Exploring elite athletes’ entrepreneurial intentions: unraveling the impact of high-level sports career in skills development

Abstract The sporting career of elite athletes is a limited, inevitably terminal and often short career, with an early retirement process, so elite athletes should consider having a second professional career. In this sense, entrepreneurship is a popular choice for professional athletes and, moreover, they are considered to be well equipped, in terms of personality and skills, for this entrepreneurial career. The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of different entrepreneurial skills on the Entrepreneurial Intentions of elite athletes, also taking into account other factors such as whether they follow a Dual Career. In this way, the aim is to show how the entrepreneurial skills acquired and developed through high-level sport (resilience, proactivity and creativity) can influence the Entrepreneurial Intentions of these athletes, and help them to succeed in their professional career after retirement. The sample was composed by 200 elite athletes from Spain. Results showed that these athletes perceived a high degree of development of the skills. Besides, three solutions were obtained for high levels of Entrepreneurial Intentions that explained the 38% of these cases. The combinations of high levels of resilience with high levels of creativity were presented in all the solutions in combination with other variables, and proactivity, in a lesser extent, in two solutions. Finally, some theoretical and practical implications are proposed in order both to improve the research on the topic and highlight the importance of educational training of elite athletes to increase their possibilities to success in their future entrepreneurial career.