Operational Agility in Sports:
Streamlining the Matchday Business Ecosystem
Ever wondered what turns someone from a spectator into a loyal fan? Or what makes a matchday, golf experience, gym visit or community sports club feel smooth, memorable and worth coming back to?
Sport is more than what happens on the pitch. The experience of fans, visitors and participants is shaped by hundreds of operational decisions before, during and after an event.
Creating Seamless Sport Experiences
This Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) is jointly coordinated by NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (NHLS), Howest University of Applied Sciences (HOWEST) and Polytechnic University of Cávado and Ave (UPCA).
This BIP takes you into the world of sports operations, customer experience and agile problem-solving. Thus learning by doing, combining sport, business, data and human experience. You’ll explore how sport organisations can improve the way people move through, interact with and experience their services from arrival and participation to hospitality, facilities and fan engagement.
Get ready for an international, hands-on experience working in teams on real challenges from Frisian sport organisations. You’ll collaborate with professional football clubs, community clubs, student sport organisations and municipal sport partners to identify operational bottlenecks, improve processes and design smarter, more responsive sport experiences. Through site visits, industry input and hands-on challenges, students will transform their findings into practical recommendations that organisations can use.
Why Join?
Because modern sports organisations compete for much more than results on the pitch. They compete for attention, loyalty, participation and memorable experiences.
This BIP challenges you to think about how sport organisations can better position themselves around the needs of their fans, members and communities while improving the way their operations work. Instead of only studying sport business from the classroom, you’ll investigate real organisations, real customer journeys and real operational problems. Along the way, you’ll strengthen your problem-solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, intercultural collaboration and teamwork skills while tackling challenges that real sports organisations are facing today.
So let's get connected with students from across the RUN-EU network and build the foundations you’ll need to developing and understanding of what makes a sport organisation agile, efficient and responsive to the needs of its fans, members and participants in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Real sport. Real challenges. Real solutions.
3rd of February 2027 to 22nd of March 2027
English
To be defined by each home institution. In general terms, most students will have this RUN-EU E+BIP certified in the Diploma Supplement, as a minimal condition upon approval from their study programmes.
This BIP is open to Bachelor and Masters students with a keen interest on sport, business and data.
Please contact the International Office or RUN-EU Office at your home institution for more information.
Programme at a glance
Theme: "Sport as a service, and the journey people take through it"
Meet lecturers and peers in this welcome and kickoff session to the BIP.
After Session 1, students will work on individual basis to prepare the following for Session 2:
Part A: Individual Sport Experience Scan
- Individually, students analyse the customer experience of a sport organisation in your own country.
Part B: Virtual Sport Operations Simulation and Insight Note
- Before travelling to Leeuwarden, students take control of a sports organisation in a virtual operations simulation.
- A few hours in a simulation put you in a much more knowledgeable situation.
Theme: "Diagnosing operational agility, and going in prepared"
A long queue is a symptom. Something behind it is the cause.
This session teaches you how to look past what customers complain about and find what's actually going wrong in the operation. You'll learn service blueprinting, the technique that splits what the customer sees from what happens behind the scenes and how to spot the constraint that's holding everything up. You'll also learn what counts as evidence, and how to measure it properly.
Each team prepares for their stakeholder field investigation and develops the following:
• Preliminary stakeholder analysis
• Initial customer/participant journey
• Assumptions to investigate
• Observation checklist
• Stakeholder interview questions
• Customer/participant interview questions
• International benchmark examples
• Research responsibilities within the team
• Initial challenge statement
Programme Outline:
Monday 08 March 2027 09:00-17:00 CET
Theme: "Experience It"
Highlights: Welcome, Leeuwarden Student Sport, culture exchange, stakeholder challenge marketplace and Design Based Education.
Tuesday 09 March 2027 09:00-17:00 CET
Theme: "Measure It"
Highlights: Sports Data Guest lecture, Stadium visit, field research, stakeholder visits and persona/pain-point synthesis.
Wednesday 09 March 2027 09:00-17:00 CET
Theme: "Diagnose and Ideate"
Highlights: KPI development and concept ideation, Community club LAC Frisia, dinner.
Thursday 10 March 2027 09:00-17:00 CET
Theme: "Make It"
Highlights: Golf Club experience, prototype build sprint, testing and stakeholder feedback.
Friday 11 March 2027 09:00-15:00 CET
Theme: "Prove It"
Highlights: Frisian Sports Experience Expo, final pitches, evaluation and reflection.
During the in-person week, teams independently develop and finalise their Seamless Sport Experience Playbook and prototype outside the scheduled contact programme. This includes being "The Digital Undercover" for a municipal sport body and a volunteer athletics club whereby the online journey may well be the bottleneck. These two teams might end up with the sharpest evidence of anyone.
Activities: Analysing collected evidence, refining journey maps and service blueprints, developing prototypes, responding to feedback, preparing the implementation roadmap, defining KPIs and preparing the final gallery presentation.
Reflections and exchanges of learning experiences leading to personal and professional development. Final submission on the 22nd of March 2027 closes the programme.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme, learners will be able to:
- Analyse the operational processes supporting the delivery of sport experiences and identify operational bottlenecks and areas of friction.
- Develop customer journey maps and service blueprints that connect customer-facing experiences with underlying organisational processes.
- Collect and critically interpret evidence from real sport environments through observation, stakeholder interaction and customer/participant feedback.
- Apply Design-Based Education and creative problem-solving methods to authentic sport-business challenges.
- Design and prototype practical operational improvements that create value for both the sport organisation and its customers, participants, members or supporters.
- Develop realistic implementation recommendations supported by responsibilities, timelines and measurable performance indicators.
- Collaborate effectively in multidisciplinary and intercultural teams and build professional relationships with external stakeholders.
- Communicate evidence-based operational recommendations professionally to sport organisations and industry representatives.
- Reflect critically on their individual contribution, intercultural collaboration and professional development.
Selection criteria
Selection will be based on interest and motivation for the topic.
Involved organisations and persons
Howest University of Applied Sciences
Partner Organisation- Rudi Fredericq (Instructor)
Leeuwarden Student Sport
- Anton van der Sluis (Regional Stakeholder)
Leeuwarder Golfclub
- Paul Roman (Regional Stakeholder)
NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
Lead Organisation, Host Organisation- Kai Gozo (Lead Instructor)
- Sanda Ntayiya (Instructor)
Polytechnic University of Cávado and Ave
Partner Organisation- Luis Rodrigues (Instructor)
- Marco Silva (Instructor)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them. Grant Agreement Number: 101124674
