External constraints on Spanish municipal sports agencies' finances

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of the environment on the financial performance in public sports agencies at the local level. Design/methodology/approach - The influence of the socio-demographic, socio-economic and political environment on the financial condition of municipal sports agencies in Spain from 2003 to 2011 was studied by several regression models. Findings - The results show a negative influence of the size of the population and a positive influence of the municipal taxes per capita. The influence of the political context is not demonstrated. However, the set of variables only explain a small percentage of the variance. Research limitations/implications - The main limitation of this study is the possible existence of other non-controlled environmental variables. However, this study approaches genuinely the effect of the environment on municipal sports agencies, which has important research implications as it shows additional information to be contrasted with other researches in different countries or regions. Practical implications - The information provided in this study will be of great importance for managers to select more objectively other entities in benchmarking development. Originality/value - Finally, this study uses a non-exploited database and redirects performance management studies to other areas of service provision such as sport.