Presentation by ZeMKI member Dr. Philip Sinner at the annual conference of the dvs section Sports Sociology 2024: Sports Sociology as a Crisis Science

In this context, the joint presentation by Jörg-Uwe Nieland, Philip Sinner, Christiana Schallhorn, Daniel Nölleke, Thomas Hory and Christof Seeger provides insights how Austrian and German grassroots sports clubs have sought and found solutions over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to respond to the constantly changing conditions and fulfil their social responsibility. Two challenges proved to be central: 1) preserving the existence of the club and 2) providing members with training and competition opportunities even in times of graduated contact restrictions. Shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic began, an absolute majority of clubs still considered digitalisation measures to be unimportant. This view has changed fundamentally within a few weeks. However, the clubs had to set up media infrastructures and develop target-oriented internal and external communication strategies within a very short period of time. Only in the second and third year of the pandemic these strategies were largely established and the clubs were able to start thinking about the digitalisation of their club communication in the medium and long term. While media-mediated training and competitions were largely discontinued after the end of the pandemic, many clubs retained once-established internal communication channels and a (partially) digitalised administration.