Playmakers

Cameron Sears started coaching soccer at age 12, worked her way up to leadership roles in youth recreational sports in her Montreal community, and eventually landed jobs with Formula One and the Canadian Elite Basketball League – all before she was 20 years old. So when she heard about York University’s new Bachelor in Sport Management program, she knew she had to apply.

“I saw it as the best way to continue developing my skills, expand my industry knowledge and build the connections needed to succeed in the field,” says Sears, part of the first cohort of BSM students. 

First proposed in 2021 by Parbudyal Singh, a professor in York’s School of Human Resource Management, the program, which began last fall at Markham Campus, fills a gap in a burgeoning discipline. While one other Ontario university offers a standalone sport management degree (independent from commerce or kinesiology), and there are a handful of programs across Canada, York’s is the first in the Greater Toronto Area. 

We’ve already had a lot of chances to hear from leaders in the industry and get involved in the sports world in Toronto

“Toronto is the centre of the sport world in the country, and sport management professionals are in growing demand as that world evolves,” says Professor Daniel Wigfield, who was the first BSM Faculty member. He cites technology, globalization and ongoing ethical and social issues as some of the central issues driving change. “It just makes sense to have this program at York. We also fit perfectly within the Markham Campus’s mandate for new and innovative areas of study.”

The BSM degree attracted attention from the time it was announced, with applicants competing for just under 60 spots. “Most of our students are lifelong sports fans who have some recreational athletics in their backgrounds, and they want to pursue the business side of sports,” says Wigfield, noting that class sizes are small and allow for a close-knit student body.

The program prepares graduates for management positions in recreational, amateur or professional sport, though Wigfield says most students start out with dreams of working in the big leagues. “Our graduates will have an edge there,” says Wigfield. “But we want them to be aware of the wealth of potential opportunities at the grassroots community level, for example, and in the corporate world of sponsorship and marketing.”

To create that awareness, the BSM program embeds experiential learning throughout the student experience. There are two co-op placements, real-world projects with community partners, volunteer opportunities (at the neighbouring Markham Pan Am Centre, for one) and frequent guest speakers, ranging this year from national sports organization executives and professional team managers to a sports arbitrator. 

“We’ve already had a lot of chances to hear from leaders in the industry and get involved in the sports world in Toronto,” says first-year BSM student Owen Smith, who secured an internship after reaching out to a guest speaker from a company that specializes in building athletes’ brands. 

Sears has job-shadowed with the Raptors 905, participated in an MLSE networking event and volunteered with the Women’s Basketball Fund, among other resume-building activities. “I wanted real, hands-on experience in a sport management program,” she says, “and I’ve gotten that.”

Rich cultural and ethnic diversity defines the inaugural BSM class – an obvious advantage in an increasingly globalized industry. “It allows us to have a broader lens, so we don’t just study traditional sports like hockey and baseball, but talk about things like international basketball and soccer, and cricket,” Wigfield says. 

Beyond internationalization, other factors shaping the industry include advances in AI for athlete training, data-driven decision-making in sport organizations, the popularity of competitive gaming, the rising influence of social media marketing and mounting efforts toward gender equity. Wigfield says the curriculum is designed to address these issues with courses in electronic sports (esports), the sociology and psychology of sports, sport entrepreneurship, risk management in sport, sport communications and more. 

While the program now falls under the School of Human Resource Management, it will eventually be a full-fledged School of Sport Management. BSM applications for fall 2025 are already surpassing last year’s numbers, and Wigfield says he’s confident that this is just the beginning. “The response we’ve had from students and the sports world in the GTA tells me that there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t be the best sport management program in Canada.” ■