27 August 2026
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Building a Sports Nation, Part 1.
Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in sport. Great Britain has built one of the world’s most effective Olympic medal systems. India is developing a nationwide grassroots network. Qatar used the FIFA World Cup to accelerate its transformation into a global sports and events destination.
Each story is routinely presented as evidence of sporting success. Yet each reflects only part of the picture.
A country can win medals while participation stagnates. It can host the world’s largest events while domestic competitions remain weak. It can build world-class stadiums that struggle to find a purpose once the closing ceremony is over. It can increase public spending without developing stronger federations, better coaches or sustainable commercial revenues.
This is the central misconception behind many national sports strategies: that one visible achievement proves the wider system is working. It does not.
Behind every sustainable sports outcome sits a combination of eight capabilities:
But none can simply be ignored. The balance will differ by country and by sport, but weaknesses in one area eventually constrain progress in another.
A medal-focused strategy still depends on governance, coaching, facilities, domestic competition, athlete services and functioning talent pathways. A participation-led strategy requires accessible infrastructure, qualified delivery partners, inclusive programs and reliable data. A strategy centered on economic value needs attractive sports properties, capable organizations, engaged audiences and credible opportunities for private investment.
The countries that succeed are therefore not necessarily those that spend the most. They are those that define what success means, align their resources accordingly and understand how the different parts of the system reinforce one another.
| # | Capability | What it covers | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strategy and governance | Long-term direction, decision rights, integrity, transparency, accountability | Does the system survive a change of leadership or a scandal? |
| 2 | Participation and grassroots sport | Access, school sport, inclusion, the base of the pyramid | Who is left out, and does anyone come back next season? |
| 3 | Talent and high performance | Athlete pathways, coaching quality, athlete services, elite support | Does a talented child reliably become an international competitor? |
| 4 | Infrastructure and facilities | Adequacy, access, management and long-term use of venues | Is the facility used, or only built? |
| 5 | Competitions and events | Domestic competition structures, hosting capability, legacy planning | What remains after the closing ceremony? |
| 6 | Commercialization and investment | Revenue diversification, private investment climate, commercial capability | Is public money the seed, or the permanent business model? |
| 7 | Innovation and digital capabilities | Data-driven decisions, technology, AI, integrated systems | Does the data change a decision? |
| 8 | Collaboration across the wider ecosystem | Cooperation across government, federations, clubs, private sector, academia | Are the roles explicit and the decisions coherent? |
A successful sports system converts public and private resources into three measurable forms of value:
Countries often underperform when they prioritize visible, short-term wins while neglecting the wider system required to sustain them.
The most ambitious emerging sports nations have recognized that sport cannot be treated as an isolated policy area.
Saudi Arabia’s approach is a clear example. Sport was embedded within Vision 2030 and connected to quality of life, tourism, economic diversification, international positioning and private-sector development. The original national vision explicitly linked wider participation with the creation of additional facilities and programs, developed in partnership with the private sector.
That alignment matters because responsibility for sport rarely sits within one institution. Schools influence participation. Health authorities influence physical activity. Municipalities control community facilities. Tourism bodies pursue events. Investment ministries shape the commercial environment. Federations manage individual sports. Without a shared direction, these organizations can all be active while the national system remains fragmented.
Saudi Arabia reports that weekly youth sports participation increased from approximately 19% in 2020 to more than 29% in 2024, with a target of 40% by 2030, alongside an expansion of federations, events and private investment. The durability of these gains, particularly participation retention, institutional capability and commercial sustainability, will take longer to assess: sport becomes more powerful when it is tied to broader national outcomes rather than treated as a standalone policy or spending category.
The risk, however, is that ambition moves faster than institutional capability. Announcing competitions, acquiring properties and constructing venues can happen relatively quickly. Developing coaches, administrators, domestic leagues and participation habits takes much longer.
A national vision therefore needs more than a headline target. It requires clear ownership, measurable indicators and a mechanism for deciding what should, and should not, receive investment.
Great Britain provides one of the strongest examples of targeted high-performance investment. Supported by government and National Lottery funding, UK Sport developed a highly selective model that channels resources towards sports and athletes with credible medal potential. Ahead of Rio 2016, more than £350 million was being invested across Olympic and Paralympic sports, accompanied by specialist coaching, sports science, medicine and performance support.
The result was exceptional. Team GB won 67 medals at Rio 2016 and finished second in the Olympic medal table, its best performance for more than a century and the first time a host nation had increased its medal total at the following Summer Games.
| Games | Gold | Total medals | Medal-table rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta 1996 | 1 | 15 | 36th |
| Sydney 2000 | 11 | 28 | 10th |
| Athens 2004 | 9 | 30 | 10th |
| Beijing 2008 | 19 | 51 | 4th |
| London 2012 | 29 | 65 | 3rd |
| Rio 2016 | 27 | 67 | 2nd |
This was not accidental. Funding decisions were connected to performance evidence, athlete pathways, coaching and accountability. Direct athlete awards also reduced the financial barriers that prevent talented individuals from training at elite level.
Yet Great Britain also illustrates why elite success and broader sporting success must not be confused. The London 2012 Games were intended to inspire a sustained increase in mass participation. The event produced important regeneration, economic and volunteering benefits, but turning the emotional impact of the Games into consistent behavioral change proved far more difficult. Official and parliamentary assessments repeatedly highlighted uneven participation, infrastructure gaps and the difficulty of coordinating the many organizations involved in delivering the promised sporting legacy. Great Britain built an excellent medal machine. It did not automatically build an equally excellent participation system.
That distinction is critical for governments. A country may legitimately choose to prioritize international performance. But it should do so consciously, recognizing that medal investment, community activity and public health require different interventions, capabilities and measures of success.
One of the most common weaknesses in emerging markets is not a lack of sporting initiatives. It is the absence of a connection between them.
A ministry may fund school competitions. A federation may operate a national team. A regional authority may build an academy. A private sponsor may support a youth tournament. Individually, each initiative can be worthwhile. Collectively, they may still fail to create a pathway through which a talented child becomes a trained athlete, receives qualified coaching, enters progressively stronger competition and eventually accesses elite support.
India’s Khelo India program was designed in part to address this fragmentation. Its operating model envisaged at least 1,000 local centers, with a minimum of one in each district, using former champion athletes as coaches and mentors. The objective was to create a relatively low-cost bridge between community-level participation and structured talent development.
The published network has since surpassed 1,000 listed centers, although individual locations vary in operational status and capability. That qualification matters. Counting centers is easier than assessing the quality of coaching, athlete progression or competitive outcomes.
The lesson is not that every country needs 1,000 centers. It is that centers create value only when they form part of a coherent athlete pathway.
That system needs defined progression stages, consistent coaching standards, suitable competition, athlete welfare and transparent selection criteria. Without these elements, facilities provide places to practice sport, but not necessarily a pathway to elite performance.
Sports strategies are often most visible through buildings. A new stadium can be photographed. A high-performance center can be inaugurated. An arena can become a symbol of national ambition. Long-term utilization is less visible, and far more important.
Athens 2004 remains one of the most frequently cited warnings. The Games accelerated transport and urban development and generated considerable national pride. Yet a number of specialist venues subsequently became underused or abandoned, exposing the cost of constructing facilities around event-time requirements without sufficiently robust long-term operating models. Contemporary estimates placed the Games’ overall cost at approximately €9 billion. The problem was not that Greece hosted the Olympics. The problem was the disconnect between construction, ownership, maintenance, community demand and post-event programming.
Qatar attempted to address this more deliberately in planning for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Several stadiums were designed with modular upper tiers, and organizers stated that more than 170,000 seats would eventually be removed and repurposed. Other venue plans included schools, clinics, hotels, commercial areas and community uses.
Legacy is created when the future operator, funding, programming, users and timeline are agreed, and subsequently delivered. A national infrastructure plan should therefore begin with demand: who will use the facility, how often, for which sports, at what price and under whose responsibility? Only then should the building be designed.
The value of a major event lies not only in what it delivers during the tournament, but in what the country can continue doing afterwards. Major events can compress decades of investment into a few years. They can create deadlines, attract international expertise, accelerate transport projects and change global perceptions of a country. But an event cannot substitute for a domestic sports ecosystem.
Qatar has continued using its World Cup infrastructure to host the AFC Asian Cup, World Aquatics Championships, Formula 1, MotoGP, tennis and other international competitions. Five World Cup stadiums were also being used by domestic football, while seven were redeployed for the Asian Cup.
This illustrates the potential of an event portfolio rather than a one-event strategy. Facilities, operational capabilities and international relationships can be reused across multiple properties.
Morocco offers a different lesson: persistence. After several unsuccessful FIFA World Cup bids, the country continued developing football infrastructure, governance and international-event capabilities before securing the 2030 tournament as a co-host. Rather than treating each failed bid as a standalone defeat, Morocco used a multi-decade process to strengthen its underlying position.
Yet governments should resist assuming that hosting automatically produces participation, tourism or investment. These outcomes need their own programs, budgets and accountability. A tournament can focus attention. It cannot force federations to improve, schools to open their facilities or private investors to fund domestic leagues.
The correct question is therefore not simply: Can we host this event? It is: Which capabilities will remain after it, and how will they be used?
Many emerging sports ecosystems are overwhelmingly dependent on government funding. That may be necessary during the early stages of development. Federations need basic operating capacity. Facilities require capital. Athletes may need direct support. New competitions often cannot immediately sustain themselves commercially. The danger begins when public funding becomes the permanent business model.
A resilient sports economy requires multiple revenue sources: sponsorship, media, ticketing, licensing, tourism, events, memberships, digital products and private investment. Not every sport will become commercially self-sufficient, nor should public value be measured solely through financial return. But organizations that rely entirely on annual state allocations have little incentive to develop audiences, improve products or demonstrate impact.
Rwanda’s use of the ‘Visit Rwanda’ brand illustrates how sport can be connected to a wider economic proposition. Partnerships with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich were accompanied by event hosting and international sports diplomacy. The objective extended beyond sponsorship exposure: the partnerships were intended to support tourism positioning, investment promotion and international visibility.
The model is not without controversy, particularly around cost, transparency and the appropriate use of public funds. That is precisely why measurement matters. The strategic value of such partnerships should be assessed through tourism demand, investment leads, market reach and reputation, not by media exposure value alone.
The wider lesson is that commercial activity should support defined national objectives. Sponsorship is not automatically a strategy, just as government spending is not automatically an investment.
Governments increasingly invest in sports apps, athlete-monitoring systems, analytics and artificial intelligence. Yet technology does not strengthen a sports system simply because it has been introduced.
Too often, digitalization starts with a platform rather than a problem. Ministries, federations and local authorities continue to operate separate databases; athletes generate data that coaches cannot interpret; and facility-booking systems collect utilization figures that never influence operating hours or investment decisions. Technology then digitizes fragmentation rather than resolving it.
Australia shows how data can connect a high-performance system. The Australian Institute of Sport’s national Athlete Management System brings together training, competition, injury, wellbeing and performance information across sports organizations. Shared data allow coaches, medical teams and performance specialists to identify risks, coordinate athlete support and make more consistent decisions across the national system.
Singapore applies the same principle to mass participation. Its ActiveSG platform integrates memberships, programs and public-facility bookings, making sport easier to access while giving authorities better insight into demand, utilization and participation patterns. This can inform whether governments should build a new facility, extend opening hours or redirect programs towards underserved communities.
The distinction is important: a conventional system counts athletes, facilities and registrations. A digitally mature system can track whether people return, whether facilities are used, whether athletes progress and whether investment produces results.
Australia and Singapore demonstrate that digital leadership is not defined by the number of platforms launched, but by whether shared data improve athlete support, facility access and investment decisions. Leading sports nations do not simply collect more data, they integrate it into strategic decision-making.
No ministry controls the full sports system. National and local government, Olympic committees, federations, clubs, schools, universities, healthcare providers, tourism bodies, investors, sponsors and media companies all hold part of it.
This creates an uncomfortable reality: even an excellent national strategy can fail if the institutions responsible for implementing it do not share incentives, information or decision rights.
The Netherlands illustrates the value of this networked approach. Municipalities provide much of the local infrastructure, community clubs deliver participation, federations organize individual sports, and the Dutch Olympic Committee NOC NSF coordinates national priorities and elite performance. The model is not perfectly centralized, its strength lies in clearly distributed roles across a mature ecosystem.
The strongest systems establish these clear responsibilities. They define who funds what, who owns facilities, who manages athlete pathways, who measures participation and who is accountable for event legacy. They create forums in which stakeholders can resolve overlaps rather than protect them. The weakest systems add new committees, programs and buildings without addressing the underlying fragmentation.
Collaboration does not mean that every stakeholder receives equal influence or funding. It means that the roles are explicit and the decisions coherent.
Governments frequently ask which country they should benchmark or emulate. The more useful answer is that no national model should be copied in full, only lessons to be learned.
Great Britain demonstrates the power of targeted high-performance investment. Saudi Arabia shows the value of embedding sport in a wider national transformation agenda. India illustrates the importance of connecting grassroots programs to athlete pathways. Qatar demonstrates how events can accelerate infrastructure and international positioning, while Singapore illustrates how digital platforms can improve public access and facility utilization. Each offers lessons, but none provides a complete model.
The real strategic choice is whether a country wants to develop sport holistically or concentrate its resources selectively:
Both models can work. What does not work is pursuing every objective, funding every sport and hosting every available event without understanding the trade-offs.
The true test of a sports strategy begins after the medal ceremony, the stadium opening and the final whistle. A country becomes a sustainable sports nation when the system continues producing value after the original investment, event or political leadership has passed.
That requires clarity of ambition. Accessible participation. Connected talent pathways. Utilized infrastructure. Meaningful competitions. Diversified investment. Useful technology. And institutions capable of working together.
Excellence in one area can create a moment of success. A deliberate combination of capabilities, across the whole ecosystem or around selected priority sports, builds something more durable: a sports nation capable of producing results repeatedly, efficiently and sustainably.
The article series and engagement is led by Marc Esterer, Director Business Development, and Alexander Strulak, Strategic Partnerships Advisor & Communications Manager.
Sources: FIFA (Qatar 2022 Sustainability and Stadium Legacy; Appointment of Morocco, Portugal and Spain as 2030 World Cup Hosts); Saudi Vision 2030 (Annual Report 2024; Quality of Life Programme); UK Sport (How UK Sport Funding Works; Historical Funding Figures; Annual Report 2016/17); UK Parliament (London 2012 Sporting Legacy Briefing; Grassroots Participation Inquiry); Khelo India (Official Programme; India Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports); Visit Rwanda (Official Sports Partnerships); Athens Journal of Sports and IOC (Post-Olympic Use of Venues); NOC NSF (Dutch Sports in Facts and Figures); Australia Sports Commission (Annual Report 2022/23); Sport Singapore (MyActiveSG).
A. Strulak writes on sports business, commercial strategy and the economics of rights. Vinciamo Sports, Sport. Reimagined.
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