In February, the Applied Sport Management Association (ASMA) conference will come to the University of Cincinnati for a three-day event hosted by the School of Human Services, part of the College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, and Information Technology (CECH).
The event - which is open to students, faculty and area industry professionals - will welcome leading sport administration professionals from the Cincinnati region for panel discussions, presentations, networking opportunities and more.
ASMA is a scholarly organization dedicated to building research partnerships between faculty and students in the arena of sport management. The association, which publishes the quarterly peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Sport Management, has held the annual conference - designed to connect scholars with practitioners in the sports industry - since 2005 (it was known as the Southern Sport Management Conference from 2009 to 2015). The conference has been hosted at various academic institutions over the years.
"We faculty can get too theoretical at times," explains Matt Huml, an associate professor in UC's Sport Administration program. "But Applied Sport Management is just like it sounds-we're trying to provide greater application. So we find these great, unique statistical findings or theoretical findings, and what would that mean for a traditional person working within sports? What are the takeaways or what are the implications related to this?
This, explains Huml, is a primary goal of the ASMA and its annual conference - providing a space for discussion of sport management between academics and those industry professionals who can apply findings of scholarly study. Students, as future sport management professionals, also stand to benefit enormously from the conference.
"There was a nomination process to seek out a hosting site, and we were interested," says Huml. "I had the motivation to get involved, but there's been lots of people within CECH and our sport management faculty pitching in on conference design and other involvement. And we're going to have lots of UC stakeholders involved to make sure this goes smoothly."
While the conference offers a variety of experiences for attendees -including a pre-conference writing retreat, student case study competitions, poster sessions and informative symposiums - the crux of the event centers on three panel discussions featuring notable figures from the local sport industry.
"We're going to be gathering Cincinnati sport decisionmakers in a way that either hasn't happened in a long time or maybe has never happened before in the city."
The first panel discussion, "Women in Sport," will bring together Iris Simpson Bush (Director of Community Engagement for Pig Works, Flying Pig Marathon, Inc.); Elizabeth Desrosiers (Director of Marketing & Communications for the Cincinnati Open) and Jackie Reau (Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Game Day). The panel discussion will explore the challenges, achievements and future of women athletes and leaders in the industry.
The "Strategic Initiatives of Cincinnati Professional Sports" panel will host Vince Cicero (SVP of Lion Ventures, FC Cincinnati); Aaron Eisel (SVP of Revenue for the Cincinnati Reds); Kristin Ropp (VP & General Manager of the Cincinnati Cyclones); and Brian Sells (CBO of the Cincinnati Bengals) for a comprehensive look at the Cincinnati sports scene, exploring the impact of Cincinnati's teams on the local economy, culture and identity.
The final panel, Thursday's "College Sport in 2025 & Beyond," features John Cunningham (University of Cincinnati's Director of Athletics); Christina Roybal (Northern Kentucky University's Director of Athletics); and Greg Christopher (Xavier University's Director of Athletics) in discussion about changes currently impacting college sports within the sport industry.
There will also be a student social event featuring women's hammer silver medalist (and UC alum) Annette Echikunwoke.
"We're pretty pumped about having those panels on Wednesday and Thursday," says Huml.
Last year's ASMA conference, hosted at the University of Tennessee, saw record attendance that Huml predicts the UC event will break in 2025. "We are likely to set a new conference attendance record," he says, "with an expected attendance of 280-plus registrants, including lots of Cincinnati-based folks and nation-wide students and faculty.
"We're really fortunate that we've been able to get involved."
Featured image at top: Panel participants discuss sport administration at the UC Society of Sport Leaders' 2024 Symposium. Photo/CECH Marketing
