Sport Management On Campus

You will enter the On-Campus Sport Management master’s program with a cohort and take five of your six core courses and one elective in your first year. In your second year, you will conduct a semester-long internship (a “six-hour” course), take your remaining core course (Strategic Management), and fulfill electives. 

An advisor will be assigned to you before you arrive on campus.  You will need to meet with your advisor every semester to register for new classes, and to make sure you stay on track. Talk with your advisor about your future goals so they can help you choose electives that enrich your career path.  Please note: the internship cannot be scheduled until you have taken the five core courses required in Year One.

Please familiarize yourself with all the internship requirements during Year One so you can find an internship that aligns with your career goals. In special circumstances, a few students have been granted permission to intern in the summer between Year One and Year Two in the program.

The On-Campus M.Ed. requires 36 hours of coursework.  All graduate courses in the Sport Management program are numbered either KIN 386 or KIN 395 and carry three hours of credit. A normal course load for graduate students is three courses (nine hours) per semester.

• KIN 395 Sport Marketing (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Managing People & Organizations (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Legal Issues in Sport (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Ethics in Sport (Spring Year One)
• KIN 395 Strategic Management for Sport (Fall Year Two)
• KIN 395 Facility and Event Management (Spring Year One)
• Three hours from either: KIN395 Sport Policy, KIN 395 Sport and International Relations, KIN 395 Sport Analytics, KIN Sport Economics or KIN History of the Sport Industry in America
• Completion of KIN 697P: Internship In Sport Management (Following Year One) 
• Electives
  • 3 hours of additional graduate-level coursework in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education chosen in consultation with the advisor.
  • 6 hours of coursework from inside or outside the department, chosen in consultation with the advisor (3 hours may be at upper-division undergraduate level)

Electives may be taken from Sport Management or Physical Culture and Sport Studies courses, other KIN/HED classes, and courses outside the department.  Three hours of upper-division, undergraduate coursework is permitted. 

The culminating experience of the Master’s Degree in Sport Management is the successful completion of:

1. a 300-hour (paid or unpaid) internship in an established work environment,
2. completion of a written consulting report for your site, and
3. an oral examination in front of the faculty in Sport Management based on your organizational analysis.

Students may not intern until after they have completed at least 15 hours of required sport management courses. In order to enroll for the internship, students must be in good academic standing and have no grades of incomplete.  They must also have the approval of their faculty advisor in the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education, who will be their internship supervisor.

Students are responsible for locating their own internship site and must make an appointment with their advisor at least 6 weeks prior to the internship semester to discuss options and get faculty approval.  The student should bring to this meeting several options for discussion.  Students must determine if their site already has an existing approved site agreement and program agreement with UT-Austin. If not, then site and program agreements must be completed in addition to the contract.

Review the list

Once the details are worked out with a sponsoring agency and an on-site supervisor is identified, the student, in conjunction with his or her site supervisor, will complete the standard sport management program contract to be approved by the faculty advisor that must be signed by all three parties (intern, on-site supervisor, and faculty advisor) before the internship begins. It must be understood that both the faculty advisor and the on-site supervisor have the authority to terminate the internship experience at any time if the intern fails to complete written requirements or fails to meet behavioral or effort expectations. The written requirements must be typed and of the highest professional quality with special attention given to content, format, and style.

A. Internship Evaluations

Internship supervisors will complete a midterm and final evaluation.  Evaluations must be sent via email attachment (PDF) or by US Mail directly to the student’s faculty advisor. The student may not hand deliver.

B. Written Consulting Report

Your consulting report will have two parts. The report will answer the questions provided below in detail with reference to sport management theories and concepts. In order to provide a sufficient level of explanation and demonstrate understanding, students are encouraged to interview employees across their internship site.  Responses to these questions should integrate specific course content from the sport management program and should also include academic references, using appropriate APA formatting. This will be submitted no less than 5 days before your oral defense to your supervisor who will then share with all core faculty before your oral presentation.  

Part I

1. Is your pricing appropriate for the product/service offered by your organization?  Identify any untapped sources of revenue available to your organization (note: think of this broadly — it can include revenues from services provided, as well as sponsorships, grants, donations, etc.).  If your agency provides free services—discuss the costs involved in providing those free services.
2. What are the biggest risk management challenges for your organization?  How does your organization manage these risks?
3. What forms of promotion does your organization use?  How effective are these promotions?  Of the current promotions, what activities would you recommend your organization stop doing?  What promotional activity would you recommend your organization add?
4. The members/customers/patrons of your organization presumably have a variety of choices for the goods and/or services that you provide.  Who are your competitors?  Where does your organization rank among the organizations that offer a similar product?  (This can be based on your observation and can be general, e.g., industry leader, newly established, growing).  Note:  every organization has competitors, so the response that you have no competitors is not acceptable.
5. How would you describe your internship site’s organizational culture?  What specific strategies have you used to learn about and adapt to the culture?
6. In order to be successful, an organization needs to have a unique value proposition (i.e., something unique that makes your organization’s customers choose the goods/services you provide).  What is your organization’s unique value proposition?
7. You should separately upload your internship site’s organizational chart.  What are the benefits of your organization’s chosen structure?  What are its limitations?  Why do you think your internship site is structured in the way that it is?

Part 2

Based on the analysis in Part 1, you will identify a significant challenge currently facing the organization.  You will fully explain why the problem you have identified is important and worthy of attention.  This must include specific ways that the problem negatively impacts the organization and symptoms of the problem that affect organizational effectiveness.  Then, you will provide a solution that addresses the problem and an implementation plan.  This implementation plan will include the identification of all necessary resources, stakeholders who must be involved, and timeline for implementation. To conclude, you should discuss why you expect the proposed plan to be successful and any barriers to implementation.

C. Culminating Oral Defense of Consulting Report

This Oral Examination is designed to demonstrate the student’s analytic skills, communication skills, professional readiness, and mastery of the field of sport management.  On the designated day, dressed in appropriate business attire, you will meet with core sport management faculty to answer questions posed by the faculty related to your consulting report.  All aspects of the consulting report are “fair game” for questions, although most questions will center on the problem and solution you proposed in Part II above. There will be no prepared remarks from the student.

Grading: (Please note that Plus/Minus Grading Will Be Used for This Course)

A) Internship Experience (50%) – Based on professionalism in setting up internship, quality of monthly reports, and internship evaluations from site supervisor.

B) Written consulting report (30%) – Graded by faculty pairs. This report should also include a memorandum explaining what competencies they learned.

C) Oral Presentation to Faculty (20%) – All faculty present will grade the student’s performance. 

Our M.Ed. is designed for practitioners who want to work in the sport industry. Our department has a close relationship with UT’s Athletics Department, as well as many other organizations around Austin and the Southwest. 

A few recent examples of organizations where our graduates have been hired or interned include:

• NCAA
• PGA
• NFL Players Association
• San Antonio Spurs
• Dallas Cowboys
• Texas Rangers
• Houston Astros
• Houston Texans
• Denver Broncos
• San Diego Padres
• Seattle Sounders
• Walt Disney World
• Iron Man Triathlon
• Minnesota Vikings
• X Games
• University of Texas Athletics
• Flo Sports
• Circuit of the Americas
• Nascar

Core Curriculum (15 hours)

• KIN 395 Sport Marketing (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Managing People & Organizations (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Legal Issues in Sport (Fall Year One)
• KIN 395 Ethics in Sport (Spring Year One)
• KIN 395 Strategic Management for Sport (Fall Year Two)

M.S. With Thesis:  Degree Specific Coursework (21 hours)

Six elective hours may be taken outside the department.

• KIN 395 Sport Policy, or KIN Sport and International Relations, or KIN Sport Development, or KIN 395 History of the Sport Industry in America,  or KIN 395, Sport Analytics (Any open semester) 
• A Statistics Course Approved by the Advisor (counts as an out-of-department class) 
• KIN 396T—Directed Research (Spring or Summer of Year One)
• KIN 386 Qualitative Research Methods for PCSS or: KIN 386 Proposal Writing 
• KIN 698 A & B Thesis Courses (Taken in separate semesters for 6 hours total credit)
• A 3-Hour Elective Approved by Your Advisor (may be KIN, or outside the department)

M.S. With Report: Degree Specific Coursework (21 hours)

Six elective hours may be taken outside the department.

• KIN 395 Sport Policy, or KIN Sport and International Relations, or KIN Sport Development, or History of the Sport Industry in America (Any open semester) or KIN 395 Sport Analytics (Any open semester) 
• A Statistics Course Approved by the Advisor (counts as an out-of-department class) 
• KIN 396T—Directed Research (Spring Year One or Fall Year Two)
• KIN 386 Qualitative Research Methods for PCSS or: KIN 386 Proposal Writing 
• KIN 398R Report (Year Two)
• 6 Hours of Electives, Approved by Your Advisor  

Spring Semester of Year One or Summer Following Year One: Enroll in KIN 396T—Directed Research.  

In that semester, your primary assignment will be the completion of a 20+ page literature review relevant to your proposed topic. The literature review should conclude with a discussion of gaps in the literature and suggested research questions inspired by those gaps.  It is expected that the literature review will draw on sport management literature and as many other outside fields as needed to properly understand the topic.  No more than 10% of the articles used for the literature review may be articles that solely discuss research methods.  The literature review will be read and graded by both readers assigned to your thesis committee.   

Assignment Two. During the writing of the literature review, students should begin thinking more specifically about the kind of research they hope to do—and discuss research methods with your faculty readers.  After faculty input, the student will submit a two to three-page summary of the proposed research. 

Assignment Three. The final document to be submitted for the course is a draft of the IRB application for your project (if required by UT human subjects research guidelines).

Fall of Year Two: Enroll in Thesis A: If the lit review is acceptable and faculty approves the proposed project—the student will be allowed to enroll in Thesis A in the fall semester of Year Two.  In Thesis A, the IRB application must be submitted no later than September 10 (which means you may need to keep working on it during the summer), and once approved, research begins.  Students should stay in touch with faculty throughout the research process and provide written updates on work completed on September 30, October 30, and November 30. 

Note: All research/data collection should be essentially completed by January 15 so that the focus on Thesis B is limited to writing and formatting.

Spring of Year Two: Enroll in Thesis B—for Second Semester of Year 2:  

Draft of revised lit review, introduction, and section on research question and methods must be turned in to faculty for review by February 15^th.  Faculty will return the drafts no later than March 1.

Full thesis should be submitted to faculty by April 1.  If the thesis is not essentially complete by April 1 (so that readers can clearly see the scope and direction of the project) student will be given an automatic incomplete and asked to complete it in the summer. WE WILL NOT WORK WITH YOU ON A HURRIED LAST-MINUTE COMPLETION.  Readers will do their best to read the thesis by April 15, at which time point the student will be told if he/she is to prepare for masters presentations.

Masters presentations are held on the last Friday of the semester and are mandatory.  You will prepare a PowerPoint presentation, prepare a 10-15-minute talk, and you must practice the presentation before your faculty readers before the Friday presentation to the entire faculty.