Financial taxonomy of non-governmental sports organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the classification of non-governmental sports organisations (sports NGOs) based on their financial data. Empirical taxonomy with Ward's hierarchical clustering technique based on the variables acquired from financial statements of all 6,130 sports NGOs in Slovenia was used to cluster organisations into three financial design types: grassroots sports organisations, semi-professional sports NGOs, and professional sports NGOs. Clusters varied in magnitude and structure of financial items. The findings suggest that the business of grassroots sports organisations is very simple, while with semi-professional and professional sports NGOs it is more complex, and consequently such organisations are confronted with cash flow and even solvency problems. Total average revenues of grassroots sports organisations (€6,304) are approximately one tenth the size of the semi-professional sports NGOs and 192 times smaller than professional sports NGOs. As for the structure of revenues, professional sports NGOs have a larger proportion of sales revenues and much lower membership fees, donations, and other revenues. Semiprofessional sports NGOs differ from grassroots sport in a slightly higher proportion of sales revenues and donations. As regards the structure of expenses, professional sports NGOs had a 5.6 times higher proportion of labour costs in comparison with grassroots sports and 1.4 times higher compared to semi-professional sports NGOs. Such a taxonomy could present an appropriate basis for investigating the true dimension of the impact of global economic crisis on sports NGOs in a small European sports economy.