Program Director Michael Lysko (Courtesy of SMU)
The billion-dollar sports industry attracts students, faculty and graduates as they gather to learn about the development of a new masters program in sport management.
SMU faculty presented the new master’s degree in sport management program to more than 35 students in the Collins Center Monday night.
“Our hope it to provide a program to give you the opportunity to have a competitive advantage,” Michael Lysko, Director of the Sport Management program, said.
The Cox School of Business and the Simmons School of Education and Human Development collaborated this semester to provide a new master’s degree for SMU students interested in business and sports.
“The sports business is bigger than the movie and car business combined,” Lysko said.
A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that global sports revenues will grow to $145.3 billion from 2010 to 2015.
According to the report, the areas of the industry that are top earners are gate revenues, sponsors, media rights and merchandising.
John Roeder, the Assistant Dean of Graduate Admissions at the Cox School of Business, said the program is set up with the basic core curriculum needed to go into the industry.
The curriculum includes an internship and 17 sequenced courses that are taught in five eight-week modules over a 12-month period which will begin August 2013.
Of these courses, eight are taught through the Cox School of Business MBA curriculum and nine at the Simmons School of Education and Human Development.
“It’s an aggressive pace, but it is not expected that you come in knowing these subjects, like accounting,” Roeder said.
“We have a lot of students coming into our program with degrees in liberal arts and all different types of backgrounds.”
One of the many college graduates who attended the information session was Skyler Johnson of the SMU athletic department.
Johnson plans to use this program as an opportunity to further his skills.
“I know that to continue [to] move up in athletics, you must have some sort of sport management degree or MBA,” Johnson said.
“The fact that SMU has a grad program now that is geared towards sports is important to me.”
The learning approach will provide students with case studies, networking through symposiums, mentorship’s and internships with some of the most prominent sports leaders and organizations in the United States.
SMU senior Zach Swanson attended the session because he is interested in getting into the business side of sports, sponsorships and deals that are associated with sports properties.
“This masters program combines the background of an MBA degree offered by Cox, which is targeted more towards what I wants to do, which is to work in sports,” Swanson said.
Swanson also said he came to the meeting to gain a better appreciation for the admissions process.
Lysko said preferred applicants typically have full-time work experience, a strong undergraduate record and competitive scores on the Graduate Management Admissions Test.
The program will accept 25 students who will then be able to get their master’s and embark on a new internship opportunity.
“I think being apart of such a program can help someone like me set myself apart from other people in my industry,”
Swanson said.
