Sometimes, because some aspects of sports are relatively universal (like scoring, defense, offense, and so on) the use of sports related idioms as part of American English fluency in the workplace makes sense in English as well as some other languages. But Americans have a special talent for including language in the boardroom that belongs out on the field.
While some of these may not make sense to non-native English speakers, many of these sports related American idioms are an essential part of speaking business English and making yourself an integral part of your firm or team rather than a standout.
Here are some examples of sports idioms used in workplace English that will help your American English fluency:
Kick off: to start something off, be it a meeting, an initiative, or a focused objective
Used in an example:
Let’s kick off this meeting with our Tokyo partners by introducing the new board members.
Play the field: to objectively look around for new sources, be it in servicing, development, distributors, suppliers, etc.
Used in a sentence:
The CEO and shareholders agree—we need to start playing the field for new export/import partnerships in and out of the U.A.E. with the changing tariff laws.
Get one on the scoreboard: to create an advantage for the company/entity through the acquisition of something that benefits sales, revenue, production, etc.
Used in a sentence:
The best way to get one up on the scoreboard for the sales team would be to get them the latest communications technology; they can’t close sales with software that’s ten years behind what our competitor’s sales teams are using.
Knock it out of the park: A big score for the company, firm, or entity. This is more than an everyday occurrence, and implies a large piece of good news.
Used in a sentence:
Sales have doubled since last quarter, even with half the forecasted demand for product. There’s no way we could have knocked it out of the park like this without the support of the whole staff, so congratulations on earning those bonuses!
Bases loaded: this saying from baseball in a literal sense means that there is a man on each base, and that everything is in the hands of the player at bat—if he scores a homerun, all men on all bases will also score, so the implication is a lot of stress, but a high payout.
Used in a sentence:
Our new marketing team has made enormous strides in gaining a list of highly likely buyers. The new product rollout is being better than last year’s with all the capital we’ve invested, so bases are loaded for holiday sales this year.
Underdog: this single-word idiom refers to the person, company, or entity forecasted as least likely to succeed, yet for reasons that can’t be quantified, the “underdog” is the winner after all, or is perceived in another way by those who have information everyone else may not be privy to.
Used in a sentence:
During the 2008 economic meltdown, GM was the real underdog of the top three carmakers in the US because they owed the most. But by 2012, they had paid off all they owed to the federal government and had record sales that put them back at the top of the auto industry.
