In reality the clubs usually don’t receive enough money to fundraise and that is where the provincial government comes in to help find venues and other amenities for cheaper prices or get government funding. Many clubs have expenses at Brock such as clothing/uniform purchases, equipment purchases, they have small budgets, funding limitations and paying to set up special events. This leads all the executives scurrying to get as many volunteers as possible because it is expensive to pay the clubs and teams the funds they need to keep up a good sporting program, a promise made on Brock’s mission statement.
Getting the volunteers also keeps them in the quasi-public sector and is a cheap way to save money. Another way universities raise money for athletics is to get people from the community out to games. This is an effective tool in raising money for funds for themselves. To get people out to the games they can use social media or take advantage of nights were they are the only ticket in town, leading to a larger attendance which generates higher sales for the university to fund sport programs in the Department of Athletics.
For example, on twitter the Brock Men’s Hockey team may tweet that tickets for families are half off on a Saturday night. This causes more families to come out to games. Then they may hold a prize draw in the seats hoping that people will want to win and come back for a chance to win the next time they do the prize draws. In order to make profit mostly, sport clubs must adapt to the growing trends among different age groups. The higher the sales, the better the team gets, the more volunteers want to volunteer more. According to Coakley and Dunning (2000) the quasi-public/voluntary sector had changed the entire context of he Sport Management world. Unfortunately there are always many issues in these attempts. Sometimes there may be other tickets in town or rivals to generating sales such as the Niagara Ice Dogs of the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) which may be more appealing to audiences due to the fact many of these players may make the NHL one day whereas CIS hockey is a more physical and less skilled league compared to the OHL. This is one of the main causes that is usually why CIS hockey does not generate a lot of money to fund sport programs.
In the quasi-public sport sector the CIS and Brock get public/ government funding to help them out to give the best sport programs possible in the country. Going on to how all this relates to my volunteer experience with the Brock Men’s Hockey team is it all adds up that they are always in dire need of volunteers for game day operations because of lack of funding in the sport programs. I can definitely agree that the CIS and NCAA are not the same whatsoever. The CIS gets a rough part but at least is able to no have to pay as many employees as the NCAA does.
The CIS schools rely on volunteers, but what many people don’t realize is that it gives you good experience. Future Sport Management Plans As I discussed all the issues and trends, finance, mission statements and organizational structure in my last section it all connected to my volunteering at the Brock Steel Blade Tournament. Reading and discussing it though woke me up to a realization that the CIS is basically running on their own heels because for some odd reason they cannot create more revenue in order to support other sports programs across postsecondary schools in Canada.
I don’t understand how on earth the NCAA can advertise so well with their own sports were as in Canada with the CIS the only big time event I ever hear on national TV is the Vanier Cup. If the CIS wants to expand to grow revenue I believe that they should change some rules such as changing football format to the NFL rather than the CFL format. I think with the growth of NFL football lately in Canada it would increase ticket sales and revenue to help fund schools sports programs in the country.
It is disappointing to me mostly how many Canadians do not appreciate collegiate sports. The CIS needs to do this to grow revenue, if they don’t I believe we will see more and more college sport programs being cut across the country because of lack of funds for sport programs. Continuing on to my volunteering with the Brock Men’s Hockey team it hadn’t really been what I envisioned myself doing in the future with my Sport Management Degree. The only real experience the volunteering gave me was a bit of networking with classmates and other volunteers at the games.
If I can keep working on my networking like I had during my breaks as a volunteer at the games, it would probably help me a lot for my future plans. I’m hoping by the end of my degree that I either become a sports agent, scout or sales representative because they mostly fit my personality, interests and values of what I want to do in the future. In order to achieve my future plans to become either a sports agent, scour or sales representative. I will first need to volunteer at a related event or organization that prepares and gives me experience in the field of any of the three preferred jobs I would like to achieve in the future.
In all of my choices for careers in sport management the best experience I have to offer is my communication skills. After volunteering and experiencing one of my career choices, I will make sure by 4th year to get an internship in either one of the best sport agencies, scouting services or sales representative internships I can find in Ontario. After I graduate in 4th year and after I leave Brock with my Sport Management Degree l hope to get a job in one of the three industries as soon as possible. There I will gain experience in the workplace, rising my way to the top.
If that does not happen though after a couple of years I will go to the United States and take my Masters in one of the three fields I am interested in. After I graduate with my Masters, I will again try to get a job in the industries I had picked again and hope to have more success than before because I will have been more accomplished by then. The only reason I still have not picked one career is because I am not sure still what I want to do with my sport management degree. All I know is that I am interested in all three of those jobs because they all match my personality, interests and values.
Conclusion Overall in the course for SPMA 1P92 I have learned a tremendous amount about the sport industry sectors and even learned a ton of information about the quasi-public sector. I then explained who I volunteered for and how my experience was. I went on then to elaborate about the structure of a quasipublic sector and centralized it around my experience volunteering with the Brock Men’s Hockey team and used the structure, finances, mission statement and issues from the Brock University Department of Athletics Manual.
I then went on to talk about my future goals after I graduate with my Sport Management Degree. The whole purpose of this academic paper was to show that I understand the material from the course, I did my volunteering, I learned valuable lessons during my volunteer hours and that I learned all about the quasi-public sector to explain my whole process throughout my first semester ever at university. Really though I still have no idea what career I want to pick out of my degree, I have three and a half more years to figure that out. It’s only the beginning.
