Professional sport organizations as potential champions of biodiversity conservation

Biodiversity loss is a global crisis, human-driven species extinction rates are higher than ever before, and these rates are expected to worsen. This calls for new socioeconomic business models that could inspire societal transformations benefitting biodiversity conservation and restoration. The emblems of sport organizations are often articulated around the central figure of a wildlife species. Such species occupy an important part of the cultural space and can therefore serve as important flagship species for conservation through sport, particularly those most threatened with extinction. At the intersection of two hitherto unrelated realms (ie sport and conservation), there are potentially important synergies that are unique to the sport sector among three groups of stakeholders: professional team-sport organizations, fan communities, and biodiversity conservationists.