-orienting their existing strategies and aligning them with current industry trends, then highlighting actions where their strategy can better serve the business – via a Target Operating Model.

“By adopting the N3XT Sports Target Operating Model, the organization’s vision becomes transferable between its tangible action plans, rather than simply “fixing” an issue. Whereas internal teams are perfectly placed to understand the intricacies of their daily operations […] strategy development requires a more collective effort, whereby the organization first addresses its barriers to innovation and commercial growth before landing on a solution to its problem.” 

Whether it is implemented at club or team level, or within a competition or federation, TOM-adoption holds a variety of benefits across the sporting ecosystem, including within multi-stakeholder entities and combining multiple operational channels. For example, Manchester United’s business model operates as a single reporting segment across the club’s sporting performance, fan engagement, and commercial operations, aligning technology and data to support its broader strategic-operating model and organizational structure. 

Speaking on his vision for the club at the time of his takeover of Manchester United’s sporting operations, Jim Ratcliffe, CEO of the INEOS petrochemicals company, who became a minority shareholder of the Premier League club in February 2024, told De Tijd: “We need to look at the club’s organization […] we have to ensure that the right people are in the right positions. Every person in management has to be world-class. And then it’s key to create a positive, supportive, friendly, and high-quality environment. That culture was lacking before. Only in such an environment can you get the best out of athletes. If that works, the results will follow automatically. That’s the plan, and I believe in it.”

Within multi-stakeholder competitions, a TOM helps organizations coordinate and align their diverse stakeholder ecosystems towards a common operational and strategic vision. For example, football’s governing body FIFA uses this approach to define its governance for global tournaments, as part of its Strategic Objectives for the Global Game: 2023-2027, outlining clear objectives and roadmaps for growing the game among its member associations (MA), tournament organizers, and other commercial stakeholders.

This approach extends to domestic competitions, too. The Premier League, for example, highlights “meaningful engagement with stakeholders” among its corporate governance principles within top-flight English football. According to its Annual Report 2023/24, this takes place through different mechanisms, including staff focus groups, knowledge-sharing sessions, and regular updates from the board. Elsewhere, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) operational model proactively helps standardize operations across its franchise teams and enhance the league’s collective value. 

Driving this initiative, the NBA’s Team Marketing & Business Operations (TMBO) group, the NBA League’s in-house consulting arm, has for the past 25 years delivered data-driven best practices and innovation across all NBA, Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), and NBA Development League teams. Jonathan Tillman, NBA Executive Vice President, Head of TMBO, says: “These best-in-class efforts helped set a gold standard for the league and the sports industry more broadly and will inspire further innovation around business operations and fan engagement moving forward.”

At N3XT Sports, we support our clients at every stage of their strategy development. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization and develop its very own tailor-made business strategy, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. We look forward to hearing more about your journey.