The Sports Management Club is a professional club seeking to encourage, support, and inform students about the diversity of roles, job opportunities, and range of activities offered by the sports industry. Given that their key membership base is from the business school, they tend to prioritize speakers with sports business profiles.
“IE attracts talent from everywhere in the world, with diverse profiles, aspirations, and goals. Our club is trying to complement IE efforts to provide a platform to develop and connect with members of different profiles that share a similar passion and interest: sports. We strongly believe sports is a unifying force and that it is an industry with roles for everyone willing to transform passion into action.” – Andrea Martinez Rojas, President of the Sports Management Club
This year, the club was recognized as the Best Professional Club and the Most Adaptable Club in IE Campus Life’s Virtual Club Awards 2020.
Find more about the IE Sports Management Club below.
Interview with Andrea Martinez Rojas M., President of the Sports Management Club.
Who can join the Sports Management Club?
We have members from the undergraduate and graduate schools. Our members are very diverse, the only requirement is to have an interest in any of the diverse sectors within the sports industry. Usually, we get members looking for a career change or individuals seeking to advance their careers.
What does the club do?
Our activities have focused on organizing webinars with industry professionals with different profiles, additionally, we have a newsletter where we share industry news, career advice, and sports business articles. We have an active LinkedIn group with 4 to 6 posts a day and more than 180 members.
What is your club most proud of?
We are proud of the success of our #IESportsTalks. These weekly webinars, sometimes held twice a week, have brought speakers from very diverse disciplines and sectors of the industry such as:
– Nicolas Evans, FIFA Head of Football Research & Standards
– Tarantini Vaz, Professional football player, speaker, founder and author of A Minha Causa, researcher and entrepreneur.
– Jurg Carpol, Marketing Director of the International Ski Association
– Arianna Criscione, PSG goalkeeper and Sponsoring and Women’s Business Development.
What has the club’s biggest achievement or event been so far?
We are very proud of our Bernabeu Expert Panel which has a total of 32 attendees. We featured guests such as:
– Mercedes Coghen Alberdingk, Director of the Oficina de Estrategia Internacional del Deporte Español.
– Diego Sanchez Trillo, Global Partnership Sales Manager for La Liga.
– Pedro Arnau, Director ESBS Insight at European Sport Business Schools & Condor Media Analyst.
What is the club looking forward to next year?
We have two main plans for the future:
– Sports Workshop weekend: Provide a workshop to the membership of two days with speakers, a guided case study resolution session and networking dinner.
– Sports Pitch Slam: Provide a framework to the membership to team-up, get mentorship sessions with entrepreneurship professors and sports industry experts, and a final pitch slam competition in front of VC that specializes in Sports industry.
How can people contact you, join, or participate?
Instagram: @iesportsmgmtclub
LinkedIn: IE Sports Management Club
Youtube: IE Sport Management Club
Campus Groups : IE Sports Management Club
Facebook: IE Sport Management Club
How has the club changed over the years?
The club was founded in 2014 by a group of passionate students seeking to provide a platform for students to seek and express their interest in sports business. The club lost leadership and went inactive for a couple of years until last year, when my team and I revived it and stood up to provide high-quality events to the membership. We have a section of the coordination team that will carry on with the hard work. The plan is to provide workshops, more networking, and a Pitch Slam.
How did the club adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic?
COVID-19 was the hidden blessing for the club. The lockdown allowed us to reach out to individuals in the world to give webinars for the club. The experts were available, the audience was eager to learn more of the industry, and IE provided us with the digital infrastructure to make it happen.
How do you think the club embodies the IE Values (Entrepreneurship, Tech & Innovation, Humanities, Diversity)?
The Club emphasizes the diversity of roles, disciplines, and achievement that IE and the Sports industry embodies. We are committed to breaking stereotypes that some members have of the sports industry, including the ideas that people need to have a sports background to succeed in it, or that it’s male-dominated. We are a diverse coordination group with members from Spain, Japan, India, Mexico, and the U.S., with members from undergraduate and graduate programs as well as alumni.
Additionally, we had a couple of past sports entrepreneurship events and we are committed to promoting entrepreneurship as a path to the sports industry. Our entrepreneurship series of events is called #StandupEntreprenuer.
What highlighted events did the club host this year?
I think the most valuable speaker was Arianna Criscione. She very humbly explained to us her story of balancing an athlete career with a business career. She is a highly educated individual with an important role in the PSG organization as a Sponsoring and Women’s Business Development Director, but also as a goalkeeper for the first team. She talked to us about how education is crucial, about how it’s important to be a role model, and how gender barriers are fictional constructs that need to be challenged and dismissed.
“My biggest takeaway was having the opportunity to reach out to highly talented individuals in the sector and be able to host the webinars in an online format, taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown. Also, leading a team of talented coordinators, being encouraged by them to continue providing events, as well as the brainstorming session for new value-creation efforts. I’m grateful IE gave me the platform to connect with my IE community, to give back, and to reach out to the world.” – Andrea martinez rojas
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