This post provides detailed information on the sports manager job description, including the key duties, tasks, and responsibilities they commonly carry out.
It also highlights the important requirements you may be expected to fulfill to be hired for the sports manager role by most employers.
What Does a Sports Manager Do?
A sports manager is responsible for overseeing the business of sports, ensuring proficient operation and proper improvement of the sports organization they work for.
The sports manager job description entails planning events, managing finance, marketing, and ensuring the overall direction and function of the sports organization.
It also involves organizing and scheduling a client’s commitment and ensuring that all the client’s or organization’s needs are met.
The sports operations manager may participate in the organization, preparation, and provision of administrative leadership to athletes and coaches, and also serve as the team’s spokesperson.
A sport’s manager’s responsibilities can be as simple as scheduling events, managing basic budgets, and handling communication with athletes or staff, or as complex as strategic planning, financial management, taking care of public relations, and managing emergencies and marketing.
Their duties may also include hiring and training staff, organizing work schedule, monitoring operations, managing finance and stock, and reporting on revenue or addressing any issue that might come up.
Sports managers utilize a wide variety of tools and technologies in effectively carrying out their functions.
These include communication software, data analytics platforms, and scheduling tools.
They report to a variety of individuals and entities, depending on the structure of the organization where they work, including executive director, athletic director, or the general manager.
In larger sport operations, sports managers usually report to a chief operating officer or vice president of operations, and an athletic manager.
Where Sports Managers Work
Sports managers work in different organizations related to sports, such as sports marketing agencies, professional and amateur sports teams, sports media organizations, and college athletic programs.
Other employment opportunities can be found within national and international sports governing bodies and also in non-profit organizations related to sports and leisure.
Some sports managers may work at sport facilities, including arenas, stadia, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and other venues, or as an independent sports manager who runs their very own sports management business.
Sports Manager Training
To work as a sports manager usually requires the candidate to have completed specialized training in sports management.
This training is offered by colleges or technical schools and it cuts across certificate, diploma, and degree programs in sports management.
Sports managers can also utilize on-the-job training, which is also quite common in the industry, where they will be able to learn from their fellow professionals.
Sports Manager Job Description Example/Sample/Template
The sports manager job description may consist of the following duties, tasks, and responsibilities, depending on the role they are holding and the organization they work for:
- Develop, manage, and coordinate a strong team with different service contractors for assigned events
- Determine ticket prices and manage ticket sales, and also manage budgets for the sports team
- Negotiate and manage endorsement contracts for sports teams and athletes, ensuring mutually beneficial partnerships
- Create opportunities for sponsorship deals and account for and manage team travel plans, and also train event services staff
- Utilize proper planning and organization in support of facility operations and attend their meetings and events
- Keep track of sports organization’s income and balance it against its financial obligations
- Organize public relations among the media, coaches, athletes, and other athletic professionals
- Manage sports events and competitions to ensure that they run efficiently and meet safety, audience, and performance expectations
- Stay up to date with legal and regulatory requirements in connection to sports contracts, endorsements, and other parts of sports management to ensure compliance
- Prepare budgets, handle costs and revenue, and identify funding opportunities, such as public grants, ticket sales, and sponsorships
- Provide daily assistance to the Sports Group sales team through the development of digital media plans for advertising proposals
- Manage public reports and media interactions of athletes and sports organizations and seek ways to improve their reputation
- Apply good governance practices and ensure that all activities adhere to ethical standards, legal regulations, and league policies
- Help athletes plan and manage their careers, and provide guidance on personal achievement and career improvement
- Build and apply strategic short-term and long-term goal plans for athletes and sports teams
- Ensure successful events by observing on-going events and maintaining intimate relationship with clients and facility staff
- Take responsibility for recruitment of coaches and other members of the staff to search for volunteers to help the organization
- Increase club’s visibility and drive meaningful connections with supporters by utilizing digital and traditional marketing strategies and promotional campaigns.
Sports Manager’s Skills, Knowledge and Abilities, Requirements for Career Success
The sports operations manager requires certain skills, industry knowledge, and a number of personal attributes to be successful on the job and career, and to qualify for hiring by most recruiters/employers, including:Â
- Communication: Sports managers are required by almost every sports management to possess excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skills to convey information and communicate hope, and to educate athletes on best practices. They communicate with coaches, agents, colleagues, organization personnel, athletes, stadium staff, sports media, partners, and vendors.
- Negotiation: Sports operations managers need the ability to convince another person to agree to their terms. The skill is also very important when they want to negotiate contracts with players, coaches, and sport organizations. Good negotiation will help sports managers maintain a fair deal so they don’t pay athletes more than they need to or make a low offer to players. With negotiation skills, sports managers will always get the best deal on sponsorships, equipment, allowances, uniforms, and other deals.
- Decision-making: Sports managers need to become good decision-makers with the ability to make quick and confident decisions, analyze data, and provide the best possible solution. The decisions they make are done every day and these decisions affect the team, organization, and fans.
- Leadership: Sports managers can easily give their teams the quality of support they need and help others succeed in their roles if they can apply good leadership skills. Leadership is also a valuable skill required for team motivation and encouragement in order to achieve short-term and long-term goals.
- Organization: Sports managers should develop the ability to manage schedules, events, resources, appearances, and travel arrangements effectively in support of their team. Since most of the logistics connected with athletic events are their responsibilities, organizational skills are necessary.
- Data analysis: It’s the sports manager’s duty to pick and analyze every move of each athlete, and review the data to draw valid conclusion. Even if the organization where they work doesn’t have the resources needed to gather large amounts of data, sports managers still have the opportunities to utilize their analytical skills to achieve this purpose.
- Knowledge of sports: For sports managers to succeed in their career, they have to understand the sports business and procedures involved in it. They will go far in their career especially if their knowledge is driven by a passion for sports, whether they organize events, manage athletes, or work in marketing and operations.
- Adaptability: Since the sports industry is rapidly changing with new technologies, trends and challenges, the ability to adjust activities in response to these changes and get adaptable to them is a must-have skill for sports managers. This flexibility finds new opportunities in sport management where managers are often met with sudden situations.
- Accounting and budgeting: All money that the teams and sports organizations generate from TV revenue and ticket sales must be accounted for. Therefore, sports managers should ensure every dollar is spent effectively to make the best use of all resources of the team or organization. This will help prevent an over-expenditure of the team’s funds.
- Conflict resolution: Conflict resolution skills are very important mostly in high-competitive sports where the pressure on teams can lead to arguments. Sports operations managers need strong conflict resolution skills to manage disputes effectively and prevent interruptions to team performance. They have to listen attentively to both parties involved in a conflict, identify the root causes of the issue, and provide solutions that benefit the entire team.
- Problem-solving: This entails identifying problems, analyzing the causes of the problem, generating possible solutions, implementing the optimal solution, and evaluating results. Therefore, managers must have to stay calm in hectic situations, using their analytical, critical thinking, and decision-making abilities to resolve issues and make decisions that are paramount for their team or organization.
- Marketing: Sports managers need strong marketing skills to be able to develop effective strategies in order to promote sports team and its events. These skills will help sports managers a lot in planning events, marketing their teams, creating advertisements, securing opportunities with partners, developing social media posts to draw new fans, and making use of email sequencing tools. Skills in negotiating and selling can be particularly beneficial in their roles.
- Critical thinking: Sports managers should be able to analyze information clearly, ask relevant questions and create personal viewpoints, disallowing prejudices and biases. Critical thinking ability becomes a reasonable process that provides a planned approach to issues that may come up in the management of sports organizations.
- Instruction: Sports managers need the ability to guide athletes to make their performance better and accomplish their goals. Strategies, techniques, and tactics specific to sports need to be explained to athletes. Sports managers pass instructions across the team and manage the coaching staff and help them develop their careers.
- Collaboration: This involves the ability to collaborate and it’s strongly required among sports managers. Sports managers should realize that they are part of the team and so they need to be able to work effectively with the team in a good collaborative approach.
Download sports manager job description template (pdf).
Sports Manager Job Description for Resume
If you have worked before as a sports manager or are presently working in that role and are making a resume or CV for a new job, then you can create a compelling Professional Experience for your resume by applying the sample sports manager job description provided above.
You can express the duties and responsibilities you have carried out as a sports manager in your resume’s Professional Experience by utilizing the ones provided in the above sports manager job description example.
This will show to the recruiter/employer that you have been successful working as a sports manager, which can boost your chances of getting the new job, especially if it requires someone with some sports management work experience.
Conclusion
This post has provided detailed coverage of the sports operations manager job description, highlighting the major responsibilities and duties that they typically perform.  Â
To any enthusiast of sports and someone interested in the sports manager career, this post is useful in learning about what they do and the qualities required for success in the career.
Employers who need to hire competent managers to handle their sports operations will also find this post helpful in creating a detailed job description for the role.
They can actually use the sports manager job description template provided on this page in making one for their organizations.
