“A liberal arts education provides an excellent foundation to help students see how everything in work and life is connected,” said Dr. John Drea ’80, professor of business and coordinator of IC’s recently expanded sports management program. “Our job in the sports management program is to build on the liberal arts and help our students see the entire field of sports business – not just the player and team side of sports, but also to see the opportunities in ticketing, promotions, analytics and in the companies that support the sports field.”

One of the first tasks in a sports management education is to open the eyes of students to what working in sports business is really like. In the Business of Sports class, students interview someone working in a sports business capacity to find out what they do, how they got their current and previous positions, what they wished they would have learned while in college and for advice to sports business students.

“It’s interesting how similar many of the career paths were,” said Grant Argylian ’20, who studies sports management. “I interviewed two individuals with the Kane County Cougars baseball organization — both talked about how hard the work is and that you have to love it and be willing to take opportunities when you can.”

Students in sports management learn the importance of networking, good communication skills and the ability to speak Spanish. Drea emphasizes that there are two features that distinguish IC’s sports management program from others. IC offers a business degree with a sports management concentration, not a sports management degree with some business classes. This provides students with opportunities in fields in both sports and non-sports fields upon graduation. The other major distinction for IC’s sports management program is an emphasis on hands-on projects with professional sports teams. Nearly 30 IC students have worked directly with MLB or NBA teams over the past three years on sports management projects.

“I worked on a project with the Milwaukee Brewers to predict ticket sales using baseball analytics,” said Austin Stewart ’16, who now works as an account executive in group sales for the Memphis Redbirds (AAA baseball). “The experience was really beneficial.”

Stewart, Lauren Mense ’16, and Drea recently presented their research findings at a national marketing conference. Students have worked on projects to measure various influences on both season ticket sales and total season attendance, customer lifetime value and evaluations of ticket pricing, among others. Currently students in Drea’s class are partnering on a project with the Indiana Pacers; it’s the second time a group from IC has collaborated with the NBA team.