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Submission by Strongarm Boxing & Fitness Pty Ltd on 04 November 2008.
1. Ensure Australia's continued elite sporting success
Although operating at the community level rather than in the environment of elite sport, commercial fitness centres and clubs (like Strongarm) could become an important part of a system underpinning Australia’s future international sporting success. They could play an increased role in providing young Australians with the background physical abilities and skills needed to support eventual transition to elite training programs. According to a report published in 2006 by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, there are approximately 1200 fitness centres in Australia, employing about 20,000 registered fitness professionals. This could provide a powerful network for identifying physically gifted individuals and bringing them to the attention of relevant sports authorities. At face value, the large number of fitness centres in Australia could be seen as significant duplication. However, many Australians still have very low levels of physical activity, and more fitness centres may eventually be needed to overcome the problem. The existing fitness centres are by no means identical to one another. Some specialise in resistance training, while others are more concerned with cardio-respiratory fitness. There are centres that are open only to women. Strongarm has a core theme of boxing. Market pressures demand that the centres adopt approaches that make them unique. As a result, there is not really a great deal of duplication, but there is considerable diversity, and this offers Australians a range of different pathways to the achievement of their fitness goals. Nevertheless, there is potential for greater cooperation between fitness centres to ensure that effective approaches are widely available to consumers. For example, Strongarm is planning to make Box’Tag “packages” of various levels commercially available to other fitness centres and clubs. It is hoped that this will allow them to cater for a new clientele while also stimulating the uptake of Box’Tag. It may be possible to broaden national efforts in talent development (as opposed to just talent identification) by involving commercial organisations. Strongarm is attempting to run a very professional program to build the Box’Tag skills of its members, and to ensure their enjoyment of the activity. It is essentially developing a committed talent base and is devoting significant resources to the effort. Fostering initiatives of this type could add a new dimension to the national talent development process. The experience of Strongarm over the past three years has shown that sports science and technology can have vital effects in encouraging young people to make the sustained commitment that provides the basis for eventual achievement of sporting excellence. Box’Tag makes use of automated scoring and performance analysis technology that increases the attractiveness of the activity to the modern generation. The technology has been developed by the AIS and its research partners for use in the AIS Boxing program, but has proven to be valuable also for the Box’Tag application. In supporting its use in that application, AIS and other researchers have interacted with Box’Tag participants in very productive ways. The presence of respected sporting mentors is another factor that can influence the enthusiasm and persistence of young people and consequently their ability to eventually reach high levels of skill and physical ability. Strongarm has been fortunate in that several internationally prominent Australian boxers and trainers have taken a real interest in Box’Tag. Their regular attendance of training sessions and competitions, and their willingness to offer active advice, has certainly been a major stimulus to the development of many Box’Tag participants.
2. Better place sport and physical activity as a key component of the Government's preventative health approach
Traditionally, grassroots and community sport and physical activity programs have depended heavily on voluntary labour. In recent years, the limitations of this approach have become evident as the number of available volunteers has declined and demand for flexibility of training times has increased. There is a need to progressively professionalise the delivery of community sport and physical activity programs, and this could be achieved by encouraging commercial providers to invest their own funds in such initiatives. The development of public-private partnerships is worth exploring. The Active After-School Communities program administered by the Australian Sports Commission has been a good start in that direction, and Strongarm is a keen participant in it. However, there could be benefit in extending the concept to cover a wider range of ages, settings other than schools, more focused sports programs and longer-term arrangements. Greater involvement of corporate entities in community sport and physical activity could make participation easier by providing a range of options regarding the time of involvement, since it would allow sessions to be held at various times throughout a day. For example, Strongarm is open six days per week, with the first class starting at 6am and the last finishing at about 9pm. If clients prefer, they can pay fees on a sessional basis, rather than having to commit to long-term membership contracts. This helps to overcome barriers arising from the unpredictability of the requirements associated with many contemporary jobs. To remove other potential barriers to participation, activities need to be tailored according to age, stage of development and gender, with a continuum of opportunities from the non-competitive to the highly competitive. It is even possible to make use of web technologies so that self-managed physical activity can be integrated with more formalised approaches. There is a case for designing new community sports and physical activities that align with the cultural backgrounds and interests of particular groups. To date, almost 40% of Box’Tag contestants have been women, and the sport is also attractive to indigenous people, perhaps due to the long history of success of indigenous athletes in conventional boxing. The sport could be adapted to make it suitable for disabled athletes. Uptake could be accelerated if resources were available to help establish the sport in several different locations (rather than it continuing to be restricted largely to one centre in southern Sydney). Federal Government communication of positive health messages through the promotion of sport might be assisted by establishment of a national physical activity register allowing people to enter information about their exercise commitments and receive reinforcement and advice. High-profile athletes could be recruited to help advertise the register. It might even be possible to have the overall activity outcomes influence Government funding for elite sport, so that people could see their own exercise involvement as contributing in some way to Australian performance at the Olympic Games and other international events. Publicising any increases in national commitment to exercise might lead to a momentum that could have snowballing effect. Subsidising or rewarding development of innovative sport and physical activity programs would be another means by which the Government could convey the message that it sees exercise as a vital part of its preventative health approach.
3. Strengthen pathways from junior sport to grassroots community sport right through to elite and professional sport
Athlete and coach pathways appear to differ considerably between sports, with gaps being much more obvious in some cases. In general, there would seem to be merit in having the various stages of the pathway linked through a formal structure or plan, so that there are clear opportunities for natural progression, rather than a reliance on chance recognition of talent or ad hoc arrangements. Since Box’Tag is in the very early stages of development as a sport, the same is true of the athlete and coach pathways associated with it. However, a lot thought has been given to these pathways. It is intended to set up a structure that will involve recognition of athletes as having achieved specific levels of competence, based primarily on expert assessment of their competition performance. Progression through the levels will be facilitated by adherence to basic principles of skill acquisition and physical preparation, and by interaction with experienced coaches drawn from the conventional boxing community. As athletes attain higher levels, they will be eligible to take part in more major contests and will receive discounts on their club membership. While Strongarm is concentrating its attention on developing Box’Tag as a sport in its own right, there have already been instances in which people who started in Box’Tag have chosen to move into conventional amateur boxing. The existence of this “talent transfer” pathway needs to be recognised and linkages put in place to enable a smooth transition. In terms of coach pathways, the activities of Strongarm have so far been confined to identifying and mentoring a few individuals who seem to have appropriate philosophies, technical competencies and communication skills. Most of the people concerned have undergone basic coaching accreditation courses run through Boxing NSW, but plans are being made to provide them with more specialised training concentrated on Box’Tag requirements. Already, it has become clear that they can benefit greatly from the practical education that comes from working with expert boxing coaches. For sport as a whole, an apprenticeship system such as that incorporated into the scholarship coaching scheme that presently operates across a number of sports at the AIS would seem to offer many advantages, both for immediate coach development and for the longer-term establishment of linkages between grassroots and elite components of particular sports. Having elite coaches occasionally visit community sport settings could also help to build those linkages. Support and recognition for the coaches, officials, administrators and volunteers who provide the foundations for community sport could be enhanced partly by encouragement of entrepreneurial approaches to community sport delivery. Income generated through such approaches could be used to enable at least some recompense for effort and for costs incurred, and might even add to the overall quality of the sport programs. This is the concept currently being pursued by Strongarm. National awards for outstanding contributions to community sport might also be worth considering. The awards could be based on nominations from clubs, and could be made at the same time as the present elite coaching awards. Strongarm has no direct experience that would enable it to suggest ways to improve relationships between major national sporting bodies to produce better outcomes at key multi-sport competitions.
4. Maintain Australia's cutting edge approach to sports science, research and technology
Strongarm has been both a beneficiary and a supporter of Australia’s cutting edge approach to sports science, research and technology. Box’Tag makes use of a fully automated scoring system for judging contests. The system has been developed by the AIS and several of its research partners. There is potential for it to be adopted as the scoring mechanism for major international amateur boxing competitions, but proving of its accuracy and robustness is first required. For the past three years, Box’Tag events have provided opportunities for testing of increasingly sophisticated versions of the system. Feedback provided by Strongarm has been valuable to the technology developers. During the developmental process, Strongarm has established an enormously positive (albeit informal) relationship with the Applied Research Centre of the AIS. This Centre has shown great ability to bring research and industry groups together to solve challenging problems related to the boxing technology. Several engineering companies, and even the CSIRO, have been recruited to the effort and have been major contributors to progress. Representatives of all of these organisations have attended Box’Tag competitions to evaluate the performance of the technology. The commitment of the developmental team has been unwavering. The team has seen Strongarm as far more than just a provider of a convenient testing site and has collaborated with the company in very effective ways. This has contributed significantly to the overall advancement of Box’Tag. Strongarm is aware that the AIS has been able to implement similar collaborative approaches to a range of other research projects. The AIS is clearly playing a leadership role in building Australia’s ability to carry out groundbreaking work in the fields of sports science, research and technology. The combination of creative scientific expertise from various sources has already produced some excellent outcomes, and the potential for further achievement is limited only by the availability of resources. It is recommended that the AIS should be given responsibility for establishing and coordinating a much upgraded national network for sport research and technology development.
5. Identify opportunities to increase and diversify the funding base for sport through corporate sponsorship, media and any recommended reforms, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the Australian Sports Foundation
One possible method for diversifying the funding base for sport is the commercialisation of innovative sports products. This possibility seems not to have been vigorously pursued to this stage. There have undoubtedly been good reasons for the lack of action. The AIS and other sports institutes are generally focused on gaining performance advantages for Australian athletes, and are concerned by the prospect of losing these through wide commercial dissemination of research outcomes. It is also seen as important that the researchers should not become distracted by commercial considerations. Furthermore, the items developed by the AIS and other institutes are often serviceable prototypes that would require very significant investment to make them market-ready. Commercialisation could be approached in ways that would avoid most of the problems. Care could be taken to select products that have limited scope to yield an ongoing performance advantage. The time typically needed to achieve commercialisation would mean that Australian coaches could have a significant period of benefit before wider distribution of the product, and in fact the move toward commercialisation could increase the quality of prototypes available exclusively to Australian athletes. The commercialisation process could be pursued by corporate groups under licensing arrangements, so that AIS and other researchers would not be distracted from their main functions. If the commercialisation was successful, the corporate groups would be likely to reinvest in research in addition to making royalty payments. In some projects, sporting organisations could be research partners and therefore direct beneficiaries of commercialisation. For commercialisation to be viable, the AIS would need to have a special budget to help companies bring products to a market-ready state. This would be distinct from its research budget. Box’Tag is a product that could be commercialised. There have already been expressions of interest both within Australia and from overseas (New Zealand, Canada, Bahamas) in setting up Box’Tag programs. To realise the opportunity, a serious investment in product development would be required, and this is presently beyond the means of Strongarm. The product development phase would need to address such issues as the manufacturability and cost of the scoring technology and other required equipment, and the establishment of organisational infrastructure. The issues would have to be addressed in an integrated way rather than through a compartmentalised approach. The exercise would be complex but could provide a good model for future commercialisation activities associated with other products. While augmenting the funding base for sport, commercialisation of sports products could also provide a stimulus for a number of Australian companies and therefore a benefit to the national economy. Strongarm can see tremendous possibilities, but there would need to be dedicated resources to seed commercialisation activities arising from sports projects.
Page last updated: 04 November, 2008