Results of a flash survey of sports teams from all over the world

Montréal, 16 January 2004 - Since the unfortunate outcome of the FGG's Chicago meeting last November, Rendez-Vous Montréal 2006, has gone back to organising and delivering the best ever Gay Sport and Cultural Festival for the benefit of the GLBT World Community.

Our Board, our public and private sponsors, have decided to fully support the Rendez-Vous Montréal 2006 Organising Committee and thanks to the interest of numerous GLBT sports teams from around the world, the games will take place in Montréal as scheduled. We no longer are looking back, are not sour and are rather very optimistic for the success of the event in 2006. We are simply moving forward.

An Encouraging Survey

Results of a Flash survey of sports teams from all over the world
19 December 2003 to 9 January 2004

Methodology

On 19 December 2003, the Montréal 2006 Marketing Communications Department sent a mass mailing to 845 teams and sporting organizations worldwide. The organizations that responded represent 13,603 members.

The survey had four questions on the subject of developing an international sports association for the GLBT community

Here is a summary of the results:

Question 1

Do you agree with the idea of establishing a democratic, representative international sporting association whose mission would be to develop the gay and lesbian sport movement worldwide and to offer tangible services to its members?

ANSWERS:

It is interesting to note that the vast majority of respondents would like to see the establishment of a democratically-run organization dedicated to the development of the GLBT sporting movement and offering services to members. This organization would also be responsible for producing an event every four years and would provide developmental support to GLBT sports teams.

These points are reflected in the following questions.

Question 2

Please prioritize possible mandates for this new organization from the following list:

1. Developing GLBT sports through a major international sporting event;
2. Providing membership services to local, national and continental sporting organizations;
3. Developing sporting organizations (including clubs and teams) worldwide.

ANSWERS:

Priorities varied according to the type of organization. 84.0% of respondents identified this as the priority, versus 52.9% for other organizations. The results revealed that local sports organizations clearly place a higher priority on the development of new organizations. For other organizations, it is more important to develop the sporting movement by holding an event every four years, compared with local sports organizations (82.4% versus 45.3%). Providing of services was a second choice for all types of respondents. It is clear that the three points raised in the survey are important for all existing organizations, and target the developmental priorities of the GLBT sporting movement.

Question 3

A series of eleven possible types of services an association could provide to its members were listed and respondents were asked to rate each one according to its level of importance. Ratings were given on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 was "extremely important" and 10 was "not at all important".

ANSWER:

Here is the prioritization of needs, in order, according to respondents. This order takes into consideration the data collected in Question 2:

1 - Organize a major international GLBT sporting event every four years;

• 51.5% of all respondents said that this was extremely important to them. The level of consensus was very high amongst most organizations. This is clearly the first priority for most respondents.

2 - Provide expertise and resources to develop new GLBT sporting team worldwide;

• All groups agree that this is a priority and we are seeing the beginning of a consensus on this point.

3 - Promote the various international, continental and national organizations and their activities;

• The promotion of different events is also an important factor for respondents in general.

4 - Assume coordination between international, continental and national organizations;

• The coordination of different organizational levels is also a priority for most organizations other than local ones. We can also see here the beginning of a consensus on this issue.

5 - Manage and coordinate a calendar of all key GLBT international sporting events;

• Established organizations had the strongest reaction to the idea of creating and coordinating a calendar of events. It is clear that this should be one of the priorities of the new association.

6 - Work to promote the GLBT sport movement in other sectors of society (mainstream sports, political arena, media, etc.);

• Organizations other than local unique sports organizations made this a high priority and a consensus begins to emerge within this group.

7 - Develop tools (administrative, communications, marketing and fundraising) to better serve members;

• The development of communication tools is a mid-range priority for respondents.

8 - Put in place full time permanent staff to professionally lead the new international sport association;

• This was not a very high priority for some of the smaller groups, while for the larger groups it was far more important.

 9 - Support elite and professional athletes in their coming out process;

• This was not a high priority for any group of respondents.

10 - Offer a cultural component with the international sporting event;

• There is virtually no consensus on the cultural component. For some, this component is extremely important, while for others it was not at all important. It is important to remember that respondents to the survey were from sports organizations and that their priority is sports. The cultural component may therefore be secondary for many of them.

11 - Develop clinics for coaches and officials.

• The development of clinics for coaches and officials is a low priority for respondents.

Question 4

The final question asked respondents to rate their interest in becoming a member of the new organization and, if interested, their willingness to contribute financially through membership fees.

ANSWERS:

Overall, the vast majority of organizations (83.3%) was interested in being members of a new association and were willing to contribute financially (90%).

A Think Tank

Following the survey and after a lot of exchanges with the GLBT community around the world, Montréal 2006 has invited around thirty persons - academics, GLBT athletes, representatives of sports teams, people involved in general sports - to a Think Tank on the future of GLBT sports.

The starting point for this weekend is to explore the future of the growing international GLBT sport movement. Our hope is that participants will share ideas that address the issues within the GLBT sports movement, and look for solutions to move forward.

The good news is that GLBT sports teams and clubs are forming all over the world. Participation in sport by gay and lesbian people is growing. The challenge is that, at the moment, there is no official international governing body that is proactively nurturing this growth. There is no organization developing the international GLBT sports programme, sharing information and providing direct services to clubs and teams. Presently, most service driven activities are the responsibility of a host organization to deliver.

Although many people are attending the Think Tank in a personal capacity, collectively as a group they represent an enormous spectrum of experience in the world of sport. Some have years of experience in the traditional Olympic model and many others come from years of involvement in the gay sports world. While many western countries continue to make huge strides in human rights issues for gay people, the world of sport remains one of the last parts of any society to change. The world of amateur, university and recreational sport all still have real issues of homophobia. Sport truly is the last closet. Even in 2004, there are only a few openly gay professional athletes and those who are out mostly came out only after their careers were over for fear of repercussions.

There is a very real need for GLBT sport movement. GLBT sport teams and clubs around the world continue to provide a safe place for GLBT people to play sport. And over time, there has been a small integration of sorts between the traditional and gay worlds of sport. Some gay teams now play in traditional sport leagues against heterosexual competitors, and some heterosexual athletes participate in the gay sport competitions. But many challenges remain. Major progress still remains to truly make sport in general safe for the GLBT community. And both traditional sport and gay sport share the challenge of enticing more women to compete. Another objective this weekend will be to explore the strengths and the weaknesses form both the traditional Olympic sport model and the GLBT model. What could a new model look like? What values and mission would a new association serve? What would be the best governance structure to serve the international GLBT sport movement?

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Source:

Tom Czerniecki
Marketing Communications Director
Montréal 2006
(514) 252-5858 ext. 5860
Cell. (514) 668-3439
tomcz@montreal2006.org