"Business of Sport" Class Continues Even Without Sports
Business of Sport professor Ed Tiryakian is accustomed to teaching students about management and finance within sports, but this semester in particular has made those topics increasingly more relevant. As sports leagues everywhere are canceling games and seasons, Professor Tiryakian took this as an opportunity to have students learn more about how leaders make those decisions, the financial ramifications, and what the future of sports could look like.
One benefit of remote teaching, Professor Tiryakian points out, is that he has a much greater opportunity to get guest speakers for his class when they can join remotely instead of flying them in from different locations. Some of the guests Professor Tiryakian has invited to his class virtually this semester are:
- Trajan Langdon, New Orleans Pelicans General Manager
- Ben Berchuck, Sports Programming & Partnerships at Facebook
- Gunnar Peterson, Personal Trainer/Director of Strength and Endurance for LA Lakers
Being able to hear from professionals in the industry during times of crisis and hear them talk through the decision-making process and what they see for the future of sports was something that students from Professor Tiryakian’s class pointed to as some of the most memorable moments.
As students broke out into small groups over the last few weeks of the semester, each group was tasked with evaluating and studying a different sports industry and sharing the managerial and financial impacts of stay-at-home orders and COIVD-19 precautionary shutdowns. We talked with two of those students to hear about how these lessons helped them better understand the impacts.
Senior Economics major Steven DiLisio was in a student group that presented on the COVID-19 effects on Professional Golf, looking at the revenue loses to the sport, the overall management response of PGA leaders, and the plans put in place to support players, caddies and staff.
Robert is also on Duke’s Men’s Golf team and was able to talk about the benefit of being able to study these pressing topics and he explains that having a good understanding of the relationship between sports and the business economy has been crucial. “I think [this class] was perfect for me just because it gives me more tools to analyze what’s going on behind the scenes,” he shares as he talks about how what he is learning about the sports economy in this class has helped him think through a potential professional sports career. “It’s really awesome to be able to think about what’s going on in the market or in the world and be able to apply that to sports for me and to understand the mechanics behind it.”
Smiti Shah is a junior majoring in economics and the MMS certificate. She shared with us what it was like to study more in detail the effects of NBA shutdowns. Smiti points to the swift reaction from the NBA’s Commissioner Adam Silver as an example of strong leadership at play.
She also talked about how much she enjoyed getting to combine both her interest in finance and her love of sports to learn applicable business lessons. “I study a lot of different models in class” she shares, “and getting to see that applied not just to the real world, but to real world sports…that’s what is so interesting. It’s fun to get to model everything I’m learning in the traditional classroom.”
As students and faculty have had to adapt quickly to these new environments, Markets & Management Studies thanks our many faculty who are continuing to find innovative and creative ways to teach students remotely about the world of business and leadership.