Hi, I’m a current student at the Ohio State University. My GPA is pretty decent (3.408, could finish around a 3.5 this May). I’m majoring in Sport Industry, minoring in what is essentially their law minor because they don’t have an official “law minor”.
I want to work within professional sports in the future. Preferably the NBA or NFL. I have not taken the GRE yet, I’ve been looking all over this forum on what to study and plan on taking it soon. My question is what is the best programs for me? I’ve been looking at programs that are near professional teams so that I could try and land an internship while in Grad school. These are the schools that have interested me so far.
Temple
UMass (although Idk if I will get in, I heard they are the best)
Columbia (Their Sport Analytics concentration interests me + NYC location)
NYU (mostly because they are in NYC, 2 NBA and 2 NFL teams nearby)
Are there any other grad schools that would be a great option to look at? I can’t seem to find many in the west coast. Oregon is known for Sport marketing, not really what I want to go for. OU has a great program too but there isn’t much opportunity in Athens, OH.
Why do you think you need grad school for sports management? Best thing for you to do is to get some work experience after graduation and try to get closer to your dream job. Without job experience, I doubt a Masters degree would help you.
I’d like to focus on Sport Analytics. They don’t really teach that in undergrad. Another reason is that it would give me a reason to get out of my city where there are no professional basketball or football teams. Also, many grad schools give access to valuable connections. When it comes to the sport industry, it’s much more about who you know than what you know!
I agree that industry is about who you know rather than what you know, that’s why I don’t think grad school will help you. I think you overestimate the connections you will have in grad school. Your best bet is to apply to all sports team, any entry level job and relocate out of your city. It’s easier to apply for an entry level job with a Bachelors degree than a Masters.
Hate to have you spend money and two years’ opportunity costs to attend grad school and find out that you will not be better off.
I’ve been basing my interest on what others have done in positions where I would like to get to. I don’t have much background with analytics so I would like that experience and I think it could help greatly. But maybe I’ll apply to a few jobs as well! When would you recommend I should start applying if I graduate in May?
Now until you get a job.
My son had job offers before Christmas. The recruiters are going to colleges to interview now.
Go to your college’s career office and see what jobs are available, apply and visit it once a week.
cbreeze, do you have specific knowledge of this field? The sports world operates a bit differently than others… I only ask because a pre-Christmas job offer in the sports world is (at least to my knowledge) very unusual.
These programs you are listing seem to have one course in sports analytics and the prereqs seem to be MBA-level stats or regression classes. If I were pursuing this career, I would want to make sure that this one class in analytics really trains people to conduct the analyses rather than to read and comprehend other peoples’ analyses. The people I know who do data analytics (including some who have tried to get jobs working for a sports team) have masters degrees in stats or econ. If you really wanted to do work in this area, I would think that an applied stats masters program with that same single course in sports analytics would be useful. Otherwise you might be the guy entering the data into the excel spreadsheet while others crunch the numbers, which is not necessarily a bad job.
@CheddarcheeseMN You’re right! I honestly haven’t been looking at the courses, I was just looking to see if they had my focus or concentration. I will look more into the courses. I’ve been talking to a faculty member of Temple as well. Is there anything you suggest I should ask him?
Sport Analytics is a relatively new and up and coming field. I still think grad school is needed imo because it is a lot more technical. I need to know what I’m doing. I’m going to look into programs such as UMass and OU for their dual-degree programs. Perhaps an MBA could better prepare me? I definitely need to do more research and look at the courses.
My son, who played baseball throughout high school, wanted to be a baseball player. However, he realized that was a long shot though he has several members of his high school team in the big leagues. Then he wanted to manage a baseball team. He went to undergraduate Wharton and now works for a hedge fund. But his dream of managing a sports team has not died…he may pursue it yet.
His role model was Theo Epstein who was the youngest general manager of the Red Sox. Read his wiki.