Sports management may look like one of the easiest online master’s degrees, but you’ll need to develop some strong technical skills if you want to succeed in this career field. Sports management is the field that focuses on the business side of sports. Despite its narrow focus on athletic recreation, sports management careers include a broad range of job duties and descriptions. Technical skills like computer and software skills, accounting and financial skills and statistical data analysis skills are important in many of these roles.
Understanding Technical Skills and Their Role in Sports Management Careers
If you think of technical skills as strictly skills relating to high-tech equipment and software, you might be excluding a whole lot of essential abilities. One way to think of technical skills – in the field of sports management and outside it – is as knowing how to utilize methods or techniques required to perform specific working duties. In that sense, computer programming is a technical skill, but so are managing a budget, creating a video clip and developing email marketing campaigns.
The technical skills needed to excel in a sports management career are varied, in large part because so many different job descriptions and duties fit into this category. A facilities manager and financial analyst use technical skills in very different ways. The same goes for event coordinators and marketing coordinators and for sports agents and sports lawyers.
Even though different career paths in sports management prioritize different types of technical skills, what is clear is the necessity of technical skills in sports management roles.
Computer and Spreadsheet Skills
Some of the most versatile technical skills in sports management are computer skills. In our increasingly computer-based world, it’s hard to imagine any role in sports management or in the broader field of business where computer skills wouldn’t be an asset. You may think of athletic coaches still using handwritten playbooks and drawing diagrams on chalkboards, but modern coaches utilize motion analysis software, video analysis software, performance database software and more, according to O*NET.
The use of spreadsheet software is particularly widespread in this sports management sphere within the business world. Business professionals of all kinds use spreadsheets to keep track of data – budgets, sales data, data on athletic performance and much more. Whether you’re coordinating the game schedule for a major sports league, analyzing a team’s finances or keeping track of maintenance requirements for a sports arena, being able to use spreadsheets effectively makes your job a lot easier.
Excel spreadsheet software is considered a “hot technology,” or a technology skill employers often mention in job descriptions, according to O*NET.
Accounting and Financial Skills
Because sports management relates to the business of sports, skills involving finance and accounting are required for many of these roles. Some of the tasks required in the area of sports finance are budgeting, financial reporting, and financial analysis. Technical accounting and financial skills may include knowing how to use certain types of financial software, including bookkeeping programs like QuickBooks. However, it can also include skills like knowing how to create balance sheets, cash flow statements and other types of financial reports.
Sports accountants may handle sports management duties that range from managing payroll to calculating and paying the organization’s taxes.
Skills in Statistical Analysis
The ability to analyze information is among the most important skills in sports management. Having all the data in the world accomplishes nothing if you can’t interpret it and make meaning from it. Being able to analyze information is what allows you to turn raw numbers into actionable plans.
Although different sports management professionals use statistical analysis techniques in different ways, some workers in this field rely on this skill more than others do. For a sports statistical analysis, having a strong background in statistics, probability and math is key. A sports statistical analysis can use math and statistics to determine what types of plays are most effective for a given player or team, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Some of the ways statistics can be applied to sports include being able to rank the likelihood of teams progressing to the playoffs and predict how a player’s opponent will respond to a maneuver, according to the American Statistical Association.
Additional Resources
What kind of jobs are available to someone with a sports management degree?
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How long does it take to get a Master’s in Sports Management?