Sports leaders today need a huge range of commercial skills under their belt to be successful in optimising opportunities. Simply providing great facilities is just the starting point – strong sales and marketing and effective customer engagement are what give an operation the edge

Sell it and they will come. That must be the mantra we adopt to ensure we attract people both to take part in sport and to enjoy it as a spectator.

Engaging people is crucial for any business aiming to create a sustainable, loyal customer base and it's no different for sport. We're competing for leisure time against a wide range of other services and products. The hospitality, visitor attraction and entertainment sectors are all coming up with innovative ways to sell their products and services and we need to do the same.

When we get it right, the benefits are substantial: Yorkshire decided to bid for the rights to host the Grand Départ for this year's Tour de France and the county's sports and tourism organisations came up with the brilliant "Back le Bid" campaign.

The project engaged local people and received more than 130,000 pledges of support. The clear passion shown by people in Yorkshire was crucial in convincing the race organisers that Yorkshire really wanted the tour and as a result, the UK can now look forward to a £100m economic boost, with more than 3 million people expected to line the race route (read more p48).

Another example of how to engage and inspire an audience can be seen in the way Tchoukball has grown as a sport through its product development ( turn to page 44).

Crucial to this new sport's success is a fair play charter that's enshrined in the rules. This is founded on respect for opponents and the banishment of bad sportsmanship. This gives people what they want: the opportunity to play sport in a friendly but competitive atmosphere, and as a result of this great product design and customer focus, Tchoukball UK has seen a rapid expansion in participation, going from fewer than 600 players in 2007 to the current 10,000 and growing fast.

Decisions about innovation, investment, product development and sales are made by the people at the top of organisations. It's important they're in tune with audiences and their needs and aware of the tools available to engage them.

There's a new breed of young sports leaders emerging, who are shaking up the market with their innovative concepts: five of "Fergie's Fledglings" (see page 18), led by footballers Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville – are investing in Hotel Football, a unique concept which combines sport and hospitality in an 8,000sq m (86,111sq ft) building housing a 133-bedroom hotel, a Café Football, shop and rooftop 5-a-side pitch. The sixth – sporting legend David Beckham – is working to set up a Major League Soccer team in Florida and although the first attempt to secure planning permission has been rejected at the time of going to press, his representatives say they will be continuing to pursue the dream and are looking for other sites. Meanwhile, Gloucester Rugby's new CEO, Steve Vaughan, is transforming the fortunes of the club by implementing changes that engage the local population (page 30). No more season tickets, but memberships. No more paper tickets, but an access system that encourages secondary spend by offering individual deals based on data collection to create a feeling of ownership.

For sport to successfully thrive in the same space as the fierce competition from other leisure providers, we must ensure we keep selling our excellent products, keep engaging and captivating our audiences, reaching out to them and selling – and they will come.