Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Sport is going through a “digital transformation.” To fully understand the vibrant transformation being experienced in sports due to digital disruption, we first need to consider the application of a systems thinking approach: a holistic understanding of how the whole ecosystem of sports works, including the micro-perspective of any individual part of the system, as well as the macro-perspective of how all the parts work together as part of the whole. In that context, the global “Ecosystem of sports” might be defined as an integrated system of constitutive organizations and individuals amalgamated by its foundational organization: the sport competition. With the understanding of Sport Competitions as the foundational organization at the core the ecosystem of sports, we then need to comprehend that the digital transformation of sports begins with the digitalization of the sport competition, or better yet, the transformation of the sport competition into what the MIT describes as an “Ecosystem organization” where the experience of sport participation, that is playing, refereeing, coaching, directing and every other sport related activity, including participation as a fan, is also digitized and transformed into a enjoyable consumer experience for each participant individual in the digital realm.