The 7th Bayreuth Sport Talk by the Sportökonomie Uni Bayreuth e.V. alumni association

Guests were the experts Jana Bernhard (Managing Director of S20 - The Sponsors’ Voice e.V.), Johanna Mühlbeyer (founder of EQUALATE Sports! and D&I speaker), and the expert Karsten Bentlage (Senior Vice President at SPORTFIVE). But it was not just the experts who had their say on the status quo, developments, and future prospects in sports business at the 7th Bayreuth Sports Talk on 6 July 2021. The audience was also actively involved in the discussions and thoroughly integrated into the round of talks. The exciting presentations and discussions were all hosted by Prof. Dr. Tim Ströbel (Professor for Marketing & Sports Management).

Since the topic of “Diversity in Sports Business” is so very multi-faceted, the Sport Talk focused mainly on the area of “Gender Diversity”.

• The speaker Johanna Mühlbeyer reported that she has been fascinated by the topic of diversity and inclusion in sports business for several years. That is why she had founded the consulting company “EQUALATE Sports!”. She believes that diversity in sports business leads to more success and a more appreciative cooperation. Consequently, she pursues the goal of creating more sustainable, innovative, and fairer systems. She is currently seeking to advance these areas with her own podcast. Mühlbeyer repeatedly notes that in football, for example, top management and committees are still almost exclusively comprised of men, and hence she advises that “Companies should spend the necessary money and time to get professional advice on the topic of diversity.”
  
  

• Meanwhile, expert Jana Bernhard has already been in charge of global marketing at the DFL subsidiary Bundesliga International GmbH, and at DFL itself, as Head of Events in Deutsche Sport-Marketing, responsible for the German sponsors and events of Olympic and Paralympic teams, before becoming Managing Director of S20. She also calls for more gender equality in sports business and, together with eight other women, would like to revolutionise the sport of football. For her, mutual exchange is very important in order to set realistic, company-specific goals, and this way facilitate (further) development.
  
  

• The third speaker, Karsten Bentlage, managed to mediate very skilfully between sports economics research/teaching and practice thanks to his particular expertise. The topic of “diversity” plays an increasingly important role for him, not just in German organisations, but also in the interaction between the various state organisations. He told us: “Authenticity and credibility are the most important factors for companies – diversity has to be on everyone’s mind. To achieve this, female role models are most important, for example, in order to keep the spotlight on successful women, and to make the idea of women in leadership positions increasingly self-evident.”

The conclusion of this semester’s highly entertaining Sports Talk was that the topic area of gender diversity as a sub-area of diversity in the sports business was itself already so extensive as to make it impossible to discuss comprehensively at a single event. Moreover, what is important is to start with the holistic structure of companies and institutions to find out specifically where their respective problems lie, and how these structures will need to be redesigned in the long term.