Sport Management Program Attracts Worldwide Notice

By Tony De Bolfo
The SportsVine
Thursday 21 July, 2005

Sport Knowledge Australia (SKA), Australia’s first international center of excellence in sports science and management, has been inundated with
worldwide expressions of interest in its soon-to-bestaged Executive Sport Management Program.

SKA CEO, Leighton Wood, told The SportsVine this week that sporting organization representatives from Sri Lanka, Namibia, Singapore, New Zealand, Lusoto, China, India, Ireland, Indonesia and Australia, had pointed towards an involvement in the live-in program set down for Sydney’s Olympic Park from October 16-21.

“We’re pretty excited about the geographical spread because we are truly aiming to be international. We thought the Australian sporting brand has international currency and that the response would reflect that,” Wood said.

“The academic strength of the program appears to have hit a note. We’re trying to provide participants with an academic framework of principles and models and at the same time use a case-study approach. To that end, the academic teams for our courses feature the best from their respective fields from across Australia, from a spread of universities.”

Wood said that the extensive program, to involve around 30 screened participants, would be tailored towards existing and prospective sports industry leaders and deal with issues of leadership, governance, marketing, finance, industrial relations and government relations. It will also involve personal appearances by ICC CEO Mal Speed and AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, both of whom will participate in real-life case-study scenarios, good or bad, which will challenge the participants to find
resolutions.

SKA will also be staging an Elite Sports Coaching Symposium from November 7-10, to be restricted to international and national level coaches only and involving leading international coaches as presenters.

Wood said that Sir Clive Woodward, England’s Rugby World Cup-winning coach, had originally accepted an invitation to address the symposium “on the condition that he participated because of his belief that the symposium was taking coaching education to a new level”. Unfortunately Sir Clive has since been forced to declare himself a non-starter because of his new role as technical director with English football league club, Southampton.

Photo:Matthew Vasilescu