SCC Blog

Careers in Sports - Stability in Question

By now, most of our members are either working through the unit on careers in sports and entertainment or have already completed it.  (Some of you are lucky enough to be enjoying your summer already!)  With that in mind, an article in this week’s Charlotte Business Journal caught my attention.

Here’s the intro:

“The voice of the Charlotte Bobcats won’t be returning, one of at least six staffers dismissed this week as the team continues to shuffle employees under the new management team brought in last year.

Matt Devlin, the Bobcats’ play-by-play announcer since the team’s inception, was told this week the team wanted to move in a new direction. His contract expires June 15.”

This article provides an excellent example of careers in sports from several different angles.  The first angle provides a resource for offering a sampling of what types of careers are out there.  How many students would ever think of a play-by-play announcer as a profession?  That should get the wheels turning a little bit…of course the flip side of that is recognizing the high demand for positions such as this.

The second point the article brings up that has some validity in your classroom is by illustrating the potential volatility of sports careers.  Much of what happens from an organizational standpoint is driven by one objective:  developing and maintaining the best possible fan experience.  Without a core base of satisfied fans, the organization has fewer consumers buying team merchandise, paying to park at games, purchasing hot dogs at games and investing in game tickets.  Without fan support, a team becomes less attractive to potential sponsors.  Sports franchises must continually work to better the fan experience to keep them coming to the ballpark, stadium or arena.  They also must keep fans tuned into games on the radio and television.  In this case, the Bobcats organization obviously felt compelled to move in another direction to improve the fan experience by not renewing the play-by-play announcers’ contract.

These days, we frequently here professional athletes the ugly cliche that sports “is a business”.  The reality is that couldn’t be a more accurate statement.  In this case, the Bobcats felt the best business decision in terms of fan impact was too replace the announcer with someone else. 

Here’s the bad news for Mr. Devlin.  Because of the extremely high demand for jobs of this nature, coupled with the limited supply (there just aren’t that many teams in the area), finding a new position will be very challenging.  Odds are, he’ll have to move his family again if he decides to keep on the same career path.

And that can be, unfortunately, the reality of a career in sports…

*** Questions for Classroom Discussion ***

1) Do you think careers in sports and entertainment are subject to the same risks of instability as careers in other industries?

2) Do you think the situation that played out in Charlotte is common among other pro sports teams?

3) We discussed in our curriculum the difference between sports management and sports marketing earlier in the school year.  Which elements are in play with this news story?

Posted in Careers, Community Relations, General, Public Relations/Publicity |

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