Philosophy Statement

Functional Philosophic Statement

The profession of sport management has to defend its purpose on the daily basis. It is critical that individuals practicing this profession develop a philosophy in order to provide society, and customers with an understanding of its purpose and the direction where sport management is going. Situations will constantly present themselves that will challenge integrity, responsibility, and management skills of sport managers. Therefore, sport managers need to define their identities and prove that sport management is as important as business management, in order to convince other professionals that this arena should be taken seriously.

Society has a negative view of sports because all they see is the finished product on the day of competition. Society cannot respect sport management because most people have no idea how much time, planning, and instruction go into one week to prepare for a game, let alone a whole season. Sport is one of the richest and powerful industries but sport management is not recognized as being a serious profession. If a business man were to say that he managed even the lowest branch of a fortune 500 company, society would look at him as if his job was important to that companies well being. Many white collar workers themselves and their children are involved in various services through recreation centers and don't consider how these services were created.

Society in general considers sport as a past time and that could be the reason why sport is not considered a serious business by those that are not directly involved. Those that don't understand that sport is a business may be jealous that people involved in sport really enjoy their job. Most people in the sport industry are making money doing what they enjoy rather than doing what is necessary to make ends meet. Others that oppose the sport industry may have a dualistic way of thinking and prefer that the mind gains more importance than the body. The dualistic mindset still should not blind professionals of the fact that sport is a business and needs to exist in an organized manner. Sport managers have years of professional training just as business mangers do, therefore should be considered as important to the world of sport just as business managers are to their industries.

Sport managers need to take the first step in getting respect in our field by