Non-profit Sports Clubs in (Post)transitional Europe: A Sustainable Business Strategy, the Alternatives, and the Role of Stakeholders.

The article has three purposes: to present the key determinants of a sustainable business strategy for non-profit sport clubs in (post)transitional Europe; to discuss the strategic alternatives emerging in this context; and to disclose how a range of stakeholders influences the clubs' decisions on major sustainable issues. First, the author describes the production process and the specific social context, highlighting three key strategic dilemmas affecting sport clubs' economic sustainability. The second part describes the five typical strategic orientations, revealing that the stronger engagement of private sponsors in a club's strategy generally implies larger annual budgets. However, it also forces club managements to accept riskier strategies and focus more on sport results than on the local community. The article proposes a new classification of sport clubs' strategies, provides empirical insight into the development process of sport clubs from post-transitional European countries, and explains why they retained their status as non-profit organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]