Oregon MBA Sports Business Courses | Lundquist College of Business

Specialization Courses

Required Courses

To earn the sports business specialization on their transcripts, MBA students must take the following courses:

MKTG 660: Marketing Research
SBUS 607: Sports Business Seminar (take each term enrolled for specialization)
SBUS 609: Strategic Planning Project (2 terms)
SBUS 650: Marketing and Sports Properties
SBUS 652: Sports Sponsorship Alliances
SBUS 665: Economic Aspects of Sports

Potential Electives

FIN 671: Corporate Finance and Valuation
MGMT 610: Greening Sports and Events
MGMT 610: Recognizing Business Opportunities
MGMT 623: Negotiations
MKTG 610: Branding
MKTG 665: Marketing Strategy
OBA 510/610: Analyzing Big Data
OBA 533: Information Analysis for Managerial Decisions
OBA 544: Database Management Systems
OBA 588: E-Business
SBUS 645: Sports Products
SBUS 653: Legal Aspects of Sports Business

Course Descriptions

ACTG 612: FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
This course is an introduction to accounting, the language of business. An understanding of how financial accounting information is prepared and reported is one of the fundamental building blocks of a business education. This course is designed to assist you in developing an understanding of financial accounting concepts and techniques so you can be an effective and informed user of financial statement information. In this course students will learn to apply accounting rules to reflect underlying economic transactions; understand how differences in measurement rules affect financial statements; understand how manager judgment influences financial statements, and analyze financial statements to make business decisions.

BA 625: BUSINESS LAW AND ETHICS
Effective leadership and ethics are two sides of the same coin, whether in business, politics, or your personal affairs. That's why we made this course the culmination of the required core. Regardless of your chosen specialization, you and all your classmates will come together once more in your last term to take this course.

FIN 612: FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCE
This MBA core course examines the basic principles of finance theory and applies the principles to important decisions facing a corporate manager. The focus of the course is on valuation and how various types of decisions potentially affect the value of a company. The course covers the fundamentals of evaluating investment opportunities, the relation between risk and required return, and the notion of market efficiency. The ways that markets ascertain value and allocate capital are compared to how a firm allocates capital to projects or initiatives. Key decisions faced by corporate managers that are covered include capital structure and mix, dividend policy, corporate cash management; cost of capital evaluation; project analysis and valuation; internal versus external financing; and evaluating and managing a business’s financial risks. By the end of the course, you should be able to value stocks and bonds using discounted cash flow techniques; identify the relevant incremental cash flows of an investment opportunity; estimate the required rate of return or cost of capital; and evaluate whether an investment opportunity adds value to a business.

FIN 613: MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS
The subject of this course addresses competition between businesses operating in typical U.S. product markets. This course has three objectives: (1) to solidify understanding of fundamental tools of economic analysis so that these tools can be used; (2) to develop the role of industry structure and the impact structure tends to have on competitive strategy and profitability; (3) to begin to build skills in competitive analysis, which entails formation of marketing, production, channel, investment, and pricing strategies based on the way competitive forces appear to work themselves out in the market. The concepts covered, which are relevant to managerial decision making, include demand and supply analysis; optimal decision making using marginal analysis; production theory; decision making under perfect competition, monopoly, and monopolistic competition; externalities and public goods; game theory; and moral hazard.

FIN 671: CORPORATE FINANCE AND VALUATION
Application of financial principles to problems of valuation, capital budgeting, and financial policy.

MGMT 610: GREENING SPORTS AND EVENTS

MGMT 612: MANAGING INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS
Course content is based upon behavioral science concepts and research findings directed toward the understanding of human behavior in various social contexts. Specific objectives of the course include developing an understanding of the design of organizations and their internal systems for achieving performance; the nature of team dynamics and group decision-making, and their influence on organizational performance; and individual cognitive and leadership styles and their impact on group and organizational processes.

MGMT 614: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
The purpose of this course is to explore the organization as a whole and its interactions with its environment. Students will gain an understanding of critical contingency issues the organization faces in the environment and how it must manage these contingencies through its structure and strategy to gain competitive advantages. The focus will be on diagnosing and assessing organization situations and to show how large and small firms can be more effective and efficient not only in today's world but in tomorrow's as well.

MGMT 623: NEGOTIATION
Covers negotiation theory, including distributive and integrative bargaining techniques, economic complements, game theory, and alternative dispute resolution. Extensive in-class negotiation simulations are part of the course.

MGMT 635: RECOGNIZING BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
This course introduces the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, which empowers individuals to confront what others see as insurmountable problems and to seek opportunity through technological and business solutions. This course is designed to be valuable for all MBA students who seek to understand the entrepreneurial process.

MKTG 610: BRANDING
More and more firms of all types have come to the realization that one of the most valuable assets they have is the brand name associated with their products or services. Despite this recognition, very little attention has been paid to the subject in management education, especially in graduate business programs. The following statement suggests the severity of the problem. To address this oversight, brand strategy is an advanced MBA elective that addresses important branding decisions faced by an organization. Its basic objectives are to

Provide students with a complete understanding of the consumer and of how consumers develop brand attitudes and behaviors
Increase understanding of the important issues in planning and evaluating brand strategies
Provide a forum for students to apply branding strategies in a variety of domains.

The course places particular emphasis on understanding psychological principles at the consumer or customer level that will improve managerial decision-making with respect to brands. One aim of the course is to make these concepts relevant for any type of organization, whether it's public or private, or large or small.

MKTG 612: MARKET ANALYSIS AND MARKETING MANAGEMENT
This course introduces the concept of marketing, factors that influence marketing management, and the role of marketing in society and business. The class will address the benefits of market analysis, target customer identification, and development of marketing-mix strategies structured to deliver superior customer value and optimize organizational performance. The objective is to develop skills and knowledge in the areas of consumer behavior, market segmentation, targeting, positioning, product, services, price, place, promotion, and strategic marketing with a sustainable, ethical and socially responsible approach.

MKTG 660: MARKETING RESEARCH
Marketing research as a tool for decision-making. Planning research projects; design, measurement, experimental and non-experimental techniques, analysis and interpretation of data; reporting research results.

MKTG 665: MARKETING STRATEGY
Relationship between marketing and other functional areas of a business. Emphasis on case analysis as a means of acquiring both planning and operational skills.

OBA 510/610: ANALYZING BIG DATA

OBA 533: INFORMATION ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERIAL DECISIONS
Teaches techniques to develop information to manage risk and improve decisions. These techniques include data-driven approaches for discovering business trends and strategic opportunities, including techniques for data mining and analyzing empirical data.

OBA 544: BUSINESS DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Covers techniques for structuring and storing business data, focusing primarily on relational database theory with applied skills for business users, including data warehouses, reporting, and normalization.

OBA 588: E-BUSINESS
Fundamental principles of electronic business; effect of e-business on business strategies, processes, customers, and suppliers; assessing the impact of e-business technologies on firm performance.

OBA 612: QUALITATIVE METHODS FOR MANAGERS
This course aims to achieve a level of understanding of statistical inference that enables students to be intelligent consumers of statistical analyses, able to apply some of the more useful analytic techniques including the modeling of relationships among variables and an introduction to classification. Specifically we will cover statistical sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, and regression (simple, multiple, and logistic).

OBA 613: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
This course is designed to address the key operations management issues in manufacturing and service organizations that have strategic as well as tactical implications. Students learn to understand the role of operations management in the overall business strategy of the firm; the strategic and tactical linkages between operations function and other functional areas of the firm; and the application of operations management policies and techniques to manufacturing as well as service sector firms. In addition, the course aims to identify and evaluate comparative approaches to operations management in an international context, as well as a range of tools appropriate for analysis of operating systems of the firm.

SBUS 607: SPORTS BUSINESS SEMINAR

SBUS 609: STRATEGIC PLANNING PROJECT
Strategic Planning Project courses are part of the experiential learning that characterizes the Oregon MBA. Student teams are paired up with Northwest companies pursuing opportunities for growth or facing obstacles to growth. Under the guidance of faculty advisors, team facilitators, and outside consultants, students apply classroom lessons and learn what can't be taught in the classroom as they research the company, analyze their findings, and present their conclusions to senior management.

SBUS 645: SPORTS PRODUCTS
Strategic and tactical issues associated with the design, manufacturing, costing, licensing, and merchandising of sports products.

SBUS 650: SPORTS MARKETING
Examines essentials of effective sports marketing. Includes product or property development, legal aspects, segmentation , pricing, and communication channels (e.g., broadcast media).

SBUS 652: SPONSORSHIP
Detailed consideration of the relation between sports, law, and corporate sponsorship programs. Focuses on alignment marketing issues, strategic communication through sponsorship, sponsor value, and sponsorship valuation.

SBUS 653: LEGAL ASPECTS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
Examines social responsibility and legal concepts in sports management including constitutional regulatory powers, individual participation rights, drug testing, antitrust, labor rights, intellectual property rights, sponsorships, product and event liability.

SBUS 655: ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SPORTS
Comprehensive coverage of traditional and innovative revenue methods available to sports organizations from public and private sources. Detailed consideration of venue-based income sources (e.g., premium seating, permanent seat licenses).

Sports Business MBA Courses and Electives