Online sports management degree launched

Publish date	2008-08-11
Available Articles	Full articles without membership

Sport and business have never been more connected. In the US, baseball and football have long been professional concerns, and in recent years soccer and rugby in Europe and Asia have followed suit.

Sport accounts for two per cent of GDP and 2.5 percent of total consumer expenditure in the UK. Forecasts expect this will equate to nearly £3 billion by 2009.

The scale of the modern sports industry demands business professionals whose expertise must encompass a bewildering array of qualities. Consequently, a number of sport-related MBAs have sprung up in recent years.

The latest is from Drexel University, which has launched an online MSc in Sport Management based at the university’s Goodwin College of Professional Studies.

The programme is designed to help sport administrators and managers to understand the connections between nutrition, psychology, management skills and athletics at a level beyond baccalaureate education.

The curriculum focuses on planning, design, implementation and evaluation of sport and recreation programmes and offers solutions to practical problems in the sport management field. The faculty includes professional coaches, scouts, trainers, and sport administrators.

The accredited programme is offered entirely online, and is intended for working professionals. Students have 24/7 online access to class materials, group discussion, instructor feedback and exams.

Dr. Kenneth Hartman, academic director for Drexel University Online, said: “We’re very proud to offer our students the outstanding Drexel curriculum within this convenient online format. All of our online programs, including our master of science in sport management, are taught by the same world-renowned faculty as our on-campus courses.”

There are a range of established sport-related programmes available to online learners.

The University of Liverpool Management School runs one of the best known. It currently offers a specialist MBA in football management aimed at those who wish to pursue a career in the football industry, whether with football clubs, governing bodies or related marketing, media and sponsorship companies.
The aim is to combine professional development in the field of the football industries with a critical awareness of the issues involved in football management, marketing and administration. The programme also offers students the opportunity to gain practical experience in the football industry or related industries via a placement scheme.
Liverpool’s MBA is aimed at career changers. The school has links with local Premiership clubs, Liverpool and Everton, as well as Arsenal and Leeds United. The programme has 30 students, a third from the UK and the rest drawn in more or less equal numbers from Europe, the USA, China, East Asia and Brazil.
Other distance learning schools, including Tanaka at Imperial College, Henley, Leeds, Coventry and Manchester Metropolitan universities, run specialisations or executive short courses in football finance and management.

Cass Business School, in the City of London, has said it intends to launch a Football Association-branded MBA. It will initially look to recruit between 15 and 20 executives, lawyers, accountants and managers hoping to further their careers nationally or internationally.

Warwick Business School’s certificate in applied management is designed to provide managers and potential managers with the business and personal management skills they will need to cope in the intense world of football, which these days is as much about balance sheets as team sheets.

Watford FC manager Adrian Boothroyd said: “The idea is to take good practice from business and other sports, things like dealing with the media, project management, organising finances, which make you more prepared. The course is the best one I’ve ever been on.”

In the US, along with Drexel, Columbia Southern University offers an online MBA in Sport Management.

Keywords: MBA, sport management, the University of Liverpool.

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