Session 2

Competition Design and Financial Sustainability

PARIS // FRANCE

In this session, the focus moves to illustrating the range of contrasting competition designs and regulatory systems employed by different sports for successful competitions, outlining their respective strengths and weaknesses in the context of sport’s particular economic framework.

During this session, you will notably broaden your knowledge of:

  • the importance of achieving competitive balance/uncertainty of outcome in successful competitions, including an analysis of the effectiveness of the array of coordination, redistribution and regulatory mechanisms available to competition organisers to achieve it;
  • the specific role of licensing and financial fair play systems in achieving economic stability in a professional sport;
  • the regulation of sports labour markets, including an assessment of key policy measures, such as the role of the transfer market and salary management systems;
  • the relationship between the management of professional club and national team competitions; and
  • the function of successful sport competitions as vehicles for distributing solidarity payments to the grassroots.


Sean Hamil
Director, Birkbeck Sport Business Centre – London (UK)
MESGO Session Director

“A major responsibility of every organisation in the sport system is to play its part in the effective design and implementation of successful competitions. A key objective of the MESGO
curriculum is to expose programme participants to the absolute best practice in competition
organisation, with speakers and case studies from the world’s most successful tournaments
and leagues. MESGO is about learning from the best in competition design.”