Dr Swanson recently published a thought leadership article in Global Sports Jobs.
Educating sport managers has a rich and fascinating history. The origins of this academic discipline may have actually begun as early as the 1890’s when the administration of physical education was delivered at some universities in the United States. However, the most noted beginning to the field of sport management was in 1957, when Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley reached out to the academic community for advice on where to find qualified individuals who have been specifically educated to manage in sport. In response to this call, Dr James Mason later started a master’s degree programme in sport administration at Ohio University in 1966. Since this time the field has of course seen tremendous growth, with the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) currently listing well over 500 undergraduate and post-graduate programmes worldwide. These curriculums are now also affiliated with academic societies on six different continents (NASSM, EASM, SMAANZ, AASM, ALGEDE, and ASMA), with a World Association for Sport Management (WASM) also recently being established.
While the field continues to grow and prosper, the evolution of sport management has included a tension for where this discipline belongs within the academic environment. As the foundational perspectives stem from areas such as physical education, kinesiology, and leisure studies, many top universities still house sport management in academic departments which reflect these beginnings. However, more recently we have seen a trend for top sport management programmes to be part of the curriculum within university schools of business. In simple terms, this can in effect be seen as a shift from the first word to the last word of ‘sport management’.
And so therein lies the dilemma. Where should the emphasis be you might ask – on sport or management? While my heart often says sport, the real answer is of course management. Sport provides the interesting context in which to manage, but the core of the discipline is truly made up of business and management principles. From this perspective, some business scholars have even proposed that there is perhaps no need for sport management programmes whatsoever, and that individuals should simply obtain mainstream business degrees and then later apply them to the context of sport. The emphasis on business principles is also reflected in industry, with major sporting enterprises generally shifting away from the hiring of former coaches and players to fill their senior management positions. This is generally a good thing, as what is needed in these major financial enterprises is of course strong business acumen. In addition, another trend (and emerging field) is the area of sport analytics (think Moneyball), where evidence-based decision-making approaches are shaping the composition of management teams across the industry.
However, whilst management principles do provide the foundation, attention to what is being managed deserves simultaneous consideration. For example, the transition to the highly business-oriented approach has presumed that sport is being defined in a way which is consistent with this perspective. This is an area which is ripe for elaborate discussion elsewhere, but sport can be defined in several ways across various dimensions (e.g., participation v. spectatorship, team v. individual, etc). Although sport means different things to different people (especially across the world), scholars have generally defined it with the inclusion of core components like competition, rules of play, and the use of physical activity and skill. There is even a new perspective which considers how ‘sporty’ a sport actually is! A takeaway message is that how sport is defined and the specific goals of sport organisations (e.g., profit v. not-for-profit) have an impact on how management principles are taught. While sport is not a completely unique context in which to manage, there are indeed distinct elements for managerial consideration. For example, one of the core elements of the competitive sport environment is the uncertainty of outcome, which in turn has implications in relation to areas such as marketing, finance, and facility management. The elevated emotional experience that sport invokes is also one of the defining aspects of the field, which has an impact on how we communicate with stakeholders such as participants, spectators, employees, and sponsors. A suggestion for the future is to continually accentuate these distinct elements through teaching which is underpinned by context-specific research. Such an approach across the discipline should in turn facilitate highly relevant educational experiences for those who wish to pursue a career in this field. The increased emphasis on business skills has in many ways taken us away from the foundational roots of participation and teaching physical activity. Has the pendulum perhaps swung a bit too far? Take for instance that the vast majority of undergraduate sport management programmes in the UK and US have no formal requirement to take classes relating to sport participation or coaching. We are therefore producing an entire generation of sport management graduates who are equipped with managerial skills, but may have a very limited understanding of key sport components like physical fitness, coaching, and teamwork. There are a few programmes (in Europe and Asia for example) where these types of classes are indeed compulsory for sport management students, and such an approach seems more in line with the early conceptions of sport (e.g. the Olympic ideal of ‘healthy mind and healthy body’). As the concept of sport generally has physical activity at the heart of its meaning, it seems that an opportunity exists to ensure that core sporting elements such as this are incorporated into future sport management curricula. As leaders in the field contemplate the role of sport management education in the future, such an approach seems important for preparing students to effectively manage in the sport environment.
Dr Steve Swanson 