Don’t Count on Passion to be Successful in the Sports Industry

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You love sport more than anyone you know. You know the history of your favorite sport inside-out. You are at the every home game of your favorite team. You know the life stories of all the players. 

If you were interested in working for this industry, you would be perfect candidate right? Not necessarily. 

 A love of sport alone is no longer what the industry is looking for. What employer’s want is someone with the skills and the vision to lead the sport industry through disruption, who embraces emerging technologies and understands the growing importance of data. 

The MSc in Sports Industry Management at emlyon business school in France works closely with sport industry leaders to ensure that the program meets their needs and delivers graduates who are ready to hit the ground running from day one. 

So what are the most pertinent issues being discussed today that companies in the sport industry need to address?

Data

The importance of data, its collection and its rigorous analysis has been growing in the sports industry for many years. It first made an appearance in baseball, as popularized in Michael Lewis’s book and later made into feature film “Moneyball”. Data was used in player recruitment but it is now used in all different aspects of sport. From player performance to team work, data helps to analyze physical, mental and social factors that will help players and teams learn how they can perform to their very best and create champions.

Data is also used in marketing to decide on when to schedule games, how to engage fans, how to assess the effectiveness of social media campaigns, how to measure financial performance, and so forth. 

The industry needs individuals who understand data, know how to collect and analyze it, and then translate it into innovative strategy. 

Future Tech

A survey conducted by Scrum Ventures in 2019 showed that according to industry professionals, the technologies that will make the biggest impact on the sports industry over the next 12 months are selected fan engagement technologies (78%), such as live streaming, esports and content platforms, athlete performance (16%) and stadium experience (6%).  From an investment perspective, the top three areas of interest were media and content-related platforms, esports and measurement platforms for data and analytics and biometrics.

 These insights are even more relevant in the context of the global COVID-19 crisis. How will this crisis change the sports industry? How can the industry adapt? Creative and skilled people are needed to use technology to keep the industry moving forward. 

Sustainability

Addressing issues of sustainability in sport is important for two reasons, the need to reduce the industry’s ecological footprint; and the role sport can play in raising environmental awareness.

The sports industry has committed to taking action to moderate the environmental impact that it has but much more can be done. How can the world of sport use its influence and fan base to pass on important messages and inform the public of environmental issues?

Sponsorship and marketing

With the rise of the digital era, sponsorship and marketing have experienced a huge change and continues to change with the importance of social media, particularly when it comes to fan interaction. 

The MSc in Sports Industry Management is an 18-month program split between emlyon business school’scampuses in Paris and Shanghai. It prepares you not only to tackles the issues previously mentioned, but also to be prepared for any further changes in the industry. The program is broken up into 4 skill sets and uses project based learning, company visits and networking sessions to put your classes into perspective:

1. Explore: Understand a world in constant change
2. Create: Tools and concepts to build for the future
3. Make it happen: Integrate innovation in a market strategy
4. Scale up: Go global

Do you have what it takes to join this fast-moving and exciting industry?

For more information download the brochure