The Field Of Sport Management - 1217 Words

Comparatively, the field of sport management is a rather new academic discipline (Chalip, 2006), which has faced some challenges in terms of justifying its prominence in the academic world. Nonetheless, Chalip (2006) believes it was an unavoidable course for the evolution of sport management. Mullin (1980) defined the sport manager as follows: ‘A person whose job entails planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling to be performed within the context of an organisation whose primary product or service is sport, or sport related’ (p3). The term management has been defined in many different ways through research as it continues to evolve across various industries. Although, Donnelly, Gibson and Ivancevich (1992) described it as†¦show more content†¦As a result, the professional and elite levels have also grown substantially these last three or four decades (Vanderzwaag, 1998). Areas such as recreational sporting programs, corporate-sponsored events, sporting news media and sporting goods have been established within the professional realm of sport as well. It is evident that as the sport industry grew and evolved, it progressively took on the business attributes of other industries (Masteralexis, Barr Hums, 2014). Despite similar business industry characteristics, the sport industry has a unique management, business and legal practice, unique to all other industries. Furthermore, what makes this industry so unique is the organisational structures that are in place in order to manage, govern and organise sport. Masteralexis et. al (2014) identified three main management structures of sport; clubs, leagues and tournaments which are used to manage and organise sport. These management systems encompass a range of amateur and professional organisations that may apply variations to these structures for the purpose of producing a sporting event. For instance, American college sports such as basketball, baseball, track and field, are structured under the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as an amateur governing body, but are televised across the United States and structured