I am a Business Management major so the aspect of sports management that have more to do with organizing the event would seem more attractive to me. I think I would be interested in sport event management and facility management the most out of all of the other areas within Sports Management.
When it comes to my strengths and weaknesses as a person and in a job are somewhat different. As a person, I feel as though that my strongest strengths are that I am reliable, trusting, organized, and kind. I am a planner, so that helps with my organization and the fact that people can rely on me to be on time, usually even early. But I am also reliable in the fact that if someone needed me for an emergency or something like that, I am going to be there for them.
My weaknesses as a person is that I have a hard time saying no and I usually spread myself way too thin. Another weakness that I get told that I have is that I put a lot of people before myself, which is apart of the fact that I have a hard time saying no. One last weakness that I have is that I can be very stubborn sometimes and if things are not done the way I think they are supposed to, I distance myself from the project or whatever the objective is, which is a weakness that I am currently working on.
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My strengths at a job are very similar to my personal strengths, which are the fact that I am organized, reliable, and determined. I never leave an assignment unfinished or leave it until the last minute. I pride myself in constantly doing the best that I can and that will always transfer from my personal life to my job. My weakness within the job is that I sometimes take on more projects than I can handle, due to the fact that I like to overachieve.
Due to the fact that I take on more projects that I normally can handle, some of them do not get as much attention as they should and could be better. Another weakness of mine is that I am my harshest critic, so even if I am getting great feedback I think that I can do better.
Regardless of the size of the facility or kinds of events hosting in the facility, one factor remains consistent: To maintain a safe and enjoyable environment, proper management of the facility and event is crucial. The definition of facility management is, “the maintenance of an organization’s equipment and building,” (www.businessdictionary.com). Facility management is really defined more by the positions that fall under that title. In general, there are usually three positions within most facilities, which are, facility director, operations manager, and event coordinator.
The facility director is the person who has responsibility for the entire facility, and is responsible for the creation and organization of the facility’s standard procedures for everyday operation. The operating manager reports directly to the facility manager and is responsible for all of the employees, procedures, and activities that contribute to the facility.
This manager has a variety of responsibilities such as defining the roles, responsibilities, and authority of facility staff; recruiting employees to organize certain areas of the facility to ensure everything is operating efficiently; arrange employees, policies and procedures, and activities within the facility; evaluating facility operations; and making recommendations to the facility director on what needs to be changed and what is efficient for operations (Pederson, 339).
Another position that reports to the facility manager is, the event coordinator and they are responsible for managing individual events held in the facility. These events can be things like concerts or sports events.
“The event coordinators responsibilities usually include transporting, assembling, erecting, and storing equipment; establishing a control system for venue and equipment logistics; recruiting, training, and supervising specific personnel; assisting in maintain venues and equipment during the event; facilitating ticketing and ticket distribution at venue sites; and evaluating venue and equipment operations,” (Pederson, 339).
Some examples of sports organizations that have to deal with facility management are the NFL, specifically the New York Giants, and the Special Olympics. The NY Giants need to focus on facility management during home games. One of the most important things about facility management is the fact that the team needs to maintain a safe environment.
If the seats were dirty and full of garbage, fans would rather watch from home and then ticket sales would decrease immensely as well as merchandise sales and food sales. No one wants to lose out on that form of revenue, so facility management needs to be taken seriously, garbage needs to be picked up, broken seats or railings needs to be fixed immediately, and any other issues that may seem to be small need to be taken care of because one small thing can and will affect the large main idea of the facility.
The Special Olympics also needs to worry about facility management because of the fact that the Special Olympics rent out each facility they use; they do not have their own facility. So after the event is complete the Special Olympics will have a contract that states that they need to clean and overall take care of the facility before they move onto another facility. If they do not take care of one facility, other facilities will not want the Special Olympics to be held at theirs due to the fact that they do not take care of the facility when it is not even that facilities event.
There are a lot of management job opportunities within facility management but not as many as sports event management due to the fact that facility management is specific to the facility rather than the overall event. There are a lot of possibilities to be the manager of the cleaning crew, or the overall manager of the facility, the manager of operations etc.
Every event is a product, an outcome, and an occurrence (Pederson, 341). The definition of event management is, “the application of project management to the creation and development of large-scale events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, weddings, formal parties, concerts, or conventions,” (en.wikipedia.org). Sport event management is just more specific to sport events.
Event management includes planning, organizing, staging, and evaluating, but there is always a typical event management employee structure, and it normally does not vary from event to event. The executive director is responsible for the overall management of the event. Some of their responsibilities include developing operational and strategic plans, preparing the financial statements and budgets for approval, expecting some problems, and executing solutions for those potential problems. The director is responsible for hiring division managers and coordinators and outlining their roles, responsibilities, and authority.
The director also needs to provide managerial support for division managers and directors in the overall planning of the event (Pederson, 341). Next there is the operations division manager and they are responsible for all of the staff, procedures, and activities contained in the operations division. These items include registration, where they are staying, medical services, communications, transportation, and more.
The operations division manager clearly defines the roles, responsibilities, and authority of each coordinator and manager while recruiting personnel to direct each operations area (Pederson, 342). The security coordinator works with multi agency representatives to ensure a safe and secure event. The executive director guides the public relations, marketing, and hospitality managers in all matters relating to the public relations, marketing, and hospitality.
These managers are responsible for personnel, procedures, and activities contained in their respective divisions including, but not limited to, ceremonies and protocol, sponsorships, VIP services, media and PR, and hospitality entertainment (Pederson, 344).
There are seven basic steps of event management plans and they are: scheduling, negotiating, coordinating, staging, settling with the promoter, cleaning up, and evaluating. The pre-event management tasks are scheduling, negotiating, and coordinating. Scheduling the event involves a reservation process in which events are scheduled. Negotiating the event involves a contract between the facility director and an event representative (ex. promoter) in order to determine factors such as a split between the parties (Pederson, 344).
Coordinating involves an event coordinator planning the event (Pederson 345). Staging the event involves parking and seating, risk management (security), customer service, alcohol policies, and crowd management. Crowd management includes staff training, emergency planning, ensuring accessibility for spectators with disabilities, procedures for ejecting disruptive people, an efficient communication system, and effective signage (Pederson, 350). The post-event management tasks are cleaning up, settling with the promoter, and evaluating.
Settling with the promoter is the process reconciling the expenses and revenues of an event and dividing the profits according to a contracted arrangement. Evaluating the event is when the management team evaluates the process. Documentation is made up for the entire process and is critical not only for the protection against subsequent litigation but also for reference in planning future events (Pederson, 352).
Some examples of sports organizations that focus on sports event management are a team within the MLB and Adidas. Adidas sponsors a lot of sporting events so when something happens at the event, whether it is good or bad, their name is brought into the news story. When planning an event, Adidas needs to be involved in the planning so that they are aware of plans and back-ups plan, especially when it comes to security and everything that has to do with coordinating the event.
Any team that is apart of the MLB has to worry about event management. For example, the Yankees need to have plans for home games especially if it is against the Boston Red Sox. That event is the tensest event and usually needs to have security increase immensely because fans get so rowdy and usually fight. Every time there is a game, the management team needs to make sure that the event has everything in place, it is being televised, security is abundant, there is an alcohol policy so that fans do not get too wasted etc.
There are so many career opportunities within sports event management because of the fact that it takes so much to plan an event. You can have a career where you help create contracts with the security company that will be at the events. There is also the opportunity to be apart the manager of the security team and make sure that everyone is alert and doing their jobs, rather than let things slide and end up having a situation get out of control. Another career opportunity could be being apart of the team who comes up with scheduling. There are so many potential opportunities because it takes a lot of people to manage an event especially a sports event.
Developing my career planning and career path will be hard, because I am not really sure what I want to do after I graduate. I definitely want to be apart of a management team, but I am not sure of the industry. I have thought about it a little and I like the idea of being apart of a non-profit, and planning events. If I’m basing it off of just sports management, I would be apart of the event management team for the Special Olympics.
I have volunteered for them before and it was a great opportunity. I would love to help schedule when the events would take place and where they would take place. I am a very organized person, so I think that I would thrive in planning out what event happens at what time and how many people will be involved in the event. I think I would also like finding a facility that would host the Special Olympics and help out with marketing for the event as well as for the facility/company that will help host. I graduate in December 2018 and plan on going back home to Connecticut.
While I am home, I think that I will find an easy retail job while I apply to non-profits like Special Olympics or I would also like to work with Habitat for Humanity. I would like to have achieved a job within my major by December 2019 as well as starting graduate school by then. Once I graduate with my masters, I would like to relocate to another state and have a job with a non-profit that I am happy to work with and believe in their goals and mission statement.
