How to Become a Sports Tour Manager
High schoolers who enjoy sports, but want a piece of the action behind the scenes, can choose to become a sports tour manager. After all, someone needs to put all of the moving pieces together for those away games. Teams need hotels to stay in, meals to eat before the game and a way to get from their home stadium to the one welcoming them.
Ever wondered who is in charge of working with the team's general managers and owners to ensure that all of these things take place as planned, making traveling to away games less stressful? The team tour manager, of course! Interested? Here's how you can become one.
Taking the Right College Courses
A degree in Sport Management is often the first step to becoming a team tour manager for a professional, semi-professional or college team. The right program will consist of plenty of classes on topics like sports ethics and sport management, as well as those on economics, accounting and general business, providing students with the background that they need to do the job properly.
Get Plenty of Experience in the Field
In addition to learning as much as possible while in college, students who want to become a sports tour manager will also need some hands-on experience in the field. For example, they can work with their college’s athletic department, spending time volunteering or interning for the employees who are in charge of managing the school's team when it’s on the road. Throughout the many seasons, ranging from football in the fall to basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer, these teams need someone to help get them from game location to game location smoothly and easily. As a student learning more about the business of sports, they can get this useful experience.
Learn How to Multi-Task
A good team tour manager is an accomplished multi-tasker. Students learn these skills naturally while in college, as they need to balance many things at once, from attending lectures to doing homework and completing projects. Spending time on the job, either working or volunteering for the school’s athletic department, helps teach these skills as well. After all, a sports tour manager needs to handle many different things at once, from double-checking reservations to ensuring that the players all get on the bus or airplane on time and that the driver knows where they are going.
Gain Problem-Solving Skills
While planning and executing team tours, workers will run into plenty of issues. Sometimes things just go wrong, no matter how carefully they were planned. When this happens, it's important to have creative, clever problem-solving skills in order to come up with a good solution that makes everyone happy. From busses or planes arriving late to having to change hotels due to reservation issues, it's up to the team tour manager to deal with the problem.
There are plenty of career options for sports lovers who prefer not to play on the field. Working behind the scenes presents a number of opportunities, all of which start with a degree in Sport Management at Dean College.