The chaos has numbers: what our research across 13 countries revealed

The internal chaos of sports organizations is usually told through anecdotes. We wanted to measure it. We ran research with professionals and organizations across 13 countries, and the same patterns repeat regardless of league, country or budget.

What the data says

• 69% of organizations operate without standardized processes.
• 56% report coordination problems between departments.
• Nearly all of them work with scattered tools: information spread across chats, spreadsheets and PDFs shared by email.

More investment, more data and more technology than ever — and yet the way people work still depends on individual memory and goodwill.

The most expensive number never shows up in a survey

Every coaching staff change wipes out what was built. Knowledge lives in people's heads, not in the structure — so when someone leaves, it leaves with them. In an industry where turnover is the norm, that means starting from zero every season.

The problem isn't a lack of tools. It's a lack of connected systems.

What to do about it

The answer isn't buying more software. It's building the system that connects what you already have: naming your key processes, giving them a single home, and getting the whole staff working from that same base. You don't need to change everything — start with what hurts the most.