On Oct. 24 in Philadelphia, Syracuse University professor and graduate program director Chad McEvoy will receive one of the most prestigious academic awards for a sports management scholar. The award is the Sport Marketing Association’s 2014 Sutton Award, which recognizes a sport marketing professor who has made a difference in our wide-reaching industry.
As winner, McEvoy will be recognized for a career of practitioner and academic excellence that has incorporated a relevant doctoral thesis, consistent scholarly publication, authorship of two textbooks, editorship of two journals, industry consulting and legal testimony.
When we learned of his selection, we wondered whether enough sports industry executives knew who McEvoy was, or, for that matter, who any of the world’s leading sports management scholars were. It’s an interesting question because our sense is that while McEvoy has spent considerable time focusing on revenue generation in spectator sports (following a career in the industry working in marketing and fundraising for two Division I Football Bowl Subdivision athletic departments), his profession as an educator might suggest to some practitioners that his efforts are dated or out of touch with the realities of sports’ daily challenges.
Funny that.
You see, McEvoy is one of a few dozen star professors in our field who are both thought leaders and highly engaged in industry. Academicians like the namesake of McEvoy’s award, Bill Sutton at South Florida, Jim Kahler and Heather Lawrence-Benedict in Ohio University’s world-ranked program, Simon Chadwick at Coventry (U.K.), Matt Robinson (Delaware), Bettina Cornwell (Oregon), George Foster (Stanford), Glenn Wong (UMass) and Ken Shropshire (Pennsylvania) publish and educate in the belief that their work matters to the sports industry and is relevant to its current and future executives.
Like his peers, McEvoy bridges academia and industry often. For example, McEvoy currently teaches a class that is essentially a working pipeline for the New York Yankees ticket sales department.
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Chad McEvoy of Syracuse University will receive the Sport Marketing Association’s Sutton Award this month. He’s one of many academics doing research that can benefit sports execs.
Photo by: MARGIE CHETNEY
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In the academic world, at conferences like those hosted by SMA or the North American Society of Sport Management or the University of South Carolina’s Sport Entertainment and Venues Tomorrow conference, top scholars are widely recognized and their
opinions are sought by many scholars. These individuals are often asked to participate in blue chip consulting projects, as experts in legal cases and in major commissions that influence the trajectory of sports as an industry.
For example, in 2008, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics asked McEvoy to serve as a panelist and share his research on the effectiveness of NCAA penalties. In 2013, McEvoy led a think tank with top athletic directors and senior college athletic administrators at the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics convention with an aim for using research to provide data-based solutions to challenges facing the billion-dollar intercollegiate athletics business. McEvoy’s research has touched on crucial industry issues such as pricing effectiveness, sponsorship effectiveness, and the impact of college athletic success for universities.
That’s no small set of agendas.
The point of this isn’t that any professor knows all or can fix any problem. They can’t. But it does make us wonder how many other professors are out there who should be providing more statistical and educated input on how to solve the numerous challenges facing our industry. The reality, though, is that in many cases, the sports industry does not hold the academy in high regard.
This needs to change. Many elite academicians and leading programs have suggested to us that we’re not there yet. Not like other business disciplines such as accounting, finance and management.
So, what gives?
Want to talk about sponsorship losing its flavor? Concussion (in all sports) changing the trajectory of professional competition? Sleep patterns dictating performance? Revenue streams not keeping up? Globalization? Digital technology’s impact on fan attendance? Sophistication in the secondary ticket market? Economic rates of success for in-stadium promotions? Video games and fantasy league influence on attendance?
We know well that sports management and marketing scholars are poring over our industry’s facts and producing legitimate findings that our industry should see. Trouble is, if someone isn’t working in the industry, they might be picking up a stigma. What we’ve generally heard is this: “If you were any good, you’d be working in the industry. Not teaching.”
Such a sentiment suggests that only industry professionals can know what is going on. If that’s true, we’ve become an inbred, closed society that will struggle to keep up with the fastest moving of industry sectors. It also means we’ve turned our back on teachers who might play a huge role in helping sports businesses solve their future problems in large part by shaping and supplying their future leaders.
Rick Burton (rhburton@syr.edu) is the David B. Falk Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University and that institution’s faculty athletics representative to the ACC and NCAA. Norm O’Reilly (oreillyn@ohio.edu) is professor and chair of the Department of Sports Administration at Ohio University.
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