How is it to be a part of Sports Operations Team? – By IISM student

Published On: July 2, 2020

The Sports Industry has evolved tremendously over the years. This arena has opened avenues for sports enthusiasts to make a career in it. With many verticals that Sports Industry have, Sports Operations is one.

With the ever-increasing number of new sports venues, spending in sports continues to rise. This also translates into more and more job opportunities for those interested in facility operations and event management which is also known as sports operations. While as fans, we enjoy the tournaments at stadiums or sporting venues. However, there is a lot of hard work put in by professionals to execute the tasks at the facility. This is a broad field which involves planning, budgeting, coordination, managing events, handling games, music, technical aspects, etc.

Here’s our student, Jairath Chugh from second-year Bachelor’s Degree in Sports Management, sharing his experience while being a part of Sports Operations team.

In February 2020, I had the opportunity to work with one of the best sports management organizations of India- DNA Networks, as a Branding & Operations Supervisor for the inaugural season of the Road Safety World Series (RSWS).

As a Supervisor, my responsibilities were to assist the branding team & coordinate with the operations team. The main area of focus was to ensure correct placement of sponsor boards on the stands, to make sure the signage’s were put down at the right place & in the right order in, around & outside the stadium. This was to ensure that the spectators face no problem in finding their way.

Timely preparation & accurate positioning of presentation boards & press conference boards in between match breaks as well as pre & post-matches were one of the major tasks. Ensuring all the sponsor requirements related to branding are met as per the terms decided, and to review any spell checks on the sponsor boards was important.

During the internship period, I learnt how to deal with all kinds of people and that no type of work is big or small when you have to achieve your targets. Let that be convincing the labors to finish the work at the earliest or taking notes, giving updates to your seniors, let that be leading & commanding your team, or helping the labors by sticking banners yourself in order to meet the given deadline. I have learnt that you have got to master each skill in order to reach the top and acquire the best for yourself in this Industry.

I would like to thank IISM, where my college experience has been great since Day 1. My experiences have helped me hone requisite skills to make me industry ready. While this is just the tip of the iceberg of experiences, IISM has helped me sharpen my skills in a big pool of a variety of other sub-categories of sports management such as Sports Research, Sports Marketing, etc. I would like to thank IISM for a bundle of experiences and preparing students like us to become the future sports management professionals of India.