Sports management is a broadly defined field, which concerns itself with the aspects of managing professional sports and recreation. Vital skills for the discipline include general management practices, as well as financial management, accounting, psychology, business administration and marketing. With the ever-increasing popularity of professional sports, in virtually every nation and across all walks of life, sports management is a constantly growing field. In addition to new career opportunities for people with sports management degrees, cutting-edge ideas are constantly moving to the forefront. This requires that professionals in the field be able to supplement their own ongoing educational efforts with a wide range of resources.
Here are five excellent online resources for sports management professionals.
Sports Law
From Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute we get an expansive and comprehensive guide to the basics of sports law. Sports law encompasses a wide range of legal areas, which combine in unique ways when applied to the professional athletics industry. Particularly important areas of sports law include antitrust law, contract law, and tort law. Cornell presents a thorough overview of these areas, with specific regard to how they might be applied to organized sports and recreation. Their approach allows for sports management professionals to acquaint themselves with basic legal concepts in a way that will further increase their effectiveness when it comes to new management strategies and outside-the-box thinking.
International Sports Management, Inc.
International Sports Management, Inc., or ISM, is a subsidiary of the Whitmore Group, a global consortium of business service providers. The ISM is an internationally recognized professional association, bringing together cutting-edge practices and networking opportunities from widely accredited professionals based all over the world. The organization also promotes, manages, and provides access to a series of annual events, allowing its members to continuously benefit from any new developments along the lines of the business and administrative aspects of sports management.
President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition
Just as sports management, overall, is an ever-evolving discipline, so too are its constituent fields affected by the continued advancement of scientific study. Research into physical fitness, health and nutrition is ongoing, and one of the best ways to stay on top of new and revised information is to read what the US federal government has to say on the subject. The President’s Council, its ongoing findings, and archives of established information are all available through the US Department of Health and Human Services’ online presence.
Athletic Insight
Athletic Insight is a widely recognized journal of sports psychology, a growing field under the auspices of sports management. Sports psychology is integral to the underlying philosophy of sports management, as it encourages the growth and maintenance of both physical and mental health and wellness in professional athletes. A healthy, well-adjusted athlete is much more effective than one who is not, but many franchises woefully neglect the role of psychology in encouraging peak athletic performance. Athletic Insight seeks to change that, by making cutting-edge material much more widely available.
Sport Science
Sport Science is a website for research into athletics and performance enhancement. It includes, among other valuable resources, a recognized and peer-reviewed scientific journal. Its assortment of popular features includes a broad range of informative spreadsheets, links to ongoing cutting-edge research into sports and athletics management, and articles on controlled trials concerning everything from sports psychology to better accounting practices. Back issues of the journal are available for the fullness of its nearly twenty-year history to date.
Would You Like to Know More?
Sports management is a fun and exciting discipline, and it involves a broad set of skills with wide-ranging applications in other fields as well. For more information, check out some of the most prestigious sports management professional associations in the country. There is also a list of universities in the United States which boast widely recognized sports management programs, courtesy the North American Society for Sports Management.
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