2. Entrepreneurship: Think, Create and Act

This chapter introduces entrepreneurship as a driver of innovation, social change, and economic development. It argues that entrepreneurship is critical for sustaining economic prosperity through job creation as it improves the competitiveness of an economy and creates new wealth. However, it is equally important to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit even inside established organisations in order to produce a high level of entrepreneurial development and a climate of innovation. The chapter further notes that entrepreneurship should be seen as a core element of sports. Sport enterprises embarking on an entrepreneurial journey for the first time are faced with the need to quickly adapt to situations. Many sport enterprises lack an awareness of the ripple effects that policies, norms, markets and numerous other factors can have on their intended actions. Learning how to ‘play the game’ means learning how to effectively react and even stimulate the ripples in order to not only survive, but thrive in creating new opportunities. The chapter leads to the question of whether sport enterprises can learn how to be entrepreneurial so as to achieve their ambitions. It concludes that entrepreneurship can be seen as a management process wherein entrepreneurial behaviour is crucial to the long-term vitality of sport enterprises.