The Role of Sports Economics in the Sport Management Curriculum

Table 2: Trends in Sport Management Degrees Awarded
Year Level Men Women Total
1992 Bachelors 451 218 669
1997 Bachelors 1,032 484 1,516
2002 Bachelors 1,885 966 2,851
1992 Masters 124 34 158
1997 Masters 184 81 275
2002 Masters 431 226 657
universities in 2002. There appears to be a clear mismatch between growth in the number
of students enrolled in bachelors and masters degree programs in sport management and the
number of new doctorates granted in the field. To the extent that economists are attractive
to sport management programs, this mismatch suggests that sport management programs
may be interested in hiring mroe sports economists in the future.
Sport Management Programs
Using the most recent listing of programs listed on the North American Society for Sport
Management (NASSM) web site, a recent survey of programs by the National Recreation and
Parks Association that also identified some sport management programs located in parks and
recreation departments, and standard internet search engines, I identified 151 undergraduate
programs, 98 masters degree programs, and 16 doctoral programs in sport management at US
colleges and universities. 1 The majority of these programs were called “sport management”
programs but a few were called “sport administration,” “sport studies,” “sport and leisure,”
or similar variations. Stier (2001) identified 137 undergraduate programs and 99 masters
programs in 2000, so while the rapid growth in undergraduate sport management programs
1 13 European institutions, eight Australian institutions, and ten Canadian institutions also grant sport
management degrees, but these institutions are outside the scope of this paper.
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