Although it would naturally help a lot, you don’t need to be super financially endowed like those rich football club owners to get into the business of sport, although it must perhaps be said that for these guys it’s not really about making money with these businesses of theirs. For them it’s more like a hobby or a project to give their lives some meaning since they want for nothing financially.
There is the option of trying to get some funding, but you’ll have to start small either way. For example, nobody is going to loan you all the money you need to purchase a Premier League team status, well basically because you’re a “nobody” at this stage…No offence – I’m a nobody too in that regard. You might be able to convince football enthusiasts who happen to be business tycoons to fund the founding of a football club which is to fight it out in the lower leagues maybe, and perhaps try to make its way up the ranks and one day reach the very top tier.
Either way, you should not pass up on an opportunity to get funding from somewhere, but that shouldn’t be your sole strategy. Your main strategy should be to enter into existing professional sports business structures and try to work your way up from within to a position where you will wield more influence.
This way you can focus on the one aspect forming part of the professional business of sports at which you’re supremely gifted. That’s how to get ahead in the sports business. If you take the example of someone like the great Sir Alex Fergusson, what he was was a great manager and motivator who excelled in the organisational side of the game of football.
Was Sir Alex ever the owner of a football club himself though? No he wasn’t, but the amount of power he wielded at perhaps the most popular club in world sports permeated every inch of the internal structures. He had the final word on which youth players were brought into club, all the way up to what the first team players were to wear in line with his view of how professionals should carry themselves in public when representing the club away from the football pitch.
Understand that it’s not necessarily about winning stuff – the business of professional sports is still business, no matter how big of a bubble it may appear to be operating in. At the end of the day it’s about balancing the books and making a profit – a net profit that is, in which case it may not seem forthcoming for quite a bit of time before things start looking up.
The most important thing you need to remember though if you’re to make a success out of your venture into the pro sports business is that the most money you’re likely to make is going to come from advertising. It’s the sponsors who want to advertise their products and services to the loyal spectator masses who pay the big bucks.
