A system innovation related to sports entrepreneurship

In this chapter special attention will be paid to a system innovation in sports, called a sport entrepreneurial ecosystem (SEES). It is the collaboration between an (elite) sports organization and its business partners that engages start-up companies to create value together. An SEES is regarded as a self-maintaining and evolving system (innovation) of cooperation of interconnected entrepreneurial actors, entrepreneurial organizations, and other helix institutes with a sports organization as a basis. That system formally and informally coalesces to connect, mediate and govern the performance of the individuals and groups within the SEES and the SEES itself. This occurs within a local or regional entrepreneurial environment, in which multiple (shared) values are created through sport in favour of the cooperating stakeholders. Creative and interactive working formats are important, where sport is assigned a number of explicit roles or functions.