“Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab. Jotum kheloge kudoge toh hoge kharab !!” goes the old saying in India. And, for most of you sports or games lovers, the recent inspiring movie, ‘M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story’ must have revised this cliché where Dhoni gets to hear the same line from his father as he urges to play cricket.
Yes, not everyone of you who loves sports is going to be a sports star. But, that not the reason you should crush your passion. There are various career opportunities that you can take up as per your skills and specialised degree in this domain.
On the back of every sporting event, there lies tiring work of operations, sales, marketing, branding, sponsorship and economics. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry with lots of potential (for you as well).
Check out the 15 fascinating sports careers options that you can take up to earn your bread and butter. These career options have unlimited potentials, and you can make limitless money with your talent and dedication.
1. Coach
In sporting, coaches are needed at every stage whether it is school, college or professional level sports training. The school level coaches require a degree in subjects like Kinesiology, Exercise, or Physical Education.
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Similarly, for college a bachelor-level degree in the above subject with some extra courses in areas like Leadership Theory and Anatomy are beneficial. And, to be a professional coach apart from requisite degree in these subjects, you need to have a winning track records.
2. Photojournalist
For those who love to shoot great pictures, sports photojournalist can be a fantastic career option. You need to have a good technical knowledge and experience with photography. A degree in photography can add feathers( but, not a must). But, you need to have a pretty strong portfolio, promotional skill and networking.
For learning, you can start your jobs or career as an assistant under some experienced photographer. The role also offers an excellent flexibility of freelancing. Here, Check out some of the renowned colleges of the world offering degree in photography.
3. Sport Psychologist
Sports psychologist combines sports and psychology. Mainly it has three kinds, academic, clinical and applied sports psychologists. An academic psychologist works as teacher and researcher in school and colleges. Whereas, a clinical psychologist deals with common mental/psychological issue in players like depression, performance pressure, anxiety and eating disorder.
The role of Applied Sports Psychologist is to teach various motivational, goal-setting and visualisation technique to players.
4. Statistician
If you love to play with numbers, charts and figures and have an interest in sports at the same time, you can fuse these two skills to be a successful sports statistician. The demand for statistician is projected to increase with the rise in sports media, magazines and blogs.
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As a Statistician, you need to pull details and information to conclude your findings, predictions and guesses with stats. You would require bachelor or master’s degree in statistics or mathematics to excel in this profession. Read this write-up from Prude University on statistician as a career option.
5. Physical Therapist
Conditions like injuries, cramps and twists keep occurring in the course of training and playing in various sports events. It opens a very promising Job or career option for you as a physical therapist. The role involves diagnosing the injury, developing and implementing a treatment plan and providing therapeutic treatment.
You would work with nurses and staffs to assist you in therapeutic implementation. You need to have a diploma, graduate or master’s degree in Physical Therapy to climb the ladders of success in this domain.
6. Sporting Event Planner/Coordinator
As a sporting event planner, you plan and organise the various details associated with the hosting sporting events. You also need to focus on the promotion. You would require to arrange transportation, handle and transit different equipments, accommodation, schedule the events, make provision for security and coordinate with media.
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You would also require to chalk out the emergency incident plans. A bachelor degree in Hospitality Management( or related degree) finds helpful for this profile.
7. Sports Writer/Blogger
A number of bloggers are flourishing over the net with their interesting sports niche. So, if you love to write and at the same time have a knack for certain sports, you can easily earn handsome money by blogging. For example, Sportskeeda was started just two years back from now by Porush Jain in 2014. The blog covers over 30 kinds of popular sports like Cricket, Boxing, Tennis and Football.
Today, it has more 4000 registered writers and 6500 plus subscribers. Every day the blog churns out more than a hundred blogs. There are various other sports blogs too like Indianfooty( covering with football) by Khelchandra Bharat, Kunalsf1blog by Kunal Shah ( an avid Formula One blogger) and many more.
8. Announcer/Commentator
Yes, commentator offers an excellent career opportunity to all those who are great at oratory along with good understanding and love for the sports. You need to have good at humour, insightful and quirky to keep the listeners interested and amused. You can be a live radio or TV broadcaster, interviewer, and host various sports programmes.
There are various popular commentators in India like Navjot Singh Sidhu, Harsha Bhogle(MBA from IIM Ahmedabad) and Kapil Dev.
9. Sports Agent
As a sports agent you need deal with various corporate and legal responsibilities like negotiating contracts, deals and endorsements with brands. A fluent communication and negotiating skill and ability to work under pressure are the key qualities requirement for this profile.
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You should be able to bring the best lucrative deals for your athlete. Every league has their sports agents to bring deals for them. Have a look at the salary and agent commission of some major leagues.
10. Fitness Director
Apart from degree, a fitness director needs to have ample experience as he has to look after every aspect related to health and fitness. Mostly, you would start as a trainers or instructors and then gain this position after having requisite experience.
As a fitness director, your works constitutes scheduling training sessions of the players, procurement of safe equipment, looking after the logistics for these activities and chalking out athletic and health programs. Sometimes you also need to teach on nutrition, wellness and fitness. You would require a bachelor or master’s degree in Fitness Management and related subject to take up this career.
11. Professor
As with various disciplines, there is always scope for professorship. Sports Management offers a trusted career path for teaching as professor. You can join the job at various educational institution with a degree in Sports Management. You can event go for master’s and PhD to leap in your teaching career as a researcher.
There are different college around the world like University of Texas and University of North Carolina that offers a degree in sports management. You can even choose from various other sports related subjects to be a professor and teach in different educational institutions.
12. Public Relations Manager
With your degree in Sports Management, you can very quickly take up the role of Public Relations Manager if you have an excellent communication skills. Every team and player need to maintain its PR.
A public relationship manager works to build an image, check any damage to image, makes media contacts and coordinates in various events like announcements and press conferences. You start your career as public relations assistant and slowly take pace to become a food manager.
13. Sports Architect
Sports and architecture don’t relate much obviously but, if you look into details, you will see the connection. A skilled architect who knows all the aspects of the concerning game can prepare unmatched blueprints for a stadium or court taking advantage of present geographical and environment conditions.
A golf course is an excellent example, it looks all natural but, don’t be confused. They are the creation of various qualified architects. You can check out European Institute of Golf Course Architects to find out about the finest designs and architects.
14. Fan Development/Fan Club Management:
It’s the fan who drives the sports and the economic activities that lie hidden behind every sporting event. Therefore, it becomes critical to engage and hold fans. In today’s world of internet, big data and social media the domain of complete fan management and development have become very vast.
It needs various offline and online campaigns, contests and event to manage and develop fan pool. Check this article by Standford Business that gives the complete analysis of the important role of the fan in driving the business of sport.
15. Sports Equipment and Supply
Every sports requires various sporting equipments and gears without which the game can’t take place. It opens the gate for you to have different career option with sports equipment retailers and makers.
Having a degree in sports management can quickly land you in some suitable job role in this whole chain of supply and demand. You can work as a stock associate or sales associate. That was all; the list ends up here. Hope you find this piece of write-up interesting.
Concluding with the words, it’s not just the passion for sports that is enough for you to unlock this multi-billion dollar sports industry. Along with passion, you would need knowledge, dedication, commitment, right skill sets, training and related degrees( though not a must) to excel here.
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