July 7, 2008

Courtesy of Bloomberg.com

College students who want to emulate Scott Boras, the agent for baseball's Alex Rodriguez, may discover that finding a job in sports management is more competitive than the games themselves.

U.S. colleges are increasingly offering sports administration degrees, flooding a field in which growth is limited. Since 1966, when Ohio University in Athens became the only school with such a diploma, 229 more colleges have joined in, according to the North American Society for Sport Management in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.

About half of Syracuse University's first 20 sports management students, who graduated in May, aren't employed in the profession, said Michael Veley, director of the three-year- old program. Colleges may raise false hopes in applicants who dream of working for a team, said James Kahler ('81), the executive director of the Center for Sports Administration at Ohio University.

``There are too many degrees out there and not enough jobs,'' said Kahler, formerly senior vice president of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball club, in a telephone interview on May 28. ``It's almost abusive when you think about it.''

Sports management programs focus on the business side of athletics, especially finance, marketing and sales at professional teams, leagues and universities. Schools also say they prepare students to manage sports venues or to work at companies that sponsor sports. The jobs often prove scarce, according to graduates and employers.

``It's an eye-opening experience as far as how people actually get jobs,'' Kelleher said on June 27 in a telephone interview. Most employers, he said, ``recognize an Ivy League school degree in anything over a sport management program.'' The Ivy League consists of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and seven other elite schools in the Northeast.

`Next Theo Epstein'

Mount Union, a private, liberal-arts college, entices applicants to sports management by asking on its Web site if they ever thought of becoming ``the next Theo Epstein,'' the general manager of the world champion Boston Red Sox. Epstein himself, though, doesn't have a degree in sports management, having majored in American studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, before graduating from the University of San Diego's law school.

The 1996 movie ``Jerry Maguire'' -- in which Tom Cruise plays a sports agent whose client insists ``Show me the money!'' -- spurred demand for the college courses, said Jim Kadlecek, the head of Mount Union's program, in a telephone interview on June 30. He warns students that the job supply, salaries and work hours all may prove disappointing, he said.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, said sports management classes are the latest version of ``rocks for jocks,'' or watered-down geology for athletes.

`Hurts More Than Helps'

``While we won't dismiss a potential hire because they graduated with a sports management degree, it hurts more than helps,'' he wrote in an e-mail on May 16. ``I would rather hire someone with more diverse skills.''

Boras, one of the most prominent of about 300 agents certified by the New York-based Major League Baseball Players Association, didn't return a call to his office in Newport Beach, California. He earned chemistry and law degrees at the University of the Pacific in California.

Not all sports management graduates are having trouble with employment, especially at schools with the deepest roots in the industry. Of the 30 graduates last month from Ohio University's master's program, most of whom received degrees in both business and sports administration, 28 have secured sports-related jobs, Kahler said.

`A Great Time'

Casey Prozeller ('08), 25, works at New York-based Soccer United Marketing, the holder of commercial rights to Major League Soccer games. Even before graduating from Ohio University's program she was employed fulltime, managing the accounts of sponsors, she said in a June 2 telephone interview.

Prozeller, whose boss also went through the Ohio University program, said her graduate-school years were ``just a great time to build relationships and gain my own network.''

Ohio University has seen sports management applications jump 25 percent in the last two years. The school started its program in 1966 after the late Walter O'Malley, the owner who moved baseball's Dodgers to Los Angeles, complained that administrators with training were scarce. The University of Massachusetts Amherst began a similar curriculum in 1970.

For Ben Dorman, who majored in sports management at UMass Amherst, the program did help -- up to a point. He had a senior- year internship in 2006 at the Pittsburgh Pirates' training camp in Bradenton, Florida, and that led to a job selling tickets and catering to Red Sox fans at Fenway Park, Dorman said in a telephone interview on June 6.

``I still try to look at it as gaining valuable experience, although the pay isn't great,'' the 24-year-old Dorman said.