The Public Management of Sport

Abstract

This article proposes that sport policy problems exhibit the characteristics of ‘wicked problems’, in that they are difficult to define/interpret, are based in competing/uncertain causes, and generate further issues when solutions are applied. Drawing from the existing body of empirical work in Australia, Canada, the UK and New Zealand, it is further suggested that the modernization of government's partner national sport organizations (NSOs) is effectively wicked because it results in their commercialization and introduces challenges, dilemmas and tradeoffs. Possible consequences for central government agencies include a further emphasis towards elite sport, and a challenge of ensuring the responsiveness of NSOs in relation to diversity issues and their traditional representative functions. The author speculates on the paradox in the government expectation that commercialized NSOs can be repositories of ‘social capital’.