Book Review - Applied Sport Management Skills, written by: Robert N. Lussier and David C. Kimball
Lussier and Kimball have created the ultimate sport management textbook for both students and professors. Applied Sport Management Skills is jam-packed with applied exercises in sport management techniques that build students skill levels. The text is filled with a variety of exercises such as: Self Assessments, Skill Building, Applying the Concept, Case Studies, Tim-Outs and Take it to the Net exercises. Each and every one of these exercises is designed to teach the reader the valuable skills associated with sport management.
Self assessment, skill builder and applying the concept exercises allow students to assess their own skill level and apply the sport management concepts they learn throughout the text. The case studies are new and very relevant to what is happening in today’s sport industries. The aptly named time out exercises give students the opportunity to apply the management concept immediately into their everyday lives, even if their current job is not in the sports industry. Finally, the double entendre, “take it to the net” exercises allow students to utilize online resources that accompany the text, to supplement what they have learned by completing even more exercises on the World Wide Web.
Applied Sport Management Skills is beneficial to both students and professors as well. Let’s face it, managerial topics can be boring at times, but the applied exercises throughout the text enable students to acquire relevant skills, and professors to assign experiential exercises in a classroom setting. Students and professors get the best of both worlds. In addition, the text allows for professors without true sport management experience to gauge student progress in a variety of managerial principles. Even the non-student reader can obtain sport management skills by working through the exercises found throughout the text.
The reviewer strongly recommends that this text be used by college and universities with sport management programs. Lussier and Kimball utilized the protocols set forward by NASSM to create a sport management text that has no equal in the industry. Whether you are looking to learn the sport management principles that will allow you to run the local little league, or the New York Mets, you should start with this text.