TOP TEAM
Can you
SIMON MORTON – HEAD OF EVENTS DEPARTMENT display
first para
S
imon Morton came to UK Sport in a differ-
from the International Badmin- ent style
ton Federation. As head of mar- and put big
keting he dealt with the sport’s global quote marks
sponsorship, TV rights and production at begin-
The department ensures that and gained invaluable experience in ning and
the hosting of an event engages bidding for event staging contracts. end of his
people, spectators and volunteers speech?
I lead a team of six event consultants and also look after
event strategies for British Cycling and the Great Britain
LUCY CRICKMORE – EVENTS CONSULTANT Boccia Federation.
My role is to oversee the team’s consultancy work by risk
W
ith a background in sports assessing individual events and looking at how successful
event management, Lucy strategies could be embedded into other organising commit-
Crickmore is one of a team tees. Managing financial investment is a big part of this remit.
of three events consultants that work
across a portfolio of Olympic, Paralym-
Long-term event hosting strategies help to
pic and Commonwealth sports.
assess why an event should be held in the
I’m office-based but the job can take the consulting team UK and how best to bid for and secure it
all over the UK depending where an event is taking place.
“Our main function is to offer NGBs technical support and UK Sport has a large major event programme in the run up
guidance in terms of event delivery, which includes help to 2012 and budgets are likely to fluctuate in each of these
with managing the budget and overseeing the main decision- events, which means we are continually challenging, manag-
making aspects of hosting the event. ing and forecasting financial spend across the portfolio. We
One of the things I love about this job is that it’s so also manage and maintain links with our sporting partners,
diverse. You could be working with an incredibly experienced which include the NGBs of sport as well as the city, regional
sport, with a huge budget and an events team that has suc- and national partners which help to host and fund the
cessfully delivered major international events for events. This partner network is increasingly important to
a number of years or a small NGB run by a network of make sure the events have a sound financial basis.
volunteers that have little or no event management The team develops long-term event hosting strategies with
and delivery experience. its lead sports, which help to assess why the events should
One event that I’m working on at the moment is the Goal be held in the UK and how best to bid for and secure them.
Ball World Championships, which will be hosted in Shef- The consultants make lottery funding recommendations and
field this year. It’s the first major event of its kind hosted in monitor this support during the life cycle of the event. We
the UK and 16 men’s and 12 women’s teams will compete. A iron out problems early on with business planning, budgeting,
largely volunteer-led Paralympic sport, Goal Ball is played forecasting and benchmarking and risk assess to ensure that
on a volleyball court by visually impaired athletes who roll we are not bidding for events that may be undeliverable.
a ball with a bell in the middle of it towards the goal at We also offer technical support to NGBs that may not be
either end of the court. set up to stage a major event, as these can evolve into mas-
We will support the NGB by getting an event management sive enterprises compared with the amateur competitions
company on board and linking it up with the other delivery they were 10-15 years ago. NGBs can now find themselves
partners. The successful delivery of the event will help to up- dealing with multi-million pound budgets and the financial
skill the NGB, raise the profile of the sport and give officials and foreign currency risks that go with them, as well as
vital experience of working with athletes who have varying massively increased TV production, rights and coverage. We
levels of visual impairment, which will help them fill vital also help NGBs deal with complex issues relating to venue
roles at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. specification and an increased number of spectators.
22 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital Issue 1 2010 © cybertrek 2010
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