Sport Management Curriculum Research Articles

Incorporating Mental Health Literacy Into the Sport Management Curriculum

Mental health is an emerging area of interest in sport, but there is a paucity of educational initiatives in sport management curricula to train the next generation of sport managers to address the mental health needs of athletes, a type of knowledge that the mental health literature operationalizes as mental health literacy. One goal of accrediting bodies such as the Commission on Sport Management Accreditation is for excellence in sport management education; thus, due to the changing landscape of sport, sport management curricula should incorporate mental health literacy competencies. This educational research review provides justification for the inclusion of mental health literacy competencies in sport management curricula and accreditation standards, as well as pedagogical strategies for implementation.

Digital Development and Technology in Sport: A Course to Improve Digital Literacy in the Sport Management Curriculum

Digital Development and Technology in Sport: A Course to Improve Digital Literacy in the Sport Management Curriculum

A Proposal for Improving Student-Athletes’ Mental Health Through Leadership Training

Student-athletes face a variety of stressors and are at risk for mental health issues, particularly with “name, image, and likeness” issues creating new pressures and distractions. This article outlines a leadership development program geared toward student-athletes and the enrichment of their mental health. The courricular content described within includes self-development material delivered by faculty in a team context. Early findings indicate that the Positive Leadership Program appears to make impactful improvements in mental health outcomes and can be introduced into sport management curricula.

Applied Improvisation in the Sport Management Curriculum

Despite the incorporation of a range of engaged learning strategies within sport management education, many sport industry employers still perceive sport management graduates as lacking the soft skills needed to be successful in such a dynamic industry (Keiper et al., 2019). The authors suggest applied improvisation (improv) as a pedagogical tool to address this skills gap. “Applied improv” describes the application of improvisation principles outside of the theatre setting (Dudeck & McClure, 2018). Applied improv in the classroom has been presented as an emerging learner-centered approach to instruction (Skinner et al., 2022) that has the potential to meet classroom objectives while simultaneously developing students’ communication and soft skills. Many proponents of applied improv in the classroom environment tout its ability to facilitate communication and collaboration while building participant confidence, especially in human services disciplines (e.g., Chan, 2021; Gao et al., 2019; Hoffmann-Longtin et al., 2018). Using constructivism as a theoretical lens, this commentary explores the existing body of applied improvisation literature to provide recommendations for pedagogical applications within the sport management curriculum to address the employability skills gap of entry-level sport employees. The application of the current review will assist sport management educators in developing curricula and coursework while providing a foundation for future empirical studies on the efficacy and outcomes of applied improv within the sport management curriculum.

Rethinking the Sport Management Internship

Internships are widespread and usually a mandatory component of the student experience, but the focus on the employment experience may overshadow the educational function of experiential learning. This article argues for a shift in perspectives and priorities for career development in sport management curricula. While internships were originally seen as an effective means of preparing students for the sports industry, concerns over issues related to access and pedagogy have created an urgency to review practices across the discipline. The primary argument highlights an imbalance in the discourse surrounding professional and educational foci of sport management internships, changes in the understanding of careers since the adoption of internships in sport management, and design features that can be at odds with student development and motivation. Finally, we propose a more holistic approach and make recommendations for how rethinking internships can improve issues of equity, access, and student development.

The Factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions amongst sport management students

ABSTRACT
 Background
 Given the size of the sports industry in relation to the global economy, more research is focusing on how to identify entrepreneurial opportunities in sports.
 Purpose 
 This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions amongst sport management students at a South African university.
 Method 
 Structured interviews were used to gather information from 10 undergraduate sport management students for the qualitative, explanatory study. Using ATLAS.ti and thematic analyses, the collected data were examined.
 Results 
 The following themes emerged from the study; namely, personality traits, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived university support, perceived structural support, and subjective norms. The results of this study indicate that sport management students have a favourable attitude towards entrepreneurship, which is influenced by their family and friends - and by their own sense of their own ability to succeed in business.
 Conclusion 
 Universities should consider incorporating entrepreneurship into their sport management curriculum design and teaching methods to enhance students' entrepreneurial mindset and self-efficacy.
 Contribution
 This study contributes to the discussion around developing attitudes and intentions toward entrepreneurship as a livelihood option for sport management students.
 Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, sport management, sport entrepreneurship

Inclusion, infusion, or confusion: Exploring how faculty address adaptive sport and recreation in the sport management classroom

There has been a call for adaptive sport and recreation content to be infused throughout the sport management curriculum. This study examined how faculty incorporate adaptive sport and recreation content in the sport management classroom. Findings from semi-structured interviews indicate foundational knowledge of adaptive sport and recreation appears to be an overlooked area in preparing professionals to enter the sport industry, and faculty are without resources on the topic. This content should be infused throughout the curriculum to ensure students are prepared to enter the professional work environment and to serve this specific population of participants, spectators, and consumers.

‘Zero Gravity’: Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Professional Intentions and Career Pathway Vision of Sport Management Students

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has transformed the professional landscape and people’s career expectations. Especially among students, who now face new challenges not foreseen when they started their studies before the pandemic. Nevertheless, to date, there are no specific studies that examine in depth how the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have reshaped the professional expectations of future sport managers. To address this research gap, the main purpose of the study is to explore how COVID-19 pandemic has affected the professional intentions and career plans of sport management students. To this end, we share the visions collected in written essays, that a group of 90 students from the Paris Saclay University (France) have concerning their professional future and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on it. The essays were qualitatively analyzed based on the self-concept theory of career development through the person–environment perspective. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 outbreak influenced sport management students’ self-concept, their future workplace and employment time choice planning, and overall, their vision and intention for their career path. Accordingly, sports management educators, educational institutions, and policymakers need to ensure that sport management curricula and teaching practices address the new demands of the sports industry prompted by the pandemic, together with the expectations and educational needs of the sport management students.

Representation within the sport management curricula: exploring educators’ decision making-process

ABSTRACT The rise of curricula activist campaigns requires intensified scrutinisation of representation in the curricula. Although case studies represent a key pedagogical tool within management education, representation within case studies and educators’ accompanying decision-making processes are underexplored. Adopting a qualitative research approach, this study interviewed sport management lecturers at two UK higher education institutions. Natalie Jester’s feminist reading of the theory of representation, which conceptualised representation within the curricula, was drawn upon to explore educators’ decision-making processes, including the representative groups used (if any), when selecting and creating case studies. Using a grounded research approach, educators’ perceptions regarding the challenges to achieving representation in case studies were investigated. The findings informed a conceptual model of educator decision-making, identifying meso, micro and macro factors that influence decisions regarding descriptive and substantive representation within case studies. Practical implications for higher education sport management educators, departments and senior managers were also discussed.

Sport law in U.S. undergraduate sport management programs: What should we be teaching?

Sport law knowledge is a vital component of sport management education and professional preparation for those working in the sport and recreation industries. It has been more than 15 years since scholars fully analyzed the content of sport law courses. Given the increase in litigation surrounding the sport industry, there is increased focus and interest in the law as a teaching tool within the sport management curriculum. Sport management curricula must continue to evolve and adapt to respond to the dynamic nature of industry and academia. Therefore, this study updates foundational work on the content of sport law classes in U.S. undergraduate sport management programs. Through an online survey of sport law course instructors in undergraduate sport management programs, we discovered all instructors include Title IX in their courses. Consistent with previous research, the next most covered areas included aspects of negligence law and contract law. Many instructors thought that criminal domestic violence/intimate partner violence was an important topic that they were not covering in their course. We did find differences in course content by instructor educational degree and legal practice history. This work can inform sport management program assessments and sport law course syllabi construction.

The Digital Paradigm Shift: Challenges faced by HBCU sport management programs in light of modernization

Sport Management as an academic field has experienced a significant expansion and transformation over the last four decades. With an increased influence of modernization such as new learning technologies and virtual learning, educators in the field have been forced to adapt instructional design, course delivery, and realign sport management curriculum with the demands of the present-day sport industry. This paradigm shift has fostered significant growth in sport management degree programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Leaders of these programs aim to meet the evolving needs of students in the areas of academic preparation and career readiness. However, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that serve marginalized populations have experienced challenges as they strive to maintain robust academic sport management programming, foster student engagement, and prepare students for careers in the sports industry. These challenges are heightened in part due to various institutional disparities experienced by HBCUs. The purpose of this theoretical paper is to examine the impact that the paradigm shift has had on HBCU sport management programs and to discuss the outlook of these programs in lieu of modernization within sport management as both a profession and academic field.

The Marshall Plan: How Diversity and Inclusion Transformed the Dallas Mavericks’ Organizational Culture

How does a professional sport organization with a toxic organizational culture transform its workplace to one built around equity, diversity, and inclusion? This article addresses that question in a case study that explores the aftermath of the Dallas Mavericks’ sexual harassment scandal. The case allows students to analyze the crisis the Mavericks faced after a Sports Illustrated article exposed the organization’s corrosive workplace culture. Students will discuss the strategies Mavericks’ chief executive officer Cynthia Marshall deployed to transform the Mavericks’ workplace culture. Furthermore, students will consider how those strategies have broader utility in improving organizational diversity throughout the sport industry. A theoretical framework, a case narrative, and teaching notes are provided to support implementation of the case study in sport management curricula.

English

Described in this article is how sport management curricula can offer unique, real-world learning experiences and corresponding student learning gains, when grounded in community based learning (CBL). To achieve these ends, this study was designed to explore how to best execute CBL in sport management, informed, in part, by analyzing the lived experiences of students who were required to develop their understanding of community needs and resources, as well as devise and execute plans to meet these needs, in order to successfully complete the course. Students’ structured reflections of their discipline-specific CBL course and changes-in-self were assessed using rigorous qualitative analysis to detect emergent themes. Results indicated students’ self-reported professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal gains in relation to how the course was taught/specific pedagogical practices.  Competencies subsumed within these categories included learning how to effectively fund raise, learning to negotiate the challenges of group work and team dynamics, cultivating critical thinking and leadership skills, and cultivating self-as-professional.  These data inform how to derive the unique impacts of service learning in sport, including the opportunities it presents for students to cultivate professional skills often reported to be under cultivated among recent graduates. Thus, results of this study fill a gap in the literature regarding how to foster student preparedness for “real world” experiences, and serve as model of how faculty and administrators can successfully integrate CBL in experiential sport management coursework.   Key words: Community-based learning (CBL), sport management, high-impact practices, fundraising, cultivating pre- professional skills in CBL coursework.

Factors Influencing Intern Performance and Employability in Sport Management: A Voice from Internship Site Supervisors

Recent literature refers to internships as one of the most impactful aspects of an academic degree program and a catalyst for developing necessary employability skills (Narayanan, Olk, & Fukami, 2010; Shoenfelt, Stone, & Kottke, 2013). The purpose of this study was to utilize internship site supervisor evaluations to assess interns’ skills, knowledge, and ability as a means of gaining a greater understanding of employability in the sport industry. A total of 420 usable, final supervisor evaluations were gathered from the academic years 2012-2013 through 2018-2019. Interns’ quality of work ( = .49, p < .001) was the most important predictor in explaining their performance as an intern, followed by their attitude ( = .20, p < .001), dependability ( = .12, p = .002), quality of oral communication ( = .10, p < .001) and maturity ( = .07, p = .015). Similarly, interns’ quality of work ( = .37, p < .001) was the most important predictor for their employability, followed by attitude ( = .24, p < .001), quality of oral communication ( = .15, p < .001) and quality of writing ( = .09, p = .020). Students, higher education institutions and industry practitioners are in a constant flux between what is offered within the sport management curriculum and what is required by the sport industry (Emery et al., 2012). Other scholars (e.g., de Schepper et al., 2020) also found this as a challenging balance between developing well-rounded graduates and providing appropriate sport management job opportunities.

Integrating Service Learning Into the Sport Management Curriculum

This paper is an extension of a 2019 NASSM Teaching & Learning Fair presentation. It outlines two activities that have been integrated into the sport management curriculum at a small business college in New England.

Is The Sport Management Course Curriculum Compatible With Football Governing Institutions?

Sport is becoming a global phenomenon. Moreover, it has been one of the major sources of income for the government in different countries. Therefore, sport management education is becoming increasingly important in the management of sports. Countries that spend more on the development of sports facilities have been associated with huge improvements in the sports industry. Similarly, clubs that spend more on acquiring new talents in the industry and availing sports facilities have been associated with higher performance. This led the European football clubs in the spending more than they earn so as to acquire the services of the best talents and avail the best sports facilities so as to perform better. Therefore UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) launched its financial fair play regulations. UEFA financial fair play regulations were introduced to prevent the European football clubs from overspending. This situation affects the education curriculum of the sports management departments in universities. The regulations have compelled the clubs to spend at the break-even point. This has led to the improvement in brand value, increased sponsors, and making decisions that do not lead the clubs to overspend. As a result, the clubs have grown economically and achieved higher financial stability. This research explores the adaptation of the sport management curriculum to these new situations.

Analysis of sport sales courses in the sport management curriculum

This paper examined the curriculum posted on program websites of sales education in undergraduate sport management programs in the United States. A sport sales course is offered by 22% of undergraduate sport management programs. Programs with Commission on Sport Management Accreditation (COSMA) accreditation, located in a city, housed in a sport management or leisure department, and programs with larger student enrollments were the most likely to offer a sport sales course. A survey was also utilized better understand of how sport sales courses are being taught and uncover the perceptions of programs not offering sales. The top reasons for adding the class were the demand from the industry for qualified salespeople and a positive employment outlook. Survey results revealed that all courses were taught in a face-to-face environment with an average class size of 27, predominantly taught by a full-time faculty member in sport management. Selling in the Sport Industry authored by Pierce et al. was the most commonly used textbook. Respondents from programs not offering the course nearly universally recognized the importance of students demonstrating competence in sales by the time they graduate, and 74% reported covering sales competencies elsewhere in curriculum. Slightly over one-fourth of the programs without a sales course indicated that addition of a required class is likely in the near future. The business school was a likely place to outsource the teaching of sales competencies, with 13% of schools without a sport sales class requiring a professional selling course offered in the business school and 18% offering access to an elective. The most significant obstacle impeding the adoption of sales was the constraint posed by credit hour limits for graduation.

Environmental sustainability and sport management education: bridging the gaps

ABSTRACTAlthough sport management higher education has recognized the need to include environmental sustainability in curricula, little is known about the scope and content of environmental sustainability curricula. This study conducted an inventory of environmental sustainability courses offered in sport management programs. A questionnaire was distributed to 553 faculty members from North American higher education institutions. Additionally, a panel of experts were interviewed about the benefits, drawbacks and challenges of including sustainability in a sport management curriculum. Findings reveal that very few programs currently have stand-alone courses dedicated to environmental sustainability in sport. There are significant barriers to adopting environmental sustainability in sport as a stand-alone course and as a module, which certainly makes developing stand-alone coursework a long-term process. However, these challenges have not stopped many programs from incorporating these topics into their programs of study in other creative ways. The paper suggests ways to overcome barriers and integrate environmental and sport management education.

From classroom to courtside: An examination of the experiential learning practices of sport management faculty

The Commission on Sport Management Accreditation (COSMA) has identified experiential learning as an integral element to be included in sport management curriculum. However, often the experiential learning opportunities offered by sport management programs have been limited to a required internship experience. The purpose of this study was to investigate the widespread application of experiential learning practices of sport management faculty. A survey instrument using Foster and Dollar's (2010) Five-Step Experiential Learning Process Model was sent to all subscribers to the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) List-serv. Results showed the majority of sport management faculty are utilizing some form of experiential learning technique. While usage rates were high for classroom-based experiential learning and internship, usage rates were considerably lower for volunteer exploration, practicum elective, and apprenticeship.

“The court is now in session…”: Use of mock trial in sport management

Mock trial is an active, collaborative exercise, grounded in experiential learning, that simulates a court session in which students engage in role-play to achieve intended learning outcomes. Within the United States, the mock trial has been adopted and tested in a variety of academic disciplines due to its transferable objectives and valuable outcomes, yet little is known about the implementation and effectiveness of mock trials in sport management curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to describe my implementation of mock trial in a graduate Sport Law course, discuss evaluative feedback and reflection on the mock trial exercise, and present implications for future practice. While the mock trial was found to enhance critical skills, broaden legal knowledge, and prepare students for a future career in sport, several challenges were identified. The paper concludes with five strategies I intend to implement in future mock trials – bolster student training, review strategies for success, increase time allotted, enhance authenticity, and expand debriefing.