The future of professional football

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the future of professional soccer by 2025. Scientific foresight studies on this industry do not yet exist despite its current position at a crossroads: toward further exploitation of profit potential? Or clear commitment to the traditional European Model of Sport? Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a Delphi-based scenario study. In total, 62 high-level experts from sport, business, and society evaluated the probability of occurrence, impact, and desirability of 15 future projections over at least two rounds. The resulting 5,940 quantitative judgments and 670 qualitative comments were condensed into probable scenarios and surprising wildcards. Findings – Two probable scenarios for European professional soccer by 2025 exist: in an extrapolation scenario, clubs will reap long-term gains from fulfilling public demands regarding stadium security, competitive balance, and social engagement. The less likely alternative is an extensive commercialization, including a short-term exploitation of all imaginable income sources, such as virtually augmented stadiums, financial investors, and league-owned broadcasting channels. Research limitations/implications – The findings are primarily based on qualitative research and an all-German sample. Further studies could incorporate additional quantitative data or might survey an international panel to increase predictive accuracy. Originality/value – The paper is novel in that it examines a yet unaddressed research gap – the future of professional soccer – with a common scientific foresight method that is already established in sport management research – the Delphi technique.

An exploration into the understanding of football value chain in south of Brazil

“…At the same time, there is a huge potential for the development of this chain (Merkel et al , 2016; Rossi et al , 2013). Football, as a sport industry, includes entertainment, consumer relations, human resource business, all of which reflect its importance in macroeconomic terms (Reis et al , 2014).…”

“…Football is a major business worldwide (Merkel et al , 2016; Serrano et al , 2017) that has been growing at a phenomenal rate (Milano and Chelladurai, 2011; Navarro-García et al , 2014). It comprises a group of commercial and industrial activities performed by actors who constitute the industry of this sport (Ducrey et al , 2003).…”

Omnichannel Strategy and Consumer Behavior in Distribution Channels: Trends in the Ophthalmology Sector

“…The Delphi method is widely used for forecasting, gathering information for decision-making processes, or, as in this study, obtaining views on possible strategies. Created by the RAND Corporation in the 1950s, the Delphi method has become popular for forecasting in economics (Gordon and Easson, 2005;Kauko and Palmroos, 2014), technology (Gallego and Bueno, 2014), transportation (Allen et al, 2019), social sciences (Jillson et al, 2019), sports (Merkel et al, 2016), and many other disciplines (Gupta and Clarke, 1996;Landeta, 2006;Cerè et al, 2019). It has high predictive accuracy (Rowe and Wright, 1999;Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2005).…”

Evaluation of leverage points of the Brazilian football value ecosystem using system dynamics

“…In line with this perspective, systems dynamics models have been used to analyze the Chinese sports industry and to study the behavior of demand for service in the English Premier League (Faghih & Javanmardi, 2014). Other studies prospected future scenarios for the European football league using Delphi techniques (Merkel et al, 2016). However, investigations using dynamic approaches applied to the football context (Faghih & Javanmardi, 2014), specific to this ecosystem, are incipient.…”