Sports Management Careers Path

If you have tremendous passion for sports and you’ve never lost your interest for the game, a career in sports management might be your option for you to be part of the game. The good thing about sports management careers is that you don’t have to get physical in order to participate in the game. Sports management career is the business side of sports. With that being said, management careers in sports are able to offer you the satisfaction of being a team player without the grueling practices and the injuries.

Sports Management Directors

One of the most popular careers in sports management is to become a director of a sports team. Before moving up to this position, a sport management director may involve in other fields such as coaching and teaching. You need to have at least a Bachelor’s degree in sports management or business for this job. However, most directors have master degree.

A sport management director can be working in a college or high school to oversee the athletic department day to day operations. Their daily routine involves planning academic sports programs, estimating budgets and establishing standards and policies. Some sports management directors may be working in a large institution such as a university, a department store, a stadium or a multi national sports company where they share their work load with other team members.

The average yearly salary for this position is roughly $60,000.

Sports Marketers

Sports management marketers are one of the highest paid jobs in sports management careers. Their yearly income can reach as much as $80,000 to $100,000 and some are even getting extra commission for every sale they make. Besides, they are also getting other perks such as stock options.

Marketers’ sole responsibility is to find and negotiate contract between college or professional sports team and sponsors. A lot of large companies especially those involve in sports such as Adidas, Nike and Rebook want their names and logos to appear on sports events, stadiums or other programs. And a marketer would go and negotiate with these companies to seal a deal.

Other than negotiating contract with sponsors, sports management marketers also mange ticket sales, plan events and promote the team. Moreover, some marketers are even creating items such as clothes and souvenirs that bear the sports teams or colleges’ logos and names.

Sports Team Publicity

The publicity of a sport team is handled by the sports information director, media relations director or public relations director. The job responsibilities of these positions in publicity are mainly on promoting the sports team to the general public. Besides, these public relations professionals are excellent communicators in terms of writing and speaking publicly. Some of their daily tasks involve answering journalists’ questions and writing press releases which usually highlight the sports teams’ events.

Other than that, they also organize media days and prepare press guides for reporters. Most of the time, they serve as the gatekeepers between the public and their PR specialists.

The average annual income for these publicity professionals ranges from $60,000 to $80,000.

Sports Compliance Professional

Sport compliance professional is an interesting job in which the person in the position implements, oversees and ensures that all athletic rules such as the NCAA rules are met. A sport compliance professional usually works in a college or schools where there is a sports team in the national leagues.

The sole responsibility of a sports compliance professional is to make sure that no athletics rules have not been violated by the sports team and if there is any violations, the compliance officer must report it to the NCAA.

In addition, the compliance officer also assists in organizing and planning any athletic events. You need to have excellent communication, organization and analytical skills for this position.

A minimum requirement for sports compliance officer is at least a Bachelor’s degree. A sport compliance officer earns between $45,000 and $55,000 per year.

Athletic Agents

Athletic agents or sports agents deal with professional athletes in terms of contracts and endorsement. The task of a sport agent includes promoting athletes and their products to the general public.

A sport agent always works under pressure and long work hour is not uncommon. Good negotiation and selling skills are a must for sports agents in order to excel in the sports industry. Even though the job is tough and difficult for sport agent especially when it comes to closing deal, the rewards for athletic agents are excellent in terms of monetary gain. According to topendsport.com, sports agents work on commission and can make $400 to millions per deal.

A Bachelor’s degree is the basic requirement for a sport agent other than excellent communication and negotiation skills which is the bread and butter for this position.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 25th, 2010 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Sports Management Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.