M.S. IN SPORT MANAGEMENT

Course Descriptions

501 The Sport Industry. (3) Course is intended to provide students with an introduction to the field of sport management. Special emphasis is placed on the history of sport management, management constructs, organizational theory, levels of sport opportunities, and trends within the field. Students will be acquainted with issues through discussion of pertinent theories and through experiential studies of sport practitioners.

510 Governance and Policy in Sport. (3) Course is designed to provide knowledge and awareness of the rules, regulations, and/or policies governing various sport organizations. The course will specifically highlight the mission, membership, financial and organizational structure related to professional sport, international sport, intercollegiate sport, scholastic sport and amateur sport. An understanding of the differences in how sport is governed is critical to the continued growth of the industry.

512 Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics. (3) Course is intended to provide students with comprehensive coverage of issues present in intercollegiate athletics with an emphasis on theoretical and practical application of sport governance and leadership. Special emphasis is placed on the history of intercollegiate sport, governance, race, and gender in intercollegiate athletics. Students will be acquainted with issues through discussions of pertinent theories and through experiential studies of intercollegiate athletic governance.

515 Legal Issues in the Sport Industry. (3) This Sport Law course is designed to enable sport business management graduate students to expand their knowledge of some of the laws, rules and regulations that apply to the sport business industry and that impact the work setting of sport organizations. Students will learn about and analyze substantive legal concepts in the following core areas of law: constitutional, employment, antitrust, labor, intellectual property, agency, and contract and business law. The purpose of the course is to provide graduate students with an understanding of the legal issues involved in the operation and management of organizations in the sport business industry and to equip students with the skills and strategies needed to effectively work with business executives and lawyers to resolve these issues.

520 Game Theory and Strategic Thinking in Sport Operations. (3) Course is designed to provide a basic introduction to the concept of game theory as a manner of developing strategic and logic based thinking to be applied to the sport industry. Topics will include inductive reasoning, dominance, rationalizability, Nash Equilibrium, competition, negotiations, and risk.

530 Leadership Theory and Applications in Sport Settings. (3) Course is designed to provide students with an overview of contemporary organizational leadership theories and concepts. Special emphasis will be on effective leadership principles and practices applicable to the
sport management profession. Students will analyze topics such as leadership theory, motivation, organizational communication, conflict management, organizational culture, strategic planning, and professional ethics.

550 Facility Management and Sport Venue Operations. (3) Course is designed to develop practical competencies necessary to effectively manage sporting facilities and events. The course is a combination of theoretical discussions and hands-on practical experience. F, S

560 Understanding Sport Fan Behavior. (3) Course is intended to provide students with comprehensive coverage of sport spectator consumer behavior with an emphasis on theory development, review of research, and marketing applications. Special emphasis is placed on various models and paradigms relevant to sport spectator consumption behavior. Students will be acquainted with issues through discussions of pertinent theories and through experiential studies of sport consumers.

565 Revenue Generation and Fiscal Management in Sport. (3) Course is designed to examine both economic and fiscal theories as they are applied to the sport management industry. Various economic and fiscal issues will be explored with a focus on making effective fiscal decisions.

580 Research Methods in Sport. (3) The purpose of this course is to provide students with the appropriate skills and perspectives to conduct effective research on problems facing the decision-makers in the sport industry. Basic methodological approaches to research, how to use data tools and programs commonly used in a business and/or research setting, and how to analyze data using basic statistical techniques common in sport management research will also be discussed.

590 Graduate Internship. (3-6) The purpose of an internship or experiential learning experience is to allow students to gain valuable work experience related to sport management. This experience is designed to complement the course work by combining practical and theoretical applications as related to the field. As such, this course is designed to provide a rigorous, comprehensive, hands-on learning in order to expand students work experience. The internship is a closely supervised field experience which requires a rigorous time and energy commitment from students. Students may opt to take internship in lieu of research thesis.

595 Special Topics. (3) Course will be centered around current topics and trends specifically related to sport management. The course will include reading and research on selected topics and issues related to the special nature of the course. The course may be repeated one time for credit.

599 Research Thesis. (3-6) Course focuses on developing the understanding of how to use research to solve problems for entities or organizations. Specifically, students will learn how to identify a problem, analyze the situation, gather relevant information, interpret the information, and propose a solution.