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Sport Management As A Field

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In order to fully understand sport management as a field, one needs to look only as far back as the 1960s. While sport management was not defined until the mid-1980s, the history that has shaped the look of sport management can be traced back to the Zeitgeist era of active lifestyles. In the 1960s, there was a “strong emphasis on science and scientific methods, unsurpassed technological advances, and the renaissance in higher education” (Paton, 1987). In combination with the desire for a more active lifestyle and an emphasis on science, the field of sport and physical education was developed. Dr. Earle Ziegler in the mid to end of the 1960s advised several students on “analyzing administrative writing, research, and programs” (Paton, 1987). They found that physical education needed a new approach to administration, an approach grounded in administrative theory (Ziegler & Spaeth, 1975).
It has been stated that the first academic program in sport administration was established at Ohio University in 1966 (Mason, Higgins, & Owens, 1981). However there is evidence of a program at Florida Southern University between 1949 and 1959. The program was approved by the State Department of Education of Florida and was called “Baseball Business Administration” (Isaacs, 1964). Sport Management as a field of study includes “recreation administration, dance, leisure, sport tourism, sociology, communication, marketing, finance, and law” (Pitts, 2001). Relying on

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