#2 – Ohio University’s Master of Sports Administration

Ohio University retains its record as an ever-present in the global top two of the Postgraduate Rankings.

Photographs of the 2016 Ohio University Homecoming parade and football game on October 8, 2016.

[Photograph by Joel Prince]
Photographs of the 2016 Ohio University Homecoming parade and football game on October 8, 2016. [Photograph by Joel Prince]

The University of Ohio’s Master of Sports Administration degree takes second place in both North America and globally in the 2022 Postgraduate Rankings. While the position represents a slight drop from top spot in last year’s edition, the programme retains its record of featuring in the global top two in each of the 11 years since SportBusiness launched the rankings.

The programme, which was launched back in 1966, is offered as a MBA/MSA dual-award and is based out of Ohio University’s College of Business in Athens, Ohio. Up to the end of the 2021-22 academic year, Jim Strode was chair of sports administration but he has recently been promoted within the College of Business and so has vacated the role. Strode’s work now focuses on overseeing all undergraduate programmes in the College of Business. The search for a new department chair is set to get underway imminently, while Matt Cacciato remains in post as executive director of the university’s AECOM Center for Sports Administration and oversees the Master’s resident programme, as he has done for the past five years. Mick Andzulis is also key to the running of the programme, especially from an administrative process perspective.

The course leaders view the amount of real-world projects and wider experiential learning opportunities afforded to students as a distinguishing feature of the course. As well as this, the wide-ranging alumni network of the programme is leveraged to provide an extensive schedule of guest speakers throughout each academic year.

In terms of faculty, there are 10 full-time staff working on the MBA/MSA programme. Its cohort for the upcoming academic year is 35, refined from a typical total of 150 to 160 applicants. This represents an increase of one from the previous year, with the feeling among staff that 35 is the maximum number the course can go to, particularly to ensure efficiency in group-project based learning.

The curriculum will be under review this coming academic year, as scheduled on the programme’s cycle. It is understood to be most likely that the current programme will be augmented by the integration of additional certificate options for students, leveraging the capabilities of the College of Business as a whole.

This article is part of the 2022 SportBusiness Postgraduate Rankings. To browse the entire report and view the overall tables, click here.