Sports Marketing Concentration

Passionate sports fans live around the world, celebrating their teams and star players. Teams and the brands who interact with them have enormous opportunities to shape consumer experiences. Sports marketing is a growing sector, and Medill’s sports marketing concentration can prepare you to launch your career in this arena.

About the Sports Marketing Concentration

Sports marketing involves integrated marketing efforts by sports organizations, like advertising, social media engagement, event promotion, public relations and strategic communication. It also includes the many ways sports are relevant to marketing for brands and organizations such as sponsorships, endorsements and partnerships.

Medill’s Sports Marketing Concentration allows students to develop specialized expertise in sports marketing, while also benefiting from the rigorous curriculum of the Medill IMC program.

The concentration includes two specialized sports marketing courses, and students in the concentration will conclude their studies with a hands-on Capstone experience on a sports marketing project.

Students will be connected to the expansive, diverse, and engaged network of Medill alumni working in sports marketing.

What will I learn?

Students who participate in the sports marketing concentration will understand how to incorporate sports into integrated marketing communications, including:

Rationalizing marketing and data-driven decisions, considering research, financial, legal and ethical concerns within the context of the world of sports
Analyzing the different needs of marketing for growth that exist within sports, from experiential to celebrity, from events to sponsorship
Applying sports marketing in both a digital and traditional sports marketing and branding world
Understanding how dynamic pricing, event management, inconsistent product, strategic communications, loyalty and fandom, crisis communications are incorporated into sports marketing

Faculty experts in the Medill IMC program have decades of experience working in sports marketing on behalf of professional leagues and teams, as well as Global Fortune 100 brands.

Students will have access to regular mentorship, networking, and experiential opportunities with professionals in the sports marketing industry – both with individuals, teams, and brands in the Chicagoland area and around the world.

Jobs in Sports Marketing

This concentration prepares students for job including: