When Everyone Wants a Better Deal

 When Everyone Wants A Better Deal, Why Does Communication Break Down?

A Sport Management Case: The 2026 WNBA Collective Bargaining Negotiations

You are negotiating one of the most important agreements in your organization's history. Millions of dollars are at stake. Your colleagues are experienced, committed, and working toward a common goal. Then disagreements emerge about how decisions are being. made, who received information, and whose voices are heard. 

Suddenly, the organization faces two challenges: negotiation with an external p artner and maintaining trust among its own members. This was the situation facing the Women's National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) in March 2026 (Friend, 2026a). 

A Team Under Pressure

The WNBA and its players' union were negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), addressing player compensation, revenue sharing, housing benefits, and other employment conditions. As a negotiating deadline approached, tensions emerged within thee player's association. 

In early March, WNBPA executive committee members Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart raised concerns about transparency, player involvement, and communication during negotiations. Their concerns included limited access to negotiating information and insufficient opportunities for player participation (Friend, 2026a), introducing an important question: Can an organization remain united when its members disagree about how leadership makes decisions?

Players and union leadership shared an interest in securing favorable employment conditions. However, questions about representation and participation created additional challenges during an already demanding negotiation process. 

When Communication Creates Friction

Highly capable teams can experience communication breakdowns when members interpret one another's behavior and intentions differently (Schlesinger et al., 2026). Consider the competing perspectives within the WNBPA. Players requesting greater transparency may view their concerns as necessary for meaningful representation. Union leaders may emphasize coordinated communication and negotiating discipline to maintain bargaining effectiveness. 

Both perspectives involve legitimate organizational priorities. Problems can emerge when people interpret requests for information as distrust or view efforts to maintain coordination as exclusion. That's when we can examine how communication practices influence collaboration under pressure. 

However, the WNBPA dispute also involved substantive questions about representation and decision-making authority (Friend, 2026a). Communication improvements alone cannot resolve every organizatoional disagreement. 

Four lessons in Interpersonal Competence

There are four capabilities organizations can develop to prevent interpersonal friction from escalating (Schlesinger et al., 2026). 

1. Recognize your own communication preferences. Some prefer frequent updates and open discussion. Other prioritize communicating once information is consolidated. Leaders would benefit from understanding how their approach influences colleagues' expectations. 

2. Recognize how others communicate. Questions and criticism may reflect commitment to organizational goals. Leaders can examine observable behavior before assigning motives to others. 

3. Anticipate potential friction. High-stakes negotiations create predictable pressures. Establishing expectations about communication, participation, and decision authority early can help organizations navigate disagreements. 

4. Adapt communication in real time. When existing communication practices create frustration, leaders can evaluate if they can adjust. 

During the WNBPA negotiations, union representatives issued statements emphasizing unity and engaged members through additional communication and feedback processes (Friend, 2026b). These developments illustrate organizational efforts to communicate a shared position and gather feedback. 

From Internal Disagreement to Historic Agreement

Despite the tensions, negotiations continued. Representatives of the WNBA and WNBPA participated in intensive bargaining sessions involving compensation, revenue sharing, housing benefits, and other employment conditions. The negotiations required participants to address competing priorities and practical concerns (Friend, 2026c). 

During discussions about housing, WNBPA treasurer Brianna Turner raised questions about the consequences for players, including challenges associated with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. This illustrates how bringing different perspectives into organizational discussions can reveal considerations overlooked in earlier proposals. Once a new collective agreement was reached, it represented an important outcome. Financial negotiations, bargaining strategies, and stakeholder priorities shaped the process. 

What Sport Managers Can Learn

Sport organizations frequently emphasize teamwork, loyalty, and unity. These expectations can support coordinated action, particularly when organizations face external pressure. Effective teamwork also requires opportunities for disagreement, clarification, and constructive feedback. 

The WNBPA negotiations illustrate the challenges of maintaining organizational cohesion while representing diverse perspectives. For sport managers, the central issue extends beyond avoiding conflict. How can leaders create environments where people can disagree openly, communicate effectively, and still work toward shared organizational goals? The answer requires interpresonal competence, clear organizational processes, and a willingness to examine how leadership decisions affect trust and collaboration (Schlesinger et al., 2026. 

Your Turn: Think Like a Sport Manager

1. Diagnose the problem. Which elements of the WNBPA dispute reflect communication challenges? Which involve deeper disagreements about representation or decision making? 

2. Apply interpersonal competence. Choose two interpersonal competence capabilities. Explain how they could help navigate similar situations. 

3. Recommend a solution. Imagine advising a professional athletes' association before its next major negotiation. What two communication practices would you recommend to encourage constructive disagreement while maintaining organizational unity?

References

Friend, T. (2026a, March 4). Plum, Stewart at odds with WNBPA, hint a player unrest leaguewide. Sport Business Journal. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/03/04/plum-stewart-at-odds-with-wnbpa-hint-at-player-unrest-leaguewide/

Friend, T. (2026b, March 4). WNBPA issues statement of solidarity, rejects latest league proposal. Sport Business Journal. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/03/04/wnbpa-issues-statement-of-solidarity-rejects-latest-league-proposal/

Friend, T. (2026c, April 2027). Inside the negotiations that led to WNBA CBA deal. Sport Business Journal. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/04/27/eight-days-in-march-a-hotel-all-nighters-haagen-dazs-blankets-champagne-and-a-historic-wnba-collective-bargaining-deal/

Schlesinger, L., S. Fuller, J. & Toomey, R. V. (2026, June 17). Prevent team friction from turning into dysfuncioin. Harvard Business Review. 

Case note: This educational analysis draws on publicly reported events. Applications of interpersonal competence concepts are analytical interpretations, not verified assessments of individual stakeholders' intentions.

© Claudia Benavides-Espinoza November 7th 2026

What Should a Coach Insist On?

 How Team Italy Set Expectations at the World Baseball Classic

Can you imagine managing a national team where only three players were born in the country they represent? That's the situation Team Italy found themselves in for the World Baseball classic this year.  Some players grew up in Italy, Others knew it through gamily stories or had only recently visited. Now they're wearing the same jersey, and you have just a few days to get them ready to play together (Sullivan, 2026). What do you need everyone to agree on, and where can you give people room to do things their own way? 

Set the standard. Give people room to meet it. 

Before the 2026 World Baseball Classic, team Italy manager Francisco Cervelli made one expectation clear: he wanted players who would take the tournament seriously (Revamped Team Italy, 2026). He also looked for ways to spark their interests in Italy through things they could experience together, like food and coffee (Sullivan, 2026). And some of the work of bringing the team together came from the players themselves. First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino helped recruit teammates and build connections among the players with different ties to Italy. 

That's where cultural intelligence comes in. It starts with noticing when your usual way of leading may land differently with different people. Then you check your assumptions and adjust (Livermore, 2025). Crevelli could be clear about the commitment he expected while players brought their own reasons for wanting to represent Italy. And when players helped bring teammates together, they had a hand in shaping what it meant to be part of the team. 

What would you do before the gates open? 

Picture yourself supervising a crew at a sold-out game. A returning employee wants the freedom to handle problems on the spot. A new employee wants to know exactly when to call a supervisor. You can give both the same standard for when to escalate a problem and give the new employee a chance to practice it. Then ask each person what still feels unclear. Someone who has a concern may be more comfortable raising the one-on-one than in front of the crew. 

Now imagine someone misses an important handoff. You might give the feedback privately, explain why the handoff matters, and ask them to walk you through what they'll do next time. The conversation can change with the person and the situation. The crew stil needs the same information at the same time. 

Think about a team you've worked on. What's one expectations you'd make clear to everyone? What's one thing you would ask before deciding how to guide someone?

Same Team, Different Ways of Connecting

Same Team, Different Ways of Connecting 

What a Dodgers dinner in Tokyo can teach us about building working relationships

Imagine joining a new sport organization. You know your job. You are prepared to work hard. You want to get along with your colleagues. But getting to know them feels surprisingly difficult. You ask about someone's weekend, and the conversation ends quickly. You wait for your supervisor to approach you, while your supervisor waits for you to take the initiative. Someone invites you to dinner, and you wonder if it is a social invitation or part of the job. Nobody has done anything wrong. You may be working from different expectations about how professional relationships develop. 

A different kind of team gathering

During the Dodgers' March 2025 trip to Tokyo, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki organized a private team dinner featuring sushi and yakitori. Reporting described a tuna-cutting demonstration and teammates trying local foods together. The gathering was part of the teams' effort to build connections during its season-opening trip, and players and manager Dave Roberts spoke positively about the experience (Haris, 2025). For sport managers, the interesting question extends beyond the menu: How do you create opportunities for people to connect when they may have different expectations about what connecting looks like?

The relationship rules we rarely explain

We often treat our approach to getting acquainted as common sense: be friendly, ask questions, show interest, and spend time together. But when we really think about it, what counts as friendly? Which questions show interest, and which feel intrusive? Does spending time together mean lunch during work or an invitation after hours? There are six elements that help explain these expectations: place, power, purpose, privacy, presence, and pacing (Molinsky & Hahn, 2024). These elements give us questions to investigate without telling us how a person will behave. 

Where (and with whom) do relationships develop?

The first element is place: where people expect relationship building to happen. Some colleagues connect through brief conversations during the workday, while others find it easier to get acquainted over a shared meal or activity. The Tokyo dinner gives us a concrete example of creating a setting outside the playing field where teammates could spend time together. The useful question here is what a particular setting makes possible, and if the people involved experience it as an opportunity to connect. 

The second element is power: how authority and status influence who approaches whom. Imagine a new athletic department employee who waits for a senior administrator to initiate conversation. The administrator might interpret that distance as a lack of interest, and the employee might see waiting as respectful. Both could leave the interaction with an inaccurate impression of the other person. Before deciding someone is disengaged, we could ask what they believe is appropriate and make our own expectations clearer. 

What are we trying to build?

The third element is purpose. One person hopes colleagues will become close friends, while another wants a warm, dependable working relationship and prefers to keep their personal life separate. Both may care deeply about doing good work, even though they want different things from their workplace relationships. This matters when organizations promote a particular social style as evidence of commitment. If someone leaves promptly after a shift, what do we actually know about their dedication? Their willingness to socialize is only one small part of a much larger picture. 

The fourth element, privacy, asks what people feel comfortable sharing. Questions about family, relationships, or personal history can feel welcoming to one person and premature to another. A manager can offer opportunities to connect without requiring personal disclosure, leaving people room to decide wha they want colleagues to know. Asking what someone enjoys about their work may open a conversation while allowing them to choose what else to share. The goal is to express interest while respecting boundaries different from our own. 

Friendly does not always look the same

The fifth element is presence: how people present themselves when getting acquainted. A relaxed tone, jokes, and immediate familiarity may communicate warm. A more formal manner may communicate respect or seriousness. The difficulty comes when we interpret our preferred style as the only sincere one. Consider a new volunteer who is quiet during introductions but helps everyone prepare. Before concluding they are unfriendly, notice the different ways they contribute and consider if their actions communicate interest more clearly than their conversation does. 

The sixth element is pacing: how quickly people expect familiarity and trust to develop. Some poeple feel comfortable almost immediately. Others need repeated experiences of reliability before opening up. An enjoyable interaction can create an opening, but trust may still depend on what happens after: keeping promises, sharing information, and treating people consistently. A manager who expects instant closeness may overlook a relationship developing gradually. Giving people time can be part of supporting relationships. 

Invitations can carry exectations

One advance report described the Dodgers dinner as mandatory (Farkas, 2025). That adds a useful management question: when attendance is expected, how can an organization account for dietary needs, caregiving responsibilities, religious practices, or different levels of comfort with social activities? We can use this example to examine our own decisions about the purpose of a gathering, the information people receive beforehand, and if there could be several ways to participate and build connections. 

The lesson is not every organization needs a team dinner. Building working relationships involves expectations we may never have explained, and culture can help us ask better questions about those expectations. Personality, professional role, previous experiences, and organizational expectations deserve attention. Think of someone whose approach to getting acquainted is different from yours. Which element might help you understand the situation: place, power, purpose, privacy, presence, or pacing? Then consider one respectful question you could ask before deciding what their behavior means.

What If the Job Fit the People?

What If the Job Fit the People? 

What Unrivaled's launch can teach us about designing work in sport

You finally get a job in sport. You love the game. You are excited about the organization. You want to contribute... Then you discover the schedule changes at the last minute. Getting help means tracking down someone who is always busy. You have ideas nobody asks for or about. The part of the job you enjoy most barely fits into your day. You still love sport. You are starting to wonder if you love working in it. Imagine being able to help design that workplace. What would. you change?

Start with the people doing the work

When unrivaled began play on January 17, 2025, the new women's professional basketball league offered another way to think about that question. Founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, Unrivaled created an opportunity for players to compete in the Unite4d States during the WNBA offseason. ESPN's Kendra Andrews reported its planing included asking the founders what they wanted and needed from the league. The resulting facilities included training and recovery resources, childcare, and a separate nursery and breastfeeding space. 

Look at those choices through a sport manager's eyes. Every organization makes decisions about space, schedules, resources, and whose needs receive attention .Those decisions shape the experience of working there. What would you change if the people doing the work had more influence over those decisions?

A job description cannot tell you everything about a person

Organizations can pay attention to people' s individual strengths and interests. This includes treating employees as key stakeholders. For example, moving away from overly standardized performance management, and trusting people with more choice in how they achieve their goals (Buckingham, 2022). 

Think about two people hired as event assistants. One enjoys welcoming guests and solving problems through conversation. The other loves organizing information and spotting logistical problems before they happen. Both need to learn the essential responsibilities, but assigning every task en exactly the same way could overlook what each person brings. A manager could consider which responsibilities energize each employee, where they would like more practice, and what gets in their way. 

Development needs room in the day

Unrivaled's early reporting also described individual development opportunities. Kate Martin arrived with particular skills her WNBA coach wanted her to develop, Satou Sebally worked individually with an on-site trainer. Those examples give us a way to discuss how a shared workplace can accommodate different development goals (Andrews, 2025). 

Now let's take a hypothetical community organization. An employee wants to learn sponsorship sales, but spends every shift handling urgent administrative tasks. Their supervisor encourages professional development. The calendar leaves no time for this. What would make that encouragement practical?

Perhaps the employee could shadow one sponsor meeting each month, Someone would need to arrange coverage explain the learning goal, and check afterward whether the experience helped. That is work design. Deciding how responsibilities, time, support, and opportunities fit together. 

Whose life fits the schedule?

Imagine the same organization holds all staff development sessions at 7 p.m. Some employees might have caregiving responsibilities, another hob, transportation considerations or a religious commitment. We would need to ask people about those circumstances. A person's identity alone cannot tell us what schedule or support they need. 

The organization cold rotate meeting times, repeat a session, or protect time during regular shifts. Each option has costs and limitations, The useful question is whether the arrangement gives people a realistic opportunity to participate. Organizational culture becomes visible in decisions like these: who gets consulted, what counts as commitment, and which needs the organization plans around. 

Design tradeoffs

Unrivaled also offers a reason to keep asking questions. For example, players balance off-season competition with the need to avoid burnout before the WNBA season (Andrews, 2025). An opportunity can be valuable and still add demands. 

For a sport manager, that means asking what a change requires from everyone involved. If we create a development opportunity, who covers the work? If we offer flexible schedules, how do we maintain service? How will we learn if the arrangement helps? 

References

Buckingham, M. (2022). Designing work that people love. Harvard Business Review.

Andrews, K. (2025, January 24). Inside Unrivaled debut: How league looks to alter women’s hoops. ESPN, republished by ABC7.

She's One Of Us

  

“She’s One of Us”

What Belonging Looks Like on a Team

You made the roster. You have the uniform. Your name is on the schedule.

But do you feel like you belong?

Those are different questions. Being part of an organization gives you a position. Feeling

accepted and included depends on what happens after you arrive.

For sport managers, that difference deserves attention. Think about a new employee joining

an established staff, an athlete entering a different locker room, or a volunteer working their

first event. They may know their assignment while still wondering: Do these people see me as

one of them?

A moment involving Las Vegas Aces rookie Kate Martin gives us something concrete to

consider.

A Moment That Communicated Membership

On July 16, 2024, Martin went down with an injury during a game against the Chicago Sky.

While she was on the floor, her teammates and team staff gathered around her. Several used

towels to shield her from cameras.

Martin was helped to the locker room and later returned to the bench, although she did not

play again that night.

Afterward, A’ja Wilson explained why the team had responded that way. They wanted to

protect Martin’s privacy. In describing their rookie, Wilson said, “she’s one of us”

(Wong, 2024).

That phrase connects an action to a message: your place here matters, including when you

are vulnerable and unable to keep playing.

We cannot determine Martin’s feelings from that moment. We can examine what her

colleagues did and what Wilson said their actions meant.

What Do We Mean by Belonging?

Belonging means feeling accepted and included by the people around you. It is knowing that

you matter and have a place on the team (Carr et al., 2019).

Consider a hypothetical sport organization.

A new event coordinator receives a badge, a workstation, and access to the scheduling system.

The onboarding checklist is complete.

But colleagues make decisions in conversations the coordinator is not part of. They refer to

procedures nobody has explained. When the coordinator asks a question, someone responds,

“You should know that already.”

The person has access to the workplace. Their interactions may still communicate that they

are outside the group.

Now imagine a colleague saying, “We discussed this before you joined. Let me explain the

background, and then I want your perspective.”

That small interaction makes information and participation available.

Why Exclusion Matters for Teamwork

Researchers found that people who felt a stronger sense of belonging at work also reported

better performance and were less likely to consider leaving. That connection matters, but it

does not prove that belonging alone caused those differences (Carr et al., 2019).

Here is what they did: participants played a virtual ball-tossing game with simulated

teammates. Some were included; others received the ball only a few times. They then

completed a task that could earn money.

When the earnings benefited the team, excluded participants persisted less than included

participants. When the earnings benefited only themselves, that difference went away

(Carr et al., 2019). So in their experiment, exclusion reduced effort directed toward the group.

A professional locker room is more complicated than a virtual game. Still, this information

gives managers a reason to examine if their own practices invite people to contribute, or leave

them feeling disconnected.

What Martin’s Teammates Help Us Notice

The response to Martin illustrates support through visible behavior. Her teammates noticed a

vulnerable moment and acted together to protect her privacy.

Also, a fair-acting ally can buffer the effects of exclusion. Martin’s situation was not an

exclusion experiment, so we should not treat the two as equivalent.

The connection is a managerial question: What can a colleague do to communicate that

another person counts?

We should also resist declaring an entire organization inclusive because of one supportive

incident. A moment can illustrate a practice without telling us how everyone experiences the

workplace.The more demanding question is whether support extends consistently across roles

and status levels.

Would the same care reach a temporary employee, an unfamiliar volunteer, or someone

whose contribution is less visible?

Making Belonging Part of Everyday Work

Managers can begin by examining ordinary interactions.

Who receives information before a decision? Who gets invited to contribute? What happens

when someone asks for help or identifies a problem?

Carr and colleagues emphasize fair-minded allies, opportunities to share experiences, and

taking employee feedback seriously.

In a sport organization, that could mean explaining an unwritten routine, inviting a new staff

member into a planning conversation, or following up when a volunteer says an instruction

was confusing. It also means asking people what would help rather than assuming you

already know. Wilson’s statement gave us a memorable phrase. The responsibility for managers

is to consider what makes that phrase credible.

If someone joined your sport organization tomorrow, what would you do

that tells them, “You’re one of us”?

Same Words, Different Meanings

 Same Words, Different Meanings: 

Communication Lessons from a Dodgers Clubhouse

The coach gives a perfectly clear instruction. The player does something the coach did not intend. What happened?!

Before deciding someone was careless or not listening, consider the coach supplied the words, but the player and coach did not share the same assumptions. For sport managers, that possibility deserves attention. Imagine preparing volunteers for an international tournament, welcoming a new employee, or coordinating coaches and support staff. What seems obvious to an experienced insider may be unfamiliar to someone entering the setting. We often notice communication problems when people speak different languages. Speaking the same language does not guarantee we mean (or understand) the same thing. 

Connecting Before Communicating Perfectly

In 2024, Sports Illustrated described the developing friendship between Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez. Ohtani grew up in Japan; Hernandez grew up in the Dominican Republic. Both were new to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They connected through English, a second language for both. They also exchanged expressions in Japanese and Spanish. Hernandez asked Ohtani to teach him something new in Japanese each day. Ohtani asked questions about Spanish words and pronunciation. Their conversations involved imperfect language, gestures, explanations, and humor. Both described feeling comfortable with their new team, partially because of one another (Apstein, 2024).

What makes this interesting for sport management is the effort involved. They did not wait until communication was effortless before building a relationship.  They made room for questions and worked through moments where the meaning was unclear. Their example invites us to consider our own response to misunderstanding. Do we explain differently? Ask what the other person understood? Or repeat ourselves more loudly?

More Than a Language Barrier

Language differences are visible. Differences in expectations are harder to recognize. New employees might understand every word in "Let me know if you disagree" and still hesitate to challenge a supervisor. Someone else might view open disagreement as a normal way to improve a decision. The supervisor could interpret silence as agreement, while the employee believes silence communicates respect. This hypothetical example shows the problem: people can understand the words while interpreting the situation differently. 

Navigating the Cultural Minefield (2014) presents eight dimensions for examining differences in workplace expectations: 

• Communicating: How much meaning is stated explicitly, and how much depends on context? 
• Evaluating: How directly do people expect corrective feedback? 
• Persuading: What kinds of explanations and arguments do people find convincing?
• Leading: How much distance and deference are expected between leaders and others? 
• Deciding: How are decisions reached, and whose agreement is needed? 
• Trusting: How do people develop confidence in one another?
• Disagreeing: How comfortable are people with openly challenging an idea?
• Scheduling: How strictly are plans and timelines expected to guide work?

These dimensions give managers questions to investigate. They do not tell us everything about a person because we know where that person grew up. Actually, the reading specifically distinguishes between broad cultural patterns and individual preferences and emphasizes differences must be understood relative to the person involved. In other words, it depends (Meyer, 2014). We cannot use the Dodgers story to assign either player a cultural profile. We can use it to examine what they actually did: ask questions, explain, and learn about one another. 

The Information Inside the "Obvious"

Consider this hypothetical instruction to a new event volunteer: "Go through the usual entrance, check in with operations, and be ready before doors open." An experienced volunteer may know exactly what to do. A newcomer may reasonably ask: 

• Which entrance?
• Who is operation? Am I looking for an office or a person?
• What does "ready' include?
• When do the doors open?

The instruction relies on knowledge that has not been supplied. If the volunteer goes to the wrong place, we should examine the instruction before concluding the volunteer was not listening. 

A more useful version might be: "Enter through the north staff entrance at 3:30 p.m. Report to Elena at the volunteer desk beside security. She will give you your credential and radio. Please be at your assigned station by 4:15 p.m. Spectators enter at 4:30." This version makes important details available to someone who does not already know the organization. This does not mean every interaction requires a lengthy explanation. It means managers need to consider what their audience can reasonably be expected to know, and how they will discover whether their message was understood 

What Can Sport Managers Do?

A practical starting point is to notice, ask, and adjust. 

Notice the expectation behind your reaction. If someone's behavior surprises. you, identify what you expected. Did you assume they would ask questions publicly, challenge your suggestion, or interpret a deadline in a particular way? 

Ask before settling on an expectation. "What did you understand the next step to be?" is more informative than "Why weren't you listening?" You might discover an unclear instruction, unfamiliar terminology, different expectations, or a practical obstacle. Culture is one possible explanation; it should not become the automatic explanation for every difficulty. 

Adjust and check again. Explaining the missing context, agree on a process, or invite the person to walk through the next step with you. Meyer emphasizes adapting across cultural contexts requires continuing adjustment rather than finding one permanently correct approach (Meyer, 2014). 

The responsibility extends beyond the newcomer. An organization can explain its routines and make questions easier to ask. A newcomer can clarify unfamiliar expectations and explain what would help. Shared understanding takes effort from the people involved. 

From Clubhouse Connection to Professional Practice

A few months after the friendship story, Hernandez credited Ohtani with advice about where to direct his hits before winning the 2024 Home Run Derby (Capruso, 2024). That account does not establish friendship caused the victory. It adds a professional exchange to the earlier story of colleagues learning to communicate. Together, the accounts offer something worth considering: people can build relationships and exchange expertise while working through differences in language and experience. 

As you enter or lead a sport organization, you bring expectations about clear communication, helpful feedback, appropriate disagreement, and good leadership. other people bring expectations too. The next time an instruction produces an unexpected result, pause before deciding what it says about the person. 

References

Apstein, S. (2024, April 29). New Dodgers Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernances aren't letting language barriers get in the way. Sports Illustrated. 

Capurso, T. (2024, July 16). How Shohei Ohtani helped Dodgers teammate Teoscar Hernances win Home Run Derby. Sports Illustrated. 

Meyer, E. (2014). Navigating the cultural minefield. Harvard Business Review.

The capacity crisis simulation

The Capacity Crisis: What Would You Do?

In professional sport, leadership decisions rarely come with easy answers. Protecting athlete well-being, meeting organizational commitments, and managing limited resources can create competing priorities—and improving one outcome may come at the expense of another.

The Capacity Crisis is an interactive leadership simulation that places you in the role of Director of Player Welfare for a fictional professional tennis organization. Through three connected decisions, you'll navigate competing stakeholder interests, experience the consequences of your choices, and reflect on the tradeoffs involved in organizational leadership.

Ready to step into the decision-maker's seat?

Watch the short video briefing below, then begin the simulation. There is no single perfect solution, and you can explore a second decision-making path if you'd like.

About the Simulation

Educator's note: This simulation was developed as an experiential learning activity for sport management education. The International Tennis Circuit and its organizational scenarios are fictional. The activity is designed to encourage critical thinking about leadership, stakeholder interests, and organizational tradeoffs rather than identify a single correct response.