Teaching Data Analytics to Sport Management Majors: A Practical Approach

Abstract

The growing sector of sport industry increases the demand of sport management specialists capable of using digital technologies in their work. Among the most important fields, in which they need to gain proficiency is data analytics, which is expected to revolutionize the sports in near future. This suggests developing and offering of relevant technology courses to sport management students. Various factors (briefly discussed in the sequel) make the design of such courses a challenging task. In this paper we share our experience of how one can overcome the possible obstacles. We present the main aspects and components of a course on Data Analytics in Sport Management at a small liberal arts college and explain how the educational process is organized. The course is offered by using mostly Open Educational Resources (OER) and other free sources which are described in the paper. This complies with the aspiration of many universities to achieve reduction of textbook cost for their students.