Course Descriptions
The Carthage College Master of Science in Business Sports Management Track consists of seven foundational courses, an experiential learning experience/internship, six design and innovation courses, and a capstone project. In addition, students participate in eight intensive weekend courses.
Foundational Courses
MGT 5200
Sales
3cr
Sales are the lifeblood of the sports business model. Students will be knowledgeable of the theory and practice of sales and promotions. This course examines the fundamental concepts, principles, and applications associated with sales and promotions in the sports industry. The course covers several topics ranging from developing a sales management function and developing winning strategies to sponsorship activation. This course develops knowledge of sales and promotional theory and best practices encountered in professional careers in the sports industry.
MGT 5210
Sports Industry, Economics, and Financial Analysis
3cr
This course focuses on understanding the implications of industry structure of both the amateur and professional sports sectors of the industry. It introduces students to the economic impact of sports on the local, state, national, and global economies. This class also equips students with the skills to enhance their financial decision-making in a management role, applying concepts to the continually evolving landscape of the sports industry through understanding financial concepts for effective financial analysis and strategic planning.
mgt 5230
Sports Marketing, Public Relations, and Promotion
3cr
This course helps students gain a deeper understanding of the sports marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion as well as marketing research, marketing strategy, market segmentation, branding, sponsorships, licensing venue and event marketing, global sports marketing, and public relations.
Mgt 5240
Sports Media (Digital and Traditional)
3cr
This course introduces students to a range of professional sports settings and challenges/opportunities related to the growth of sports media with a focus on social platforms. Additionally, traditional media delivery vehicles, such as print and broadcast, will be reviewed and analyzed for content impact, delivery and effectiveness. Students will be exposed to the opportunities and constraints posed by the distinct roles of reporters, fans, players, publicists, agents, teams, and league officials.
mgt 5250
Sports Business and Player Analytics
3cr
The use of data-driven decision-making for managers is an essential strategic component of the success of individual teams and the future of the sports industry. Throughout this course, students will examine the use of analytical techniques and qualitative/quantitative methods in the areas of marketing, active demand planning, ticket sales, and business operations. Skills such as critical thinking, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, predictive analytics, and optimization are crucial skills needed by sport managers. The course seeks to develop and refine these skills in the business application area of sports management.
mgt 5260
Esports
3cr
The Esports industry is projected to be valued at $1.4 billion by 2020. According to a global games market intelligence company, by 2021 all major U.S. media conglomerates with have digital Esports media rights. Esports is a field that values quick and strategic thinking, mental agility, intellectual curiosity, and creativity. This course introduces students to the business model framework in application of the Esports industry — the essential foundation of how to create value via solving problems and fulfilling consumers’ wants and needs. This course assumes continued rapid cycles of industry shock and disruption and as such, students learn the concepts of business model development and critique to be adaptive thinkers, agile learners and how to seek and create new value generation.
Design and Innovation Courses
mgt 5010
Innovative Leadership
3cr
This course addresses the skills, concepts, and mind-set that support leadership in complex, innovative organizations. Topics include self-leadership, critiquing diverse models of leadership, creating vision and strategy, understanding people, power and influence, motivation, and organizational culture. The course begins with creative exercises in leadership style self-assessment and extrapolates these results to leadership in new, innovative organizational structures.
mgt 5020
Business Metrics
3cr
In this course, students will learn principles of financial accounting, managerial accounting, financial analysis, statistics, and quantitative methods used for short and long-term decisions. An emphasis will be placed on the use of financial information for decisions and performance measurement.
MGT 5060
Designing and Developing High-Impact Teams
3cr
In this course students develop skills pertaining to team assessment, team development, team leadership, team coaching, facilitation of diverse teams, and project management skills. Course includes team project work, group decision-making exercises, learning situations, conflict resolution, and strengths and weaknesses of working in teams. Students will learn how to enhance the collective experience of teams to achieve greater levels of performance, productivity, flexibility, and innovation.
mgt 5120
Disruptive Innovation
3cr
This course teaches students how to develop, design and create ideas. Students explore the entrepreneurial mindset, creativity and idea generation, assessing entrepreneurial opportunities. This course focuses on creative and innovative solutions to both business problems and business opportunities.
MGT 5150
Ethical Decision Making
3cr
This course examines ethical issues and dilemmas facing managers in most business organizations. Students will learn about ethical dilemmas at work, to place ethical issues within a management context subject to analysis and decision-making action, and to enhance and improve the ability of students to reason toward a satisfactory resolution of an ethical dilemma. Students will explore information ethics, ethics and diversity, organizational ethics, and global ethics. Students will also learn about discrimination, equal employment opportunity (EEO), and business law, and understand the distinction between law and ethics.
Additional Experiences
mgt 5100
Internship/Sales Lab
3cr
Gain authentic sales experience during Carthage’s popular J-Term, working in tandem with a major sports organization.
mgt 5160
Capstone
3cr
As a cohort, students connect with an organization from the sports sector with an innovative business design and development challenge.