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Post by Bomba on Dec 13, 2009 12:58:33 GMT -5
...don't know if you guys got this on the East coast, but a very interesting article by Cam Cole in yesterday's Vancouver Sun: In his new book Heatstroke, a skewering of the failing summer sports bureaucracy in Canada, former Olympic rower Michael Simonson cites a statistic relayed by Dr. Ian Reade of the University of Alberta's faculty of physical education and recreation. To paraphrase: for every dollar Sport Canada delivers to its end recipient, $8 is spent administering the expenditure, to ensure that everyone's butt is covered all the way back to Ottawa. "Private industry is not keen on bureaucracy, not keen on administration, not keen on politics -- unfortunately, for better or worse, when you look at public sector, you look at national amateur sport bodies, more often than not, you find all those elements," said Miller. www.vancouversun.com/sports/2010wintergames/Olympic+funding+with+strings+attached/2334319/story.html |
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Post by SI on Dec 13, 2009 13:05:38 GMT -5
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Post by Bomba on Dec 13, 2009 14:17:13 GMT -5
...Wow...he lambasts sport's organizations......at the very least an interesting read....
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oldbones
Full Member
And so it goes ...
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Post by oldbones on Dec 13, 2009 21:00:02 GMT -5
I don't think the private sector vs public sector skewering is fair ... I know many non-profit public sector organizations that are massively efficient in usage of funds (much better than an 8:1 ratio) and many in the private sector that are massively inefficient (Canwest Global ... national post etc ...)
Our issue is a specific institutional/sport bureaucracy .... let's not take out a huge paint brush shall we.
The wording of this is akin to "right winger pro business private sector slander-analysis" and is something I would expect from the Fraser Institute.
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Post by oldster on Dec 14, 2009 14:13:50 GMT -5
I do love this, Bomba, but I have to agree in part with oldbones. I have a strong suspicion that the sport bureaucracy in general is very top-heavy; and, as a taxpayer and "amateur" sport enthusiast, this galls me. The introduction of professional sports admin back in the 60s and 70s, while a welcome rescue from the clutches of unaccountable and sometimes aristocratic amateur sport bodies, has arguably done much more to support the careers of sport administrators than it has the careers of athletes. I don't think this was part of the original vision, and I don't think it should be thought of as inevitable. And, I don't think we can count on the private sector to provide either a better admin model or stable, accountable funding. Vis a vis private companies, we are all just customers or, in a small minority of cases, stockholders. Vis a vis our agencies of our own state, however, we are citizens; which means, theoretically at least, we have more robust means of demanding accountability and shaping policy.
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Post by oldlegs on Dec 14, 2009 16:07:47 GMT -5
While I agree with the thrust of the arguments here, I will quibble with one tangent here. Having worked with Can West Global numerous times over the past decade, to state they are "inefficient" is completely off-base. Their mistake was going on a buying spree between 1998 and 2001, and then again in 2007. They overpaid for assets and consequently their debt load is swamping them, not their operational ability. Quite frankly in the TV business I can assure no broadcaster is more efficient and streamlined than Global and Alliance Atlantis (their digital TV stations). If ad revenue comes back they will be a very healthy company again, the issue is if their mortgage will swamp them before their income comes around to finance it...
The difference between Can West and the government is that the government can take on enormous debt (like it is now) but doesn't have to pay it back immediately (hence you can buy 30 year government bonds to finance their mistakes), meanwhile Can West has to satisfy shareholders and debt holders in the near term. If anything this makes them even more "efficient".
Sorry for the side-bar rant....
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Post by journeyman on Dec 16, 2009 21:41:23 GMT -5
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Post by lambert on Dec 16, 2009 22:12:29 GMT -5
Canadian Sport Organization announces national junior team: 22 athletes and 16 administrators/coaches. Not an eye will bat. I'll hazard a guess that those athletes won't be paying their own way. |
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Post by SI on Dec 17, 2009 8:55:00 GMT -5
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Post by Smithwicks on Dec 17, 2009 10:22:30 GMT -5
Canadian Sport Organization announces national junior team: 22 athletes and 16 administrators/coaches. Not an eye will bat. I'll hazard a guess that those athletes won't be paying their own way. Just look at the revenue this team and the organization will generate. Tickets will sell, paraphernalia will sell, people will travel to watch. They shouldn't pay their own way. TSN will gladly pay and show all the games because they'll make money from advertising dollars in return. The same can not be said for running. We choose to participate in a sport which doesn't generate the same interest and advertising revenue on a national level. Therefore don't expect the same kind of generosities with regard to travel funds, training, and other perks which come from richer sports. |
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pmac
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Post by pmac on Dec 17, 2009 18:47:35 GMT -5
Just look at the revenue this team and the organization will generate. Tickets will sell, paraphernalia will sell, people will travel to watch. They shouldn't pay their own way. TSN will gladly pay and show all the games because they'll make money from advertising dollars in return. The same can not be said for running. We choose to participate in a sport which doesn't generate the same interest and advertising revenue on a national level. Therefore don't expect the same kind of generosities with regard to travel funds, training, and other perks which come from richer sports. The optimist in me says this was not always the case. Let's remember it took the following to ignite any real interest in the World Juniors: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ydbATVriqA&feature=relatedHowever you can bet that team did also not pay their own way, as Hockey Canada decided to take the tournament seriously starting in 1982 under their Program of Excellence. Imagine if our governing body tried to increase success by filtering more money to the athletes as opposed to less...boggles the mind it does. |
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oldbones
Full Member
And so it goes ...
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Post by oldbones on Dec 18, 2009 11:59:48 GMT -5
My cousin plays for the Australian junior national rollerblade hockey team ... fully funded ... travels the world (26 locations throughout EU and NA over last 4 years). Yes I said Australian ... mate  It is not the sport ... it is the philosophy and the politics. |
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Post by SI on Dec 18, 2009 12:04:08 GMT -5
Is everyone intentionally missing my point or just choosing not to respond to it because it doesn't suit their agenda? Anyone who thinks that these kids haven't paid a fortune the last 10 plus years to get to this tournament is LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD. This trip is far from free.
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Post by ahutch on Dec 18, 2009 12:53:23 GMT -5
It is not the sport ... it is the philosophy and the politics. True enough, in the sense that the most recent annual budget for the Australian Sports Commission (the parent body of Skate Australia) was $222 million. More money means more funded teams. I wouldn't necessarily argue, though, that the Australians do fundamentally different things with the money they have. They also have an enormous sports bureaucracy, and their selection criteria for big meets is just as byzantine as the Canadian criteria, if not more so. (To be eligible for the Commonwealth Games, for instance, Australian athletes have to compete in at least five domestic meets, despite the fact that the Australian summer season is very badly timed relative to our ideas of when distance runners should be building base and so on. And their marathon standards for the 2008 Games were comparable to Canada's: 2:12:00 and 2:14:50 for the men.) |
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pmac
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Post by pmac on Dec 18, 2009 13:02:46 GMT -5
Is everyone intentionally missing my point or just choosing not to respond to it because it doesn't suit their agenda. Anyone who thinks that these kids haven't paid a fortune the last 10 plus years to get to this tournament is LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD. This trip is far from free. Every single one of those kids is paid a fair wage if they play in the CHL, or their education will be paid for in they're in the NCAA. And every member of that team save one (who is likely to be the top pick this year) has been drafted by an NHL team. I prefer to call it a return on an investment. Shouldn't reaching the highest levels of our sport guarantee you get some return on your investment by having travel to international competitions paid for? I argued in a previous thread that people can compete at the highest level and have full-time jobs- it just takes a mindset. But even those athletes who competed for the "evil" AAU in international competitions had their travel and accommodations (however poor) paid for in the 60s and 70s. |
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Post by oldster on Dec 18, 2009 13:18:11 GMT -5
It is not the sport ... it is the philosophy and the politics. True enough, in the sense that the most recent annual budget for the Australian Sports Commission (the parent body of Skate Australia) was $222 million. More money means more funded teams. I wouldn't necessarily argue, though, that the Australians do fundamentally different things with the money they have. They also have an enormous sports bureaucracy, and their selection criteria for big meets is just as byzantine as the Canadian criteria, if not more so. (To be eligible for the Commonwealth Games, for instance, Australian athletes have to compete in at least five domestic meets, despite the fact that the Australian summer season is very badly timed relative to our ideas of when distance runners should be building base and so on. And their marathon standards for the 2008 Games were comparable to Canada's: 2:12:00 and 2:14:50 for the men.) True enough, hutch, and Aussie athletes should be challenging their federation on these issues too. However, the Aussie federations, because they have ponied up, have a little more cred when it comes to setting selection criteria. Pmac, nicely put. You'll stole some of my thunder. SI, I take your point, but only partially. These hockey parents did not pay for their kids to become members of the national junior team specifically. They paid exactly what the parents of thousands of other minor hockey players who didn't make the team paid. In other words, they paid the admission ticket only (or made the initial "investment", as Pmac put it). The fact is, the national junior hockey team is a fully funded outfit, and not because it cost parents more to get their kids into position to make it (it is a tiny bit of gravy, anyway, beside the big bonus of a NHL draft, signing bonus, or contract). Defend the funding of national hockey teams in terms of fan interest, national pride, etc., all you want, but don't try to suggest it some kind of payback for the investment made by parents. And, besides, I've never heard AC try to defend "self-funding" in terms of the low relative costs of doing track. The only concrete defense they have ever made centres on three points: 1. Their mandate is strictly to win Olympic medals (meaning, of course, their OWN funding is determined by this criteria) and team funding falls outside that purview; 2. They don't have the money (but are working on getting it!); and 3. Self-funding is "an established international practice in the sporting and cultural fields", and they're just following along. P.S. This defense exhibits the classic "surplus rationalization" (i.e. if legit, any one of these three claims would suffice, at least nominally) characteristic of a disingenuous argument. |
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Post by blahblahblah on Dec 18, 2009 13:25:54 GMT -5
Is everyone intentionally missing my point or just choosing not to respond to it because it doesn't suit their agenda? Anyone who thinks that these kids haven't paid a fortune the last 10 plus years to get to this tournament is LIVING IN A DREAM WORLD. This trip is far from free. I think that everybody understands what you're saying but I can't help but find a little humor in the above statement. Many of the top junior prospects in this country have never worked a job (other than hockey) their whole lives before making it to the NHL. It is certainly not the athletes on the World Junior team who have payed a fortune to make it this far, it is ambitious parents who want to see their children succeed at all costs. As pmac said, it's an investment. If their child reaches a high enough level, they'll get some money playing in the CHL and guaranteed free post-secondary education, not to mention the chance to make millions in the NHL. Incentives such as these are extremely limited for distance athletes. If there were more of them, you would see more athletes sticking to distance running and Canada would be more competitive on the World stage. |
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Post by journeyman on Dec 18, 2009 22:49:23 GMT -5
The reason I posted that was more about the bureaucracy side of things. There are often complaints that we send too many administrators, etc, at the expense of athletes. But my point is that you need most of those people. You couldn't decide to fund the junior team and send all the athletes, but not send all the coaches and physios etc. You could ask them to pay their own way of course, but if they declined, what would happen? The trip would not be safe or appropriately monitored. I'm pretty sure you'll always get athletes willing to pay their own way, while the volunteer coaches and physios can turn those opportunities down much more easily. You need to pay their way to entice them to go. You don't need to do that for athletes. And that is not the fault of the governing body, so to speak.
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oldbones
Full Member
And so it goes ...
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Post by oldbones on Dec 18, 2009 23:11:46 GMT -5
What is a perfect athlete to administrator ratio for running?; sounds like the basis of many threads here |
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Post by SI on Dec 19, 2009 5:36:47 GMT -5
My point had nothing to do with the journeyman's post but the fact that these kids didn't have to pay their own way. blah, you are right, there is no comparison between the two sports so to bring up the fact that this team is funded is irrelevant to any issue about AC. Comparing the two sports is where one should find humour. My argument isn't disingenuous. It is a perfectly acceptable response to what is basically an irrelevant factoid as far as our sport is concerned. And pmac, I am talking about the 7-15 year olds and what they(THEIR FAMILIES-who is spending the money is distinction without a difference and also disingenuous, blah) have to spend.
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Post by oldster on Dec 20, 2009 16:39:23 GMT -5
SI, I didn't mean to suggest the your argument was disingenuous in any way (just wrong!). I meant the fact that AC has at different moments produced three different rationales for not funding junior teams betrays a certain dis-ingenuousness where this issue is concerned. I think they don't fund these teams simply because they've found that they can get away with it. And hockey probably could too, if it really wanted too, precisely because parents in that sport are used to forking over big bucks--and hope/expect to have it all paid back (and then some). But, hockey doesn't do it probably because it actually thinks it's WRONG to have kids paying to represent their country internationally. Imagine that!
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Post by SI on Dec 20, 2009 16:45:34 GMT -5
My whole point is that it is ridiculous to compare the two sports. One is the national past time and the other one is something that we just aren't very good at. Look at the Hockey Canada website and how much private money funds it. They don't ask the parents to pay because they don't have to. My point(if we are going to compare the two sports which is inane) STILL stands that the kids that are there did not get to that tourney on a free ride. Far from it.
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Post by oldster on Dec 20, 2009 17:58:11 GMT -5
And MY whole point is that track could do it too, although with a little more difficulty, if its priorities were in order. What parents pay to put their kids in hockey is entirely beside the point here. It's true that hockey parents pay more, for all the reasons already listed, but this has nothing to do with the fact that the national junior hockey team is fully funded and the national junior track team is not. I think your original point was a non sequitur, which is why it provoked no response initially. It may not be entirely relevant to compare state funding for hockey with funding for track, but not because of what the parents of each type of athlete spends on their kid's sports. And, the national team trip IS free; there is no charge to parents for it. The whole business of becoming a top junior hockey player is certainly not free, but the part about making the team and going to the tournament is free.
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Post by SI on Dec 20, 2009 20:14:17 GMT -5
Applying lessons from hockey to track is silly. Venus and Mars. That is my point.
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Post by journeyman on Dec 20, 2009 20:25:13 GMT -5
So is it silly to expect track to have the same kind of support as hockey (i.e. funded teams, corporate sponsorship)?
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Post by SI on Dec 20, 2009 20:27:30 GMT -5
I am going to assume, based on your prior postings, that is a redundant question.
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Post by oldster on Dec 20, 2009 21:07:10 GMT -5
Applying lessons from hockey to track is silly. Venus and Mars. That is my point. Generally speaking, I would have to agree. Hockey funding is certainly an unrealistic measuring stick for track here in Canada. However, I don't think AC should be let off the hook on this just because track is not hockey. In Canada NOTHING is hockey but hockey! (Wasn't there once a completely un-ironic slogan in use that went something like: Canada IS Hockey? What more is there to say!?) |
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Post by journeyman on Dec 21, 2009 11:27:52 GMT -5
I am going to assume, based on your prior postings, that is a redundant question. I'm asking what do we expect of ourselves. Oldster is right, only hockey is hockey, but it is a question of attitude. Does our sport have any sense on entitlement (I mean institutionally, not individually) or do we have a self-esteem problem? I mean from the top. Are we self-funded because we don't think we deserve it? I am not suggesting an answer one way or another. |
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Post by oldster on Dec 21, 2009 13:52:48 GMT -5
I am going to assume, based on your prior postings, that is a redundant question. I'm asking what do we expect of ourselves. Oldster is right, only hockey is hockey, but it is a question of attitude. Does our sport have any sense on entitlement (I mean institutionally, not individually) or do we have a self-esteem problem? I mean from the top. Are we self-funded because we don't think we deserve it? I am not suggesting an answer one way or another. Excellent questions, journeyman. We track people certainly have to start with a realistic assessment of where we stand in terms of both public perception and international stature; but, we can't let our culturally ingrained tendency towards self-effacement turn realism into defeatism. And I do think Canadian track people have a tendency towards defeatism, which shows up in several ways, from our acceptance of "self-funding", to our tendency to settle for age-class achievement alone. I actually don't know how many people in our sport-- well, in distance running, anyway-- sincerely believe that can put more (or any!) of our people at the top level. This kind of belief is not a sufficient condition for actually doing it, but it is a crucially necessary one. And if those of us in the sport's trenches-- athletes, coaches, and other supporters-- don't project this belief at all times and in everything we do, we can't expected to be taken seriously by other stakeholders. And a couple of clarifications: taking ourselves and our sport seriously does not entail taking the fun out of it for kids (the counter-posing of "fun" and excellence is itself an example of defeatism); and, aiming high does not mean simply imposing "world class" qualification standards on our senior runners and leaving it at that. |
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Post by SI on Jan 5, 2010 8:06:36 GMT -5
An example of the rubber hitting the road in the track vs hockey discussion. We are renovating the Wayne Gretzky Sports Centre in Brantford to the tune of 38 million dollars. Work started last summer and, somehow, they have managed to go 11 million over budget. Cuts have to be made and that process has started: "-Change a formula of three rinks with 300 seats each and one with no seats to four rinks with 300 seats each. Eliminate second floor with office space and running track. Savings of more than $3 million." www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2246350We shouldn't feel bad, however, because local football and baseball enthusiasts are already up in arms because some of their fields have been eliminated too. |
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