22 Oct EASM 2019
The 27th European Sport Management Conference was an amazing opportunity for networking and creating connections with sport management students and professionals from all around the world. More than 80 students from different universities across the world took part in this week-long conference. The students had a unique opportunity to attend a four-day Student Seminar and a three-day European Sport Management Conference, in a beautiful city of Seville. The topic of this year’s conference, ‘Connecting Sport Practice and Science’ was examined and discussed countless times during the conference.
The Student Seminar started with a welcome reception on the day of arrival, 30th of August. During the reception, all of the students had a chance to get to know each other and create connections before the actual student seminar. The academic part of the Student Seminar got a great kick-start 1st of September when the case studies for a Management game were presented by the representatives from the sport management field in Spain. These four cases were actual problems faced in the Spanish sport management field and the students had to come up with solutions for them. Four cases were presented, and the students were divided into 16 groups of 4 people. All of the groups had three days to come up with a solution for the cases and prepare presentations for the company representatives. The winning group was voted on Tuesday the 3rd of September, the last day of the student seminar, and the winners got a chance to present their solution at the actual conference.
During the three-day student seminar, the students got many memorable opportunities to create networks and enjoy Spanish culture through social gatherings, sightseeing, and cultural visits. The seminar also included many up to date presentations by academics from the sport management field. For example, Hans Westerbeek from Victoria University gave a memorable lecture about the future of sport science and Patric Nelly from West Nelly about the importance of marketing in the sport management field.
The European Sport Management Conference got an amazing start on the 4th of September with Hans Westerbeeks’ keynote about speculating the Sport Business Future. After that, the three days of the conference consisted of presentations and workshops. These presentations and workshops were held by academics in the sport management field. All of the presentations were divided under different themes, such as i.e. Sport Marketing, Sport Governance and Policy, Sport Development and Socio-Cultural Perspectives, etc. Based on those themes the presentations and workshops had their individual rooms and all of the students and academics had a chance to choose to participate in the presentations they wanted. I personally chose most of the lectures covering the themes of Good Governance, Governance and Policy, and Sport Law and Ethics. What is also noteworthy the conference included several social gatherings e.g. the opening ceremony.
This European Sport Management Conference was an incredible opportunity for me to grow professionally as well as an individual. I got to meet so many amazing people from all around the globe and today call those amazing people as my friends. I can’t wait to meet them again and maybe even have the privilege to work with some of them one day.
//Ida Kivisilta