For MBA Programs, Sports Marketing is Good Business

This article is sponsored by the University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business.

Students often dream of becoming novelists, movie directors or athletic managers. Their desires have fueled a growth in master of fine arts programs in writing and film. It’s also why so many schools now offer MBAs or specialized master’s degrees in sports marketing or sports management. Unfortunately, despite incurring thousands of dollars in debt, graduates of these programs often don’t find careers to match their glamorous ambitions.

60 years ago, the then Brooklyn Dodger’s owner Walter O’Malley tried (and failed) to get New York’s Columbia University to add a sports administration program to the curriculum. He believed college-educated managers would add a layer of professionalism to professional sports. Today, over 300 universities offer degrees in sports marketing or sports management.

“I’ve been on record for years saying that we now have way too many of these programs turning out way too many of these graduates, who will quite frankly never get in the industry in the way that they wanted to when they started,” explains Paul Swangard, the managing director of the University of Oregon's MBA sports marketing program, “I think there’s a percentage [of schools] out there that are tuition mills that put the word sports in front of a program and believe they can fill seats.”

So, when the University of Oregon added a sports marketing specialization to their MBA program, they took an unusual approach. “One of the strokes of genius,” explains Swangard, “… was to not allow the student to get a degree with the word ‘sports’ in it. What we are, is a concentration inside of an MBA program –– which is what you walk out the door with.”

Beginning with its inaugural MBA class in 1996, the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center formed the first of what would be four different focused programs inside the Lundquist College of Business – with concentrations in sustainability, entrepreneurship and finance following on from the launch of its sports marketing specialization.

Across the country, record numbers of students were already earning degrees hoping for careers in sports marketing. For universities hoping to offer an education with real value, the challenge was attracting serious students and qualified faculty.

“People think they’re going to sit around all day and watch Derek Jeter take batting practice or Rex Grossman throw touchdown passes…,” Jim Riordan complained in a 2011 US News and World Report article. As director of Florida Atlantic University’s sports management program, Riordan said his “biggest challenge in accepting students today is separating the sports fan from the sports business student.”

When the Warsaw program began, “there really wasn’t a pathway for students who were particularly interested in sports to enter a business school at the master’s level and get that training,” Swangard notes. In 2006, a Wall Street Journal article highlighted the numerous academic programs in sports management or marketing which were housed separately from their university’s business schools. They were run out of departments in physical education, hospitality management and other disparate majors.

Despite locating the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center within the University of Oregon’s business school, it initially struggled to gain acceptance. “Traditional business schools looked at the area of sports as an area of research and study and turned their noses up at it,” Swangard explains. “They didn’t feel like it was a good fit for a business school.”

Florida State University’s undergraduate sports management program head, Michael Mondello, complained in the Wall Street Journal piece about professors coming from other disciplines with little background in sports. “You wouldn't see that in the hard sciences,” he pointed out. “Why would we do that in this field?”

The Warsaw program is more than “just repurposing a marketing professor who is now going to teach sports marketing,” offers Swangard. His school is a research university, which means the faculty at Warsaw must have a body of work in sports. At a national level, the limited number of suitably qualified educators also serves to limit the number of top-ranked programs available.

Swangard believes Oregon’s program is successful because it combines faculty members who have a background in sports with an MBA degree that gives students the necessary broad-based business fundamentals. This means they are well positioned after graduation –– even if they don’t pursue careers in sports marketing.