Being on the field or the court isn’t the only way to stay in sports

While the school is known for its stellar academics, the school still boasts a strong athletic program supporting 13 different on-campus sports. For hundreds of students, athletics are an instrumental part of their high school experience and many may not wish to give up their athletic passion when they graduate.

Only some high school athletes have the skill to play their sport at the college level, much less professionally, but being on the field or the court isn’t the only way to stay involved in athletics.

Many universities in the U.S. have started to expand their majors to be more sport-oriented; for instance, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Rice University, the University of Florida and Emory University offer degrees specifically focused on sports management, kinesiology and sports analytics. Universities are expanding to accommodate the ever-growing sports industry.

The $1.3 trillion sports industry employs over 100,000 individuals in the U.S. as commentators, analysts, general managers, athletic directors, scouts, sports psychologists, journalists and many more. 

Senior Nishant Nair, a dedicated sports fan since elementary school, hopes to pursue a career in sports management.

“I’ve always been interested in sports since I was little,” Nair said. “I was never really good at them, but I was always very interested in them.”
Growing up, Nair played numerous different sports, including basketball, cricket, hockey; he was also a part of the school’s football team in 2022. But after realizing that he would not be recruited by any colleges, he started looking in other directions to be close to his passion.

“One of my close friends had similar passions as me,” Nair said. “So when I saw he went into sports management, it opened my eyes to the other side of the sports industry.”

Sports management jobs include the day-to-day management of a team, budget allocation, game planning and organizing brand deals, among other skills. 

Nair hopes to ultimately work for a sports team as a financial advisor, aiding decisions on how to allocate funds, manage player salaries and handle administration and advertisement costs. In hopes of pursuing this job, Nair will be pursuing a finance degree in college.

Understanding it is a small and competitive industry, Nair feels his broad finance knowledge can also help him pursue a profession in other industries as there are a limited number of job openings in sports. Nair feels that pursuing finance will equip him with the necessary skills to enter the sports industry, but at the same time help him obtain a degree that can be applied to many other fields if needed.

“Sports management is a relatively niche major,” Nair said. “So I am applying as a finance major as it gives me a broader education that can be applied to sports.”

 A couple of years ahead of Nair on the path toward working in sports is Class of `22 alumnus, Rohan Chakravarthi, who is majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Sports Communication at the University of Wisconsin Madison. 

As Chakravarthi entered high school, schedule conflicts and increasing schoolwork meant he had to spend less time playing sports. But in his junior year, he found an effective way to still be associated with the sports he loves: sports journalism.

“I just couldn’t fit in the time commitment to play sports, but I was still very involved. I watched sports daily and really tried to understand different sports,” Chakravarthi said. “That led me to try and find ways to create a platform for myself.”

He began providing game coverage of the San Francisco 49ers in the form of both YouTube videos and articles after every game. After graduation, he has continued on this path by covering  Wisconsin Madison’s basketball and football teams for Sports blogging networks SB Nation’s Bucky’s 5th Quarter and the 49ers for SB Nation’s Niners Nation. In addition, he also independently covers the 49ers on his own YouTube channel, rohanchakravarthi7828.

“I think that’s the beauty of this opportunity [of being a journalist for Madison], is that it provides you different avenues that you can go for in the future,” Chakravarthi said. “It doesn’t lead you on that narrow path [that is the sports industry].”

Chakravarthi said his minor gives him a slight “in” into the sports industry, but still allows him to be able to pursue other careers if it doesn’t work out. 

However, having his foot in both doors is not easy as he has to manage the course load of his major while covering multiple sports teams simultaneously. Despite this, Chakravarthi’s drive for staying with the sports industry has pushed him to not give up.

“The intrigue of the sports world is that if you get your opportunities, and you make the most of them, you have a lot of different paths that you can go into if you’re willing to kind of put in the work,” Chakravarthi said.