“Policy Analysis in Sport Management” Revisited: A Critique and Discussion

Abstract

Published in the Journal of Sport Management in 1995, Laurence Chalip’s “Policy Analysis in Sport Management” persuasively argued that effective sport managers should equip themselves with a particular set of critical policy analysis tools. Since that time, the study of sport policy has gained a strong foothold in the academic literature, but sport policy analysis is not often linked to managerial practice. This paper offers a critique and synthesis of a number of policy analysis frameworks (including Chalip’s), and offers a refreshed set of robust and pragmatic analytical precepts that sport managers might employ to understand and influence policymaking. Following Chalip’s original approach, this paper relies on an empirical case involving the development of national sport policy (the United States’ Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and SafeSport Authorization Act) to illustrate and support its broader arguments.