This window of time as a top sporter could be as little as a few years or a decade depending on the sport and the amount of injuries a top sporter has sustained over that period. But just because a top sporters career in the top maybe coming to a close, it does not mean that their career in sport is over. In fact governments should focus on ensuring that they capitalize on the experience of these top sporters to create the heros of tomorrow.
A top sporters career in top sport maybe coming to a close in their thirties or earlier. Whereas in the business world, at thirty your career is just beginning. Some top sporters see this moment as the abiss and don't know what to do next. Once their sporting career is over, a minority of top sporters decide to get out of sports completely and jump into something removed from the sports world, but the majority want to stay in the sports world as that is where their passion lies.
Top sporters then need to make the leap from training, competing, track suits, fans and mendals, to suits, decision making, deadlines, meetings and company politics. There are many opportunties for education in the sports field, ie. sports management, physical education, sports physics etc etc. but at the end of the day, regardless of the type of business, it boils down to having a network, even above experience and certainly above education. Sporters need to be business like about the networking they do during their career.
This is one of the many reasons I created http://www.e-sporters.com/, to help top sporters create and maintain a network during their sports career and beyond, and to help them keep their roots in the sports world. Sporters and anyone associated with sports, ie. sponsors, trainers, gyms, sports companies can register for free on http://www.e-sporters.com/ and promote themselves and create and maintain a network in the sports world. On the site, they can enter their sporting achievements, their team experience, the roles they hold in the sports world, their promo video of their achievements, links to their own site, logo of their company. On the site there are over 300 sports listed and 100 different sporting roles and the search mechanism allows exact searches by sporting level and experience, height etc. It is effectively the Linkedin.com for the sports world.
By being business-like about their networking, sporters can ensure they have the necessary support network during their career and the contacts to continue their career after leaving the competive arena.
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