Students present timely research on industry issues at Sport Leadership Summit

Eleven teams of students showcased research earlier this week at Liberty University’s seventh-annual Sport Leadership Summit, providing them the opportunity to contribute insight into ongoing discourse in their respective fields while simultaneously gaining knowledge from leading industry professionals. 

The Sport Leadership Summit, held on Monday and Tuesday at Carter Tower in Williams Stadium, was hosted by the Department of Hospitality & Sport Management. The event featured industry professionals working in high school and collegiate athletics as well as those specializing in sports marketing, venue operations, facility management, sports franchising, sports outreach, branding, and more. 

Current hospitality management students helped plan and decorate for the event and assisted with check-in and other tasks. Many of the students work events throughout the school year, such as the annual CEO Summit.

On Tuesday afternoon, students presented research they had conducted for their Research Methods in Sport & Hospitality Management class. Attendees were encouraged to visit various poster presentations and ask tough questions to the presenters.

One group of students presented a qualitative research proposal on the costs and benefits of travel baseball for teenage athletes and their families. Sport management senior Garet Thompson said he appreciated the ability hear from industry professionals and simultaneously share his group’s research at Sport Leadership Summit.

“This is a really cool opportunity,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of really cool people walk through these doors the last two days. We’ve learned a lot and gotten to talk to a lot of people. This is better than presenting in a classroom. … This allows us to interact with people who have genuine questions and who want to hear what we have to say.”

Another student on the project, Flames Baseball outfielder Josh Campos, said his personal background with the sport made him curious about whether the travel sports are worth the high costs to families.

“I went through my parents paying for travel baseball from a young age of 9 years old all the way until I was in junior high school,” he said. “It’s something that really piqued my interest. I helped coach travel baseball over the summer. I know the cost and what all goes into it. It was a really interesting topic to see the background of and what the project would actually look like.”

For a different group of students, the research project was an opportunity to further explore a growing topic in college sports: NIL and its locker room impact. Seniors Ethan Riley, Ryan Barnes, Jack East, and Austin Scearce proposed a future analysis on the effect large NIL deals have on the overall locker-room environment as well as the perceptions of other players towards the team’s big NIL earners. The group hopes their research will help coaches address any discontentment formed by monumental NIL deals.

“How much these kids are making is almost dumbfounding,” Riley said. “It’s crazy; you have 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds making millions of dollars when only a couple years ago they were just on scholarships and stipends. That has been really interesting to look at.”

“Doing (this research) in real life is the biggest amount of experience we can get,” East added. “It adds more to the classroom when you can take these experiences from real life and apply that to the classroom.”

Hospitality & Sport Management Professor Dr. Clark Zealand said the ultimate goal of the research methods class is to help students find subjects they are passionate about. When students have a vested interest in the project, they are further incentivized to fully explore the topic. 

“When they learn to think that way and form their projects in that way, then it comes out on these types of presentations,” he said. “That passion and interest comes out. Speaking from a place of passion and interest always connects and resonates with your audience. I’m seeing that already. I actually see students who are smiling when they are talking about research. That’s a great thing.”

Zealand also emphasized the overall importance of the Sport Leadership Summit, noting students can gain hands-on experience through volunteering and also network with special guests in attendance.

“This is yet another extension of the classroom where we get our students out of that comfort zone, out of just sitting in a seat in a passive learning role into a much more active learning role,” he said.

“It’s easy for students to think, ‘I aspire to this, but how do I ever get there?’ … We have a lot of our own alumni who come back and share their stories,” he added. “I think it’s really, really valuable for our students to understand some of those growing pains, some of the uncertainty that goes in it, trusting God in the process. They are all stories we all share. To ultimately hear those success stories and the learning lessons along the way is incredible for our students.”