The Role of Sports Economics in the Sport Management Curriculum

can offer more specialized, sports-related courses to both sport management and business
majors. Many sport management faculty will have research interests similar to business
school faculty. Case concludes that the long term success of the sport management programs
at institutions with business schools depends critically on the existence of a good relationship.
My survey of sport management programs indicates that many of the issues raised by
Case (2003) may still affect the curricula in sport management programs. Very few of the
programs surveyed are housed in stand alone sport management departments; most are part
of departments that focus on laboratory or experimental disciplines like exercise and health
sciences or kinesiology; a sizable number are part of physical education departments. Surpris-
ingly, over 13% of the undergraduate programs are housed in a department of management
or business, although few of the masters programs are in such departments.
Finally, the recent survey of conditions in the market for sport management faculty by
Mahoney et al (2004) plays an important part in any assessment of the current state of sport
management programs. This survey found that annual demand for faculty positions in sport
management programs exceeds the supply of new PhDs produced in the field by over 400%.
While some of these positions are filled by existing sport management faculty, there must
still be significant excess demand for faculty in sport management programs. Furthermore,
Mahoney et al (2004) conclude that most of the new PhDs in sport management lack sufficient
research training for the open faculty positions.
The Sport Management Curriculum
Perhaps because of the interdisciplinary nature of sport management programs, and the wide
variety of departments and colleges that are home to these programs, a great deal of atten-
tion has been paid to the development of a benchmark curriculum for sport management
programs at both the undergraduate and masters levels. Just 20 years after the establish-
ment of the first sport management program, the National Association of Sport and Physical
Education (NASPE) created a task force to develop curricular guidelines for sport manage-
12