Sports Policy Analysis - Sports Participation, Sports Betting, Sports Broadcasting, Drugs in Sport - Term Paper Example

Sports policy analysis Student’s Name Institution Date Contents 1 SPORTS POLICY ANALYSIS 2 2 Conclusion /Synthesis 10 References 13 1 SPORTS POLICY ANALYSIS 1.1 Elite Sports and Sport Pathways Elite sporting is one of the key national areas that have experienced drastic changes in the Australian economy as it becomes more influential and an alleyway towards economic development. However, sporting is being influenced by myriad regeneration and economic development related problems which threaten the current situation of sporting activities. To counter such as scenario, the government requires devising strategies that centralize sports in achieving urban regeneration and economic development. To attain this, it is crucial to determine the rationale the government uses to adopt sport as a driver towards economic prosperity. The government has developed a multi-module rationale which focuses on addressing the issue with the key sport policy of hosting major sports and building stadia as a way to nurture the skill of sporting amongst the Australian citizens (Smith & Westerbeek, 2007). In essence, the country currently has numerous stadia across the country especially in Melbourne, and Madrid amongst others. Sport is indeed vital in showcasing public regeneration and economic development (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010, in their prestige model explains that sports stadia and sport events are appealing flagships especially for the reason that it attracts media interests which implicates to galvanizing public interests. They also adds that mega sporting events are fundamental drivers towards enhancing infrastructural, boosting business vitality and boosting the country’s ability to compete effectively with other countries. The Grand Prix Act of 1994 has really assisted the country move closer towards the reality (Chen, Henry & Ko, 2014). The Grand Prix was first developed by the Victorian Government aimed at exempting sporting events and their organizers from various Acts of Parliament by developing a range of legislative protection. The sport elites later developed the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) which is authorized to legally take-over specified lands, fence them and change them into sport grounds. The Australian government sets apart a significant portion of annual national income for building stadia and attracting more international games. 1.2 Sport Participation and Junior Sport Statistics show that 64% of people aged above 15 years of age indulge in sporting activities with 79% of total participants aged between 15 and 17 indicating that most people involved in sports are young people below the majority age. Empirically, researchers have shown that participation in sporting activities especially amongst the juniors is marked with discrimination and inferior junior protection during the sporting processes (Houlihan, Bloyce & Smith, 2009). The Department of Sports and Recreation has however devised numerous policies to address child protection o sports. The Australian Sports Commission’s Junior Sport Framework is a policy strategy that specifically attends to junior protection during sports. Hoye & Nicholson (2011), maintains that sporting is necessary in developing a child’s aptitude, cognitive function, and enhancing their physical growth aspects. Drew & Finch, (2016) adds that to achieve effective development in children through the sporting aspect, a favorable and more inclusive environment is necessary. Protection is therefore vital in ensuring that the juniors are not exploited in any manner and they do not suffer from any sort of abuse. The Junior Sport’s Framework requires that the junior participation to sports be based on equality and all participants must be given equal chance and opportunity to play and compete (ASC, 2015). The policy further expresses that sporting amongst the juniors should be on the basis of promoting enjoyment and promoting game skills rather than who gains and who loses. The coaches, parents, and support staff have primary responsibility in assisting the juniors achieve the learning aspect (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). Finally, the policy asserts that children below 12 years of age must be allowed to diversify and explore various fields and hence early specialization needs to be avoided (Hoye et al., 2013). The WA Sports Association in association with Child Protection and Family Support maintain that junior protection in sports can only be achieved if safe playing environments such as school environment and family environment are emphasized on. 1.3 Sport Betting A sport betting is a form of gambling that involves wagering on the outcomes of sporting events such as horse racing, soccer and cricket. The exponential growth of sports betting has led to declining levels of integrity and ethics in the Australian sports industry. Unethical practices such as match fixing, collusion, player misconduct and corruption have escalated significantly, negatively affecting sports performance (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). The dwindling levels of integrity necessitated the formulation of the sports betting policy. This policy encompasses a set of legislations and provisions focussed on protecting the integrity of sports amid the upward spiralling of stakeholders in sports betting (Hoye & Nicholson, 2011). The policy sets certain threshold codes of conduct to be adhered to by all participants in sports betting to uphold sports integrity. The integrity protection policy seeks to restore integrity through an all-inclusive approach involving various sports stakeholders including sports officials like referees, athletes and players, administrators, teams and sports regulatory bodies, and betting companies (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). These have been identified as the key pillars in the sports industry and if any milestones are to be made, none of them can be overlooked. For the sports betting policy to achieve its intended goal, it was necessary to formulate various strategies to ensure its success. Key among these was the putting in place of regulations, guidelines and legal provisions to regulate sports betting so as to streamlining any arising integrity issues. This prompted the involvement of the various sports regulatory bodies in Australia in an effort to address integrity issues in sports betting. Various professional sports regulatory bodies in Australia formed the Coalition of Major Professional Sports (COMPs) to proactively and collectively address the integrity concern orientation (Hoye et al., 2013). COMPS set up punitive measures to any stakeholder found to be infringing on the set regulations to influence sports outcomes thus compromising sports integrity. The group also championed for equitable sharing of proceeds from sports betting among various sports organisations. 1.4 Sport Broadcasting Media monopoly and the consumer exploitation is a major policy problem in media broadcasting, mainly prompted by advent of pay TV. Various broadcasters are in a rush to control sports broadcasts hence monopolise the sports media to their own advantage. The media outlets that control a large chunk of sports broadcasts are mostly focussed on the financial gains rather than the consumer welfare. The access to sports broadcast policy was put in place to address the monopoly and consumer exploitation in sports media. The core objective of this policy is to eliminate any possible dominance of the sports media landscape by any single with intent on infringing the media space of other broadcasters as far as sport broadcast is concerned (Hoye et al 2010).The access to sports broadcast policy attempts to harmoniously address its goal by considering the consumers, broadcasters, sports clubs and associations, and concerned government departments. However, consumers are arguable the biggest beneficiaries of this regulatory mechanism. The policy has mixed influence on the broadcasters and various professional sports associations as it attempts to offset the disparities previously caused by the monopoly. In line with these set of regulatory interventions, Australia has prioritised sporting activities into two groups, A and B. Group A(the anti-siphoning list) comprises of events considered to be of global, regional and local importance such as, among others, Olympic Games and FA Cup Final. A free-to-air broadcaster with maximum penetration is granted rights to live broadcast of these events failure to which a pay TV is granted the rights within a 12-week window (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). The anti-hoarding provisions prohibit any broadcaster from acquiring broadcast rights without exercising them. The policy also bars any single broadcaster from owning more than half of the rights to live broadcasting of sporting events. These measures have set a balance in sport media thus significantly alleviating monopoly. 1.5 Drugs in Sport Drug use in sports undermines the spirit of sport as a form of foul play which gives the involved players an unfair advantage over the sportsmen and women that do not use drugs. The drugs include performance boosters, synthetic hormones and narcotics. Some players have been stripped of their previous victories after investigations proved drug use to secure unfair victory (Smith and stewart, 2008). The drugs-in-sport policy attempts to address the drug menace in sports with main aim of maintaining sanity and setting a level play ground for all participants (Smith & Westerbeek, 2007). This policy spells out regulations to curb drug use by players in various sporting activities such as football and rugby. Players are at epicentre of the policy as they are the main culprits and victims of drug abuse in sports. Sports managers and associations are also incorporated in the policy`s approach since they are directly involved in the welfare of players (Drew & Finch, 2016). The government is an integral participant in this policy as various provisions such as legislations have to be in alignment with set government laws and statutes. For success of this policy, concerted efforts by various agencies are crucial. The major body is the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) which monitors the use of certain drugs and performance-boosting substances (Stewart and smith, 2010). WADA sets the criteria for testing and detection of prohibited substances among sportsmen and women. Key on the policy’s values is educating stakeholders on the need to keep sports drug-free. WADA works hand in hand with various Australian Commonwealth Government (ACG) and agencies such as Australian Football League (AFL), National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) (Stewart, Adair & Smith, 2011). These agencies test players for various drugs and banned substances in-competition and out of competition, with funding from government and sports organisations. Players and/or teams found culpable are slammed with punitive measures including match bans and prosecution. 1.6 Stadia and Events Infrastructural aspect of sports is fundamental in ensuring enhancement of sporting activities and boosting efficiency in Australia. Policies regarding such infrastructural development are therefore significant to boost the development process hence it is necessary for the policies to be developed inclusively. However, statistics ascertain that the sport policy communities form the minority of the stadia development and event management teams in which government departments and agencies form the majority. Green & Collins, (2008) in their examination of involvement of parties in stadium development and event management policing and management of Manchester Commonwealth Games determines that the major stakeholders apart from government in infrastructural management, events management and sport policing is limited to specific sport organizations consisting of Manchester City Council, and Manchester Investment and Development Agency. Smith & Westerbeek (2007), asserts that boosting development in the sport sector requires mutual involvement of government and sport organizations that possess better understanding of stadium standards and event management strategies. The government has developed a policy to allocate funds to events, stadiums and strategies and created authorities and agencies to work together with team of members from various sport organizations in stimulating the development and ensure efficacy in event management (Hoye, Nicholson & Houlihan, 2010). The allocation is impeccably necessary in ensuring consistent development and efficiency in events management. The government through its Grand Prix has ensured that all sport projects in specific locations attain the expected results irrespective of the underlying obstacles which have indeed ensured effectiveness of the projects (Deans et al 2017). It is ascertainable that currently the country has numerous professional sport stadia and through these implementation strategies the number of stadia shall increase considerably and efficiency in sport event management shall boost up. 1.7 Harassment and Discrimination Over time, people have been discriminated and harassed in various ways especially in the sport sector. The Australian Government through its sporting and recreational ministry has devised numerous ethical standards and policies to address discrimination and harassment. One of the crucial ethical perspective that harassment and discrimination is based on is sexuality (Hoye & Nicholson, 2011). In Australia, it is regarded unlawful to harass or discriminate others on the basis of their sexual orientation. The anti-discrimination legislation has the main aim of ensuring that individuals and groups can access benefits as well as services unhindered by unethical approach. The Anti-Vilification legislation under Discrimination Act (1977) of New South Wales in specific prohibits classifying people with respect to their sexual orientation, or HIV/AIDS status. In a Scenario where an individual or group of individuals have been discriminated or harassed in any manner, they are expected to raise a cause of action to relevant authority. The Australian Sports Commission in addressing anti-discrimination strategies calls for sporting organizations to appoint a Harassment Contact Officer (HCO) who shall be responsible of receiving complaints and issues on discrimination from sport team members and advise where possible (Smith & Westerbeek, 2007). In case the discrimination is from within the union representatives and/or the organizational management, either a resolution team shall be selected or external process which involves the police settled on. If the decision made by the internal resolution team is unsuccessful then a formal complaint shall be presented to the Complaint Officer through writing. The Complaint officer shall resolve the concern failure to which the complaint shall be upheld and recommendations made thereafter or the complaint is presented to sport dispute resolution body or the complainant goes the external process way (Nicholson, Kerr & Sherwood, 2015). Innate investigation shall then be done from which the conflict resolution team shall attempt to solve the dispute through mediation, arbitration, or appeal. 2 Conclusion /Synthesis In a precise manner, policy can be denoted as the set of rules regulations and guidelines formulated and adopted by a person or an organization to assist it reach its long-term goals or projections. In most cases, policies are published and guarded as one of the crucial documents to an institution, organization or an individual. Policies influence major decisions and actions of the designer since it limits boundary. From the examination presented herein, it is clear that Australian Government through the various devised policies has managed to control and manage the elite sport with effectiveness though not flawlessly. The policy towards the development of more stadia and management of events have indeed assisted a great deal in increasing enhancing economic development and boosting sporting activities concurrently. However, the effectiveness of such a practice have been adversely affected by non-inclusive stadia development and event management teams where most of the members are government agencies as the sport organization remain excluded. This has indeed decelerated the development process. The Grand Prix in essence have played a significant role in ensuring that teams are inclusive and development processes meet expected standards. In the various sporting organizations, active sport participant persists to be affected in various ways consisting of non-protection of junior participants, drug abuse, discrimination, and unethical practices such as betting. However, the government has indeed implemented various policies to counter such mischief. The Junior Sport Framework policy is indeed playing a critical role in protecting the juniors as the anti-discrimination policies play a significant role in protecting participant from harassment, inequality, discernment, and favoritism. Further, the government has devised the Drug-in-sport policy which has set regulation to curb drug use during sporting processes. Through these policies, various aspects such as integrity, honesty, transparency, and fairness have been reinstated in various sport organizations within the country. The access to sport broadcast policy has also harmonized the media processes protecting the consumers and sport clubs from exploitation by the broadcasters and other media agents. Incremental change encompasses of the small adjustments made towards achievement of a specified goal. In the Australian sports, some of the vital incremental factors to be taken into consideration include the stadia development and event management strategies. The stadia development is a small but consistent process which assists the country to make small adjustments towards achieving a more modernized and complex sporting environment. Another crucial incremental factor is the junior protection policy which aims at protecting the juniors from various sport related adversaries which consequently results in the juniors developing interest to indulge in the sporting activities and develop their sport talents. Transformational change is the process of altering current situations in a radical manner. With respect to the Australian sports, some of the transformational change aspects include policies on discrimination, drug abuse, and betting as they attempt to address the problem instantly. References Australian Sports Commission. (2015). Play Sport Australia: The Australian Sports Commission’s Participation Game Plan. 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