What is Sport Marketing?
Sport is a multi-billion-dollar global industry, and almost none of it runs on the field. Every sold-out night, every jersey sponsorship, every streaming deal and season-ticket renewal is the product of marketers who understand audiences, brands, and data.
Sport marketing is the work of building that demand: pricing a ticket, launching a campaign, reading the analytics behind fan behavior, negotiating a sponsorship, and telling a story that makes people care enough to show up.
Assumption’s B.A. in Sport Marketing gives you the full business foundation — marketing, management, accounting, analytics — and then puts it to work in the specific context of the sports industry. You graduate able to build a campaign, defend it with data, and explain why it matters.
Why Study Sport Marketing at Assumption?
A real business degree, not a sports-themed one
You’ll take the same marketing, accounting, and management core as every Grenon School of Business student, then specialize. The result is a degree that travels — strong enough for a front office, and strong enough for anything else.
Industry experience built into the curriculum
Internships aren’t an add-on here. Students work with professional and collegiate sports organizations, athletic departments, agencies, and sports commissions, applying classroom work to live problems on real deadlines.
Data fluency employers are hiring for
Sports organizations are drowning in data about their fans. Coursework in sports analytics and market research teaches you to turn ticketing, attendance, and engagement data into decisions the business can act on.
Faculty who know the industry and know you
You’ll be taught by professors with direct sports-industry experience, in classes small enough that they learn your name, read your work closely, and open their networks to you.
Sport, studied seriously
Through the Larry Lucchino Institute for the Study of Sports, you’ll examine the business alongside the ethics, culture, and civic weight of sport — the questions that separate a marketer who executes from a leader who decides.
What You’ll Learn
By the time you graduate, you’ll be able to:
- Build and execute a marketing campaign for a team, league, venue, event, or brand
- Analyze fan and consumer data to drive ticketing, pricing, and engagement decisions
- Develop sponsorship and partnership proposals and understand how they’re valued
- Create and manage content across social, digital, and broadcast channels
- Apply brand strategy to athletes, organizations, and properties
- Navigate the legal and ethical questions specific to the sports industry
Is sport marketing the same as sport management?
They overlap, but they’re different jobs. Sport management focuses on running the organization — operations, facilities, personnel, governance. Sport marketing focuses on the audience — building the brand, selling the tickets and sponsorships, growing and keeping the fan base. Assumption offers a B.A. major in Sport Marketing and a minor in Sport Management, and students often pair coursework across both.
What can you do with a sport marketing degree?
Graduates work in team and league marketing, sponsorship and partnership sales, ticketing and revenue strategy, fan engagement, content and social media, sports analytics, agency work, and collegiate athletic marketing. Because the degree is grounded in a full business core, graduates also move into general marketing roles outside of sport.
Do sport marketing students at Assumption complete an internship?
Yes. Supervised internship experience is a core part of the program. Students intern with professional and collegiate sports organizations, including the Worcester Red Sox at Polar Park, minutes from campus.
When does the Sport Marketing major launch?
The B.A. in Sport Marketing welcomes its first students in Fall 2027. Students interested in the field before then can pursue the marketing major with sport marketing coursework, or the sport management minor.
Where is Assumption University located?
Assumption is in Worcester, Massachusetts — New England’s second-largest city, home to the Worcester Red Sox and Worcester Railers, and roughly an hour from Boston’s professional sports market.
Bridget Leonard, Ph.D.
Experiential Learning
Learn the Skills Employers Seek
Internships
Sport marketing students complete a supervised internship with a professional or amateur sports organization, athletic department, sports commission, or agency — a minimum of 120 hours in a semester. You’ll apply what you’ve learned, build a portfolio, and leave with people in the industry who know your work.The Worcester Red Sox Partnership
As a founding partner of the WooSox, Assumption gives students access to internships at Polar Park across marketing, fan engagement, ticketing, communications, and operations. The partnership also includes WooSox scholarships, matched by Assumption.Faculty-Mentored Research
Work alongside faculty on research into fan behavior, sports economics, media, and the business of athletics — and present it.Study Abroad
Study in more than 50 destinations. Sport is a global business; it helps to have seen some of it.Careers in Sport Marketing
Graduates are prepared for roles across teams, leagues, venues, brands, agencies, and athletic departments:
Athletic Marketing & Promotions
Corporate Partnerships & Sponsorship Sales
Event Marketing & Activation
Fan Engagement & Game Day Experience
Marketing Coordinator
Social Media & Content Strategy
Sports Analytics
Sports Media & Communications
Ticket Sales & Revenue Strategy
Cassandra Burbine
Sport Management 2018
Boston Red Sox Luxury Suites Management, Fenway Park
“I was lucky enough to get my dream job before graduation due to hard work and help from Assumption. Assumption has endless connections with people who help students succeed and start their careers. The community is a constant source of support and guidance. Assumption introduced me to alumni that gave me excellent advice and guidance about finding my perfect career.”
John Chamberlain
Sport Management 2021
Intern, Select Skills Hockey
“My experience as a skills coach has taught me the importance of communication and organization. At my internship, I create practice plans for different age groups and make sure what is taught is done effectively and efficiently. When running practices I have to be very clear and vocal with players so they understand what they need to do in order to improve. ”
George Lorin
Sport Management 2021
Coordinator of Marketing & Fan Engagement for The Worcester Red Sox
“I am forever grateful to have the opportunity to represent people of color in the sports Industry! To me, sports is about storytelling through athletic achievement. I want to provide this generation of fans with memories, and experiences that they can share for years to come that will never be forgotten. Assumption provided me with tools to make this a reality!”
Career Preparation
How a Love of New England and a Love of Sports Led Alex Dumais ’24 to Assumption – and the Worcester Red Sox
“Experiential learning gives you the capability to take the things you’ve learned in class and apply them to the world around you,” she said. “My first year, I took an Intro to Marketing course, and the marketing and management courses that I took throughout my four years at Assumption just kept building upon each other. By the time I became an intern in the WooSox front office, I could really take pieces that I learned from my courses and apply them here.”