As global sports become this incredible multibillion-dollar worldwide force industry, it has created all kinds of new careers that weren’t even imaginable 10 years ago. There’s everything from sports analytics, where the fan today is so much more sophisticated of a consumer, and they want to see statistics. They want to know what region of the court a particular guard has the best chances of making a bucket from, and things like that.
There are jobs now where somebody is actually creating algorithms to calculate the percentage chances of shots from each location on the court. When you get into math engineering, it’s the development of new kinds of synthetic fibers or material for creating new pole vaults, or new ballasts for bows in archery, or new kinds of materials for athletic shoes. Chemical engineering is a whole new incredible space for the sporting world.
Of course, sports law is a huge space, and it’s not just traditional career paths like becoming an agent to represent the next multimillion-dollar athlete, but also being the person who can structure a contract correctly for a nonprofit organization that’s using athletics to promote social change and get kids off the street.
How does that type of nonprofit operate? Well, they need sponsors. And those sponsors expect certain kinds of results from that organization, and those results have to be embodied in that contractual agreement and what the price tag will be for that sponsorship. Also, for that kind of relationship, as sports are expected to give back to their communities, they’re now also expected to demonstrate success in those regions.
For example, when the NBA uses its program called NBA Cares to teach kids how to read, or to build houses in Africa, it’s one thing to put up on their website that they went to Africa and built those houses, and demonstrate how great they are.
It’s a very different thing for them to say that 40% of this community in the Philadelphia region lived below the poverty line, largely because of illiteracy and gang violence and kids not having the opportunity to go to college. And that with their new program, these kids are getting the skills they need, and getting the after-school support to actually succeed in school. They’re getting the nutrition they need to actually be able to focus on tests. They have safe spaces to go to so that they can get off the street and go to college. And now, that 40% line has dropped to 15%.
When they say this type of thing, who’s doing that number calculation? It’s researchers. It’s basically an epidemiologist who has the skills in designing a rigorous methodological study to demonstrate the effectiveness of these programs, and that’s a really cool space to get into the sporting world now.
To find out more about opportunities in the sports world and sports management, consider trying out online sports management education. It is far and away the most straightforward and convenient means of diving into sports management education.
