LA28: A Startup for New Sports
Five new sports are launching at the LA28 Games, including flag football. How introducing a new Olympic sport is like building a startup.
The first thing the manager had to do was sort out the organizational structure, budget, and resources for the unit. Then the people had to be hired—technicians and operations leaders, subject-matter experts, administrative, and other staff. Of course, there were regular meetings to attend with the board, investors, and partners. And all of that would come before the first flag football game at LA28.
Launching a new Olympic sport like flag football, which debuts at LA28, involves a lot more than fielding teams and figuring out a schedule. It requires creating an entirely new operating unit inside of a larger enterprise. “Behind the scenes, it more resembles a startup environment,” says Rose Roseta, a senior recruiter in the RPO practice at Korn Ferry who is leading some of the recruiting for LA28.
Indeed, over the next two years, the flag football operation inside LA28 will center as much on building the corporate personnel infrastructure—which Roseta says will ultimately number a few dozen—as on the competition on the field. To further develop the startup metaphor, once the infrastructure is in place, the sport’s leaders will quickly ramp up operations, as if racing towards an IPO: selecting venues, securing equipment, arranging training schedules and practice times, and coordinating with stakeholders in senior leadership at LA28, the International Federation of American Football, and the NFL.
The fact that flag football is an already established sport helps with setting the foundation for the Olympics, says Noah Glantz, a managing consultant in the Global Sports practice at Korn Ferry. He likens the Olympics adding the sport to a company buying an ancillary business to supercharge growth. Olympic flag football can borrow capabilities from the existing leagues and backers, such as referees and rules and regulations, for instance. “The Olympics gives the IFAF and NFL the backing of a bigger platform to amplify the visibility of flag football,” says Glantz.
While grassroots awareness might be the goal for flag football, however, the other new sports launching at LA28, including squash and lacrosse, may have their own objectives. That’s where risk comes into play, says Garrick Yu, co-lead of the Global Sports practice and head of sports research and analytics at Korn Ferry. Just as the sometimes competing agendas of parties in a merger or acquisition must be aligned to create shareholder value, Yu says, it’s imperative to align goals and strategic vision when introducing a new Olympic sport. That’s particularly relevant in the case of flag football, whose launch has to serve two very powerful partners with established brands and reputations: the Olympics and the NFL.
Aside from typical concerns like cost overruns and supply-chain constraints, launching a new Olympic sport has one distinct challenge that makes it unique, says Michele Capra, a senior client partner and vice president in the RPO practice at Korn Ferry—the impossibility of pressure-testing the product and fixing any bugs beforehand. “LA28 can’t change its dates, so the opportunity to see flaws in the process before it is introduced is limited,” says Capra. In that kind of environment, she says, there’s nothing beta about launching a new Olympic sport. “It has to be a finished product by kickoff.”
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