How to build a career in Sports Management

Are you an athlete? Are you interested in making use of your sporting skills off the playing field? A career in Sports Management could be a perfect fit for you. The sports industry continues to grow and develop, and so do the career opportunities in this field.

Graduates of the European Bachelor in Business Administration – Concentration in Sports Management program are a perfect fit for the following positions:

• Sports Manager
• Sports Agent
• Event Coordinator
• Fitness Manager
• Sports Marketing Professional

Can’t find your dream job in this list? Don’t worry! The theoretical and practical skills which you gain throughout the program are what will eventually determine where you end up, and what career you pursue. That said, there is simply so much more to sports management, and this complexity is what makes the business of sport so exciting. Our current Sports Management student Pepa Juha shared his own opinions of the European Bachelor in Business Administration – Concentration in Sports Management program at the University of New York in Prague.

“What I enjoy most about this program is that the students get direct involvement and experience with real-life scenarios. For example, in the Sport Marketing course, our assignment was to reach out to real, existing clubs to help them create a partnership proposal, which they would eventually use during negotiations with potential partners and sponsors. How cool is that?”

So let’s kick-start your sports management career with a rigorous business education. Most entry-level positions in the sports industry require a degree, and if you are already aware of the career trajectory you want to take, additional skills such as marketing, communications, analytics and accounting may be great additions to your personal toolbox.

After gaining and improving your skills at university, you will be ready to use them in a professional context – in real-life situations and positions. Building your sports management career is largely about your aptitude for using your skills in practice and aligning them with the field you have chosen.

For example, if you are interested in becoming a team manager, it is useful to become acquainted with how businesses and people work on a managerial level. You would be in charge of hiring coaches and players, and negotiating their terms and conditions. Beyond that, you would also need to negotiate with potential partners and sponsors who are there to support your team – or even your entire organization.

A sports event coordinator requires communication, organizational skills, planning skills and definitely a high level of reliability to manage and organize sporting events that raise brand awareness while entertaining fans and customers. For example, if you are organizing a game, you would need to coordinate everything that comes with it, such as booking the arena and branding it with the banners and posters which are part of the sponsorship deal. Because of your hard work behind the scenes, the vital element of the entire sport can take place – the game itself.