The Role of Sports Economics in the Sport Management Curriculum

portion of the legal aspects of sport, economic models of the behavior of for-profit and non-
profit organizations and organization theory play an important role in governance in sport,
finance in sport has a significant amount of overlap with economics.
Stier and Schneider (2000) assessed the utility of these guidelines by surveying 91 sport
management program directors and 202 professionals in the sports industry about their opin-
ion of the suitability of each of these content areas. The 202 industry professionals were classi-
fied into ten different segments, including sport broadcasting, event marketing/management,
sports facilities, and others. The program directors “agreed” – average score of 1.8 on a seven
point Likert scale variable anchored by “strongly agree (1)” and “strongly disagree (7)” –
that economics in sport was a suitable subject area. The professionals were “neutral” – av-
erage score of 2.5 on the seven point Likert scale – on the suitability of economics in sport as
a content area, but there was statistically significant disagreement across industry segments
regarding the suitability of economics in sport.
The industry professionals surveyed were not opposed to economics in sports as a content
area in the sport management curriculum, they were “neutral” to its inclusion. Stier and
Schneider (2000) do not discuss the reasons behind this mild disagreement between program
directors and industry professionals. However, the difference may be due in part to the
overlap between economics and other content areas. For example, lawyers and law firms –
one of the industry segments surveyed – may consider economics in sport to be a key part
of the legal aspects of sport rather than a separate content area. The difference may also
stem from the fact that, unlike sport marketing, sports economics was not a clearly defined
specialization within economics in the late 1990s when this survey took place, leading to
a lack of understanding of the meaning of economics in sport in the industry. Finally, the
disagreement may come from the sometimes antagonistic relationship between economists
and segments of the sports industry. Unlike, say, scholars who study sport communication,
economists have been quite critical of the sports industry, in particular in the debate on the
economic development effects of sports facilities. This might lead some industry officials to
view economics in sport as a less than desirable content area.
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