Off-the-field goal
Students in sport management strive to work behind the scenes

Whether they're cheering the Blue Hens from the stands or watching their favorite professional team on TV, fans tend to focus on the game and the players: Will he make the touchdown? Will this serve win her the championship?

What spectators aren't apt to think about are the people on the sidelines who make the game possible, from the ticket-takers to the facilities managers to the accountants who keep track of the revenue.

Just ask Kevin Dexter, CHNS 2003, who played sports in high school but now sees the other side after working with sports administrators in the UD athletics department. "It's definitely an eye-opener to what goes on behind the scenes," he says.

That work behind the scenes is the focus of the new sport management concentration for students majoring in health behavior management in the CHNS Department of Health and Exercise Sciences. The rookie concentration, which debuted in the fall of 2001, melds business courses with sport-related classes.

"Sport management is preparing students for careers in the sports industry, which is a $213 billion industry," says Matthew J. Robinson, assistant professor of health and exercise sciences. Career opportunities are available not only in professional franchises, leagues and tours, he says, but also in college athletics, facility management, minor league sports, sport-marketing and event-management organizations, sporting goods manufacturers and retailers and corporations that use sports to reach their target markets.

Until the specialized field started to evolve about 20 years ago, "it was often the case that there were people who had limited knowledge of sports but who knew business, and people who had limited knowledge of business but knew sports," Robinson explains. "The sport management discipline addresses the need to know both areas."

The business of sport is unique on a number of different levels, Robinson points out. For example, he says, revenues and most expenses in professional sports are concentrated in a season lasting just a few months.

Dexter and his classmates in the program take courses in sport marketing, sport finance, sport law and management of sports information, in addition to the requisite core courses for all health behavior management students. They also are required to take accounting, economics, introduction to business, finance and statistics. The program was designed to meet the accreditation standards of the North American Society for Sport Management and the National Association for Sport Physical Education.

The program can accept 20 students per class. One year after opening, it is at capacity for sophomores and juniors, and 15 seniors have transferred in. New students must complete a freshman introductory course and then go through an application process to be accepted into the program. Based on interest so far, Robinson says, "It's going to be competitive for those spots."

Dexter started at UD as a business major, but he says it wasn't a good fit. "I didn't want to go to work in a suit and tie every day on Wall Street," he says. He approached the Department of Health and Exercise Sciences because he likes sports, and that's how he found out he could combine his two interests.

His classmate Morgan Clute, CHNS 2003, also started out as a business major. She had been recruited by UD for lacrosse--she's now captain of the women's team--and says she picked business just because she had to declare a major. As with Dexter, she says, she later decided to make a change.

"I didn't really want to get away from business completely," she says. "To combine it with sport was a lot more interesting to me." Now, she says, "I look forward to going to class. You can't ask for anything more in college."

Dexter particularly likes the small classes where he knows everyone. That will foster networking as the classmates enter the field after graduation, says Robinson, who makes use of networking himself.

Since earning his doctorate in athletic administration from Temple University, Robinson started a sport management program at York College of Pennsylvania and was lead author of Making the Games Happen: Profiles of Sport Industry Professionals, published in 2000 by Aspen Publishing. He has made national and international presentations of his research in sport marketing and consults with professional sports organizations and intercollegiate athletic departments around the country.

The sport industry professionals featured in his book, as well as former students and people he meets while consulting, contact him with opportunities for UD students to gain practical experience.

Sport management students must complete a practicum working with UD athletics, followed by a nine-credit senior internship with a sports organization. Robinson says the athletic department administrators and staff have been very cooperative and supportive in mentoring students, who, in turn, have made contributions in such areas as marketing, operations and ticketing. Clute, for example, leads Blue Hen Fever, a booster organization whose aim is to attract more students to UD home athletic events. That's key to developing a future alumni fan base, Robinson says.

Dexter worked in game operations at UD, where he helped set up fields, showed people where to park, ran scoreboards and collected tickets during his practicum, arriving as much as five hours before a game to prepare. Two years ago, he worked at MBNA America Bank for the summer, helping plan and set up motor sports events around the country. He rejoined MBNA for the first half of last summer to help run the Greater Baltimore Classic, a senior PGA golf tournament for which MBNA was a major sponsor.

Then, Dexter scored a position as one of 18 interns at the Philadelphia Eagles training camp, assisting with signs for corporate sponsors, parking and watching over VIPs. During the Eagles' regular season, he worked on carnival-type activities for fans at home games.

Clute has an internship this spring with the McDonald's LPGA Championship in Wilmington, Del. Though it's a major championship on the tour, the small size of the staff gives her a chance to experience many aspects of event preparation, Robinson says. Clute aims to go into event planning or marketing, having already had a summer job in marketing with STX, a lacrosse equipment company.

Along with the coursework, the practicum and internships are crucial to the sport management program, Robinson says. "By the time our students graduate, they will have a sound theoretical base and three work experiences on their résumés," he says. "That is a formula for success."

-Sandy Dennison James