PGR2020

Ohio University’s Master of Sports Administration programme has been named as the world’s best postgraduate sports management degree for 2020 by SportBusiness.

Though slow progress continues to be made, the sports industry remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated one. Adam Nelson talks to three academics from schools who are pushing to correct this on the importance of education to gender-parity in the sector.

Felicia Ganthier is director of operations at the WWE and a graduate of Columbia's MS Sports Management

Emilio Collins graduated Ohio University with a Masters in Sports Administration in 1996, and this year was named as the recipient of the department’s Charles R. Higgins Distinguished Alumni Award for 2020.

Burke Magnus graduated from UMass’s MBA/MS in Sport Management in 1994 and joined ESPN in 2008, taking up his current role in 2015.

The Master of Sports Administration degree at Ohio University tops our list for the seventh time in nine years.

The Fifa Master is Europe's best postgraduate sport management degree.

Thayssa Plum took the Master of Advanced Studies in Sports Administration and Technology at AISTS in 2011, and is now senior media relations manager at Fifa.

Dr Kevin Tallec Marston, academic coordinator, research fellow and academic project manager for the Fifa Master at the International Centre for Sport Studies (CIES), discusses the challenges and potential opportunities that are facing the sport management education sector, and academia more widely, as the world recovers from the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

Pierre Ducrey was part of the third intake of students on the CIES Fifa Master, which he graduated with distinction in 2003. He was appointed as Olympic Games operations director in March 2020, having joined the International Olympic Committee as an intern shortly after finishing his Masters degree.

As part of this year’s Postgraduate Rankings, SportBusiness is highlighting some of the most important and impactful research to have been produced and published by the institutions we survey. The CIES Fifa Master takes place across three European universities – Neuchâtel in Switzerland, Milan’s SDA Bocconi, and De Monfort in Leicester, England. Professor Martin Polley, director of the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort, discusses how Fifa Master students at the school have taken a lead on anti-racist research in sport.

Magali Louis, head of research and eduction, and Claude Stricker, executive director, discuss how the postgraduate research projects at AISTS are developed and the real-world industry impact they have had.

Dr Razan Baker graduated from Brunel University London with a PhD in sports sciences in 2014 and was appointed director of international communication at the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee in 2020.

Professor Nefertiti A. Walker is Associate Professor in the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Mark H. McCormack School of Sport Management, as well as UMass’ interim vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion and its chief diversity officer.

In July 2020, Jim Kahler stepped down as executive director of the AECOM Center for Sports Administration at Ohio University, after 15 years in the role. Starting in the 2020-21 academic year, Jim will become the school’s first director of sports gambling education, and writes here about the importance of strong education and partnerships as the betting sector continues to open up in the United States.  

As the ties between universities and sports organisations grow closer and educational institutes continue to look for new ways to strengthen their connections to industry, SportBusiness takes a look at…