Last Updated: January 9, 2026

Study Sports Management in Arizona

If you love sports, a career in sports management is a natural fit. But you need much more than an appreciation of athletics to get a job in this field. Instead, you need thorough training in business, marketing, management, and a host of related areas to find success.

As a student in Arizona, you have your pick of many different sports management programs to prepare you for a future career. On the one hand, you can pursue a bachelor’s degree to get your education started. On the other hand, you might work toward a graduate degree to open up additional career opportunities.

Whatever your educational path might be, Arizona’s colleges and universities can accommodate them with high-quality sports management programs. The degrees discussed in this guide are among the most popular in the state and are worth your consideration.

Accredited Sports Management Programs in Arizona - Best Sports Management Degrees in Arizona Online

Sports Management Programs in Arizona

Listed below are some of the popular schools offering sports management programs in Arizona:

  • Arizona State University
  • Arizona Christian University
  • Grand Canyon University
  • Liberty University
  • Northern Arizona University
  • Arizona State University Online
  • Southern New Hampshire University
  • American Public University
  • Purdue Global

Arizona State University

Bachelor of Arts in Business – Emphasis in Sports Business

Arizona State’s Bachelor of Arts in Business with an emphasis in Sports Business is a typical 120-credit undergraduate program. Most students need four years to complete the degree requirements. However, you can take longer as a part-time student to finish your classes. Alternatively, taking an extra class each academic semester allows you to graduate a semester or two early.

In either case, you will take part in a rigorous curriculum that’s offered in-person and online. You will start by completing general education requirements in core areas like math, science, social sciences, and language arts. These courses—all of which are at the introductory level—are required of all students regardless of major. Additional general education requirements might be necessary in the following areas:

  • Communications
  • Arts and Humanities
  • World Languages
  • Health and Fitness

You will also complete a thorough sequence of major-area courses. A number of these classes focus on career issues. For example, you will take Career Navigation, Junior Networking Foundations, and Senior Career Transition Management. These classes, which occur at various points throughout your training, prepare you to apply what you’ve learned in class in real-world sports business and management settings.

Of course, many of your classes focus specifically on business elements. A good example of this is the required Fundamentals of Finance class, which explores the various problems that might arise in the financial management of a business. The course also explores different financial theories to give you a solid understanding of business finance.

As another example, you will take Principles of Management and Leadership. Naturally, this course analyzes the qualities of effective leaders and seeks to instill those qualities in you. More specifically, you will hone in on modern management principles and theories and learn how to apply them in high-level sports business situations.

Yet another required business course is Marketing and Business Performance. In it, you will analyze the role of marketing in sports organizations and explore ways to improve marketing results. Your studies include a discussion of relevant analytical tools you can use to gauge the success of marketing plans to ensure customers have the best experience.

Additional major courses explore topics such as:

  • Sports Business
  • Fan Behavior and Sports Marketing
  • Sports and Media
  • Problem Solving and Actionable Analytics
  • Global Supply Operations

Your studies further include business-focused classes. These courses, like Accounting, Macroeconomics, and Business Statistics, inform you of the business-side features of working in a sports organization.

For example, you can use what you learn in the Accounting class to better understand the business cycle and how to use accounting information to enhance the financial performance of the organization. As another example, the skills you glean from the Business Statistics class will help you analyze data more effectively, which, in turn, enables you to make more informed business decisions.

This degree wraps up with a capstone experience. This course requires you to take on the perspective of a sports organization’s general manager or owner. Then, you will develop a plan to improve the organization’s value. Doing so helps you understand how to manage finances, analyze data, and improve relations with stakeholders.

The general admissions requirements for first-year students are as follows:

  • Complete a high school curriculum that includes 4 years of math, 4 years of English, 3 years of lab science, 2 years of social sciences, 2 years of the same second language, and 1 year of fine arts or career and technical education.
  • Be in the top quarter of your graduating class, have a 3.0 GPA in competency courses, have a 22 ACT score or higher (24 for non-residents), or an 1120 SAT score or higher (1180 for non-residents).
  • Submit official high school transcripts or equivalency scores.
  • Submit official transcripts from every college or university from which you’ve earned credit.

Arizona Christian University

Bachelor’s in Sports Management

The Bachelor’s in Sports Management from Arizona Christian University is available as a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. In either case, you will focus on the various aspects of working in a sports-focused business, such as personnel management, financial management, and leadership.

More specifically, the curriculum focuses on developing you into a quality leader. You will learn both technical and practical skills, become a better communicator, and refine your managerial style at the same time. These skills are widely applicable, too. In fact, this program prepared you for entry-level careers in any of the following fields:

  • Corporate Sports
  • Sports Management Agencies
  • Amateur Sports
  • Professional Sports
  • Community Recreation

You need to complete 120 credits to graduate. As noted earlier, this number of credits typically requires four years to complete. Also as noted earlier, a large portion of those credits come in the form of general education requirements. You must complete 38 credits in this category, with coursework that addresses language comprehension, quantitative reasoning, exploration of the natural world, and an examination of historical and social issues, to name a few.

Since Arizona Christian is a religious school, you are also required to complete 18 credits of Biblical and theological studies. You will use what you learn in these classes to develop a clearer sense of self as it pertains to your religious beliefs and an improved understanding of how you can use your faith in carrying out your job duties.

You will supplement the courses discussed above with seven credits of general electives. Since these classes are yours to choose, it’s an opportunity to tailor your studies more specifically to your interests.

The next component of your studies is an 18-credit business administration concentration. As the name indicates, these classes focus specifically on key business topics, such as:

  • Introduction to Business
  • Computer Information Systems
  • Personal Money Management
  • Principles of Management
  • Principles of Marketing

The final business administration course is Business Ethics, which explores key legal and ethical issues you are likely to encounter in your career. For example, you might explore a case study of a collegiate athletics department that used unethical practices to gain a competitive advantage and the resulting fallout from those actions.

This program’s remaining courses focus on sports management-specific topics. On the one hand, you will take classes like Sports Promotion and Sales to learn how to generate excitement for sports teams and encourage fans to buy tickets and merchandise. On the other hand, you will take Leadership in Sports Organizations to explore proven methods for encouraging team members to buy into the organizational mission.

Other sports management classes help you develop into a well-rounded administrator. For example, International Sports Management takes a look at sports in other countries, examines how they operate, and explores how you can incorporate their operational procedures into your day-to-day work. As another example, Sports Communication discusses the critical role that communications play in this field—both interpersonal communications and broadcast communications.

This program requires you to complete two field experiences. The first is a three-credit practicum that introduces you to the application of sports management principles in the real world. The practicum is completed in an approved sports setting where you will observe daily operations and begin participating in those operations with the guidance of a mentor.

The second field experience is an internship that provides you with a greater level of interaction in a sports-related setting. You will have opportunities to make tangible contributions to the organization, be that via marketing activities, financial analyses, personnel-related issues, and so forth. Combined with the practicum, the internship gives you the real-world experience necessary to make the transition from being a student to being a practitioner in the sports world.

The admissions criteria for first-time students are as follows:

  • Have a high school diploma or its equivalent.
  • Have a 2.5 high school GPA or higher.
  • Submit official high school transcripts or equivalency scores.
  • Submit official transcripts from any colleges where you’ve earned credit.
  • Be an evangelical Christian and discuss your beliefs in a personal essay.
  • Submit ACT or SAT scores if you wish.

Grand Canyon University

Master of Business Administration in Sports Business

The Master of Business Administration in Sports Business from Grand Canyon University is a comprehensive degree designed to help you advance your understanding of business and sports concepts. You will learn about essential concepts in both fields, as well as finance, marketing, sales, and other critical areas of business. This program also specifically focuses on your development as an ethical decision-maker and quality leader.

You have the choice of completing this degree online or in person. The online option obviously offers greater flexibility for completing the 54 credits needed to graduate. But if you learn better in person, the on-campus option gives you the rich, interactive learning experience you require.

The curriculum is divided into two categories: fundamental classes and core courses. The fundamental classes focus on basic business principles:

  • Accounting Practices
  • Finance Principles
  • Applied Business Probability and Statistics

The core courses, meanwhile, explore sports management topics of all kinds. You will start with Leadership and Organizations, which introduces you to Grand Canyon’s College of Business and dives into topics like leadership, organizational behavior, and management.

Next, you will take a four-credit Economics class that will help you develop an improved understanding of the role microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts have in sports management. More specifically, you will learn how to use economic data to improve organizational decision-making.

This program also requires you to take a Quantitative Methods class. Your studies in this class focus not just on analytical techniques but also on the tools you can use to model business applications and functions. You will learn how to establish models, analyze data, and apply the results in real-world settings.

Other core courses include the following:

  • Marketing Management
  • Managerial Accounting
  • Operations Management
  • Managerial Finance
  • Strategic Management

You are also required to take a Sports Business Revenue Generation course to develop a better understanding of how revenue is generated in this industry. You will supplement your learning in that class by taking Sports Business Analytics, which examines how to obtain relevant data and derive insights from it.

Each of the classes described above is just eight weeks long if you study online. This accelerated format allows you to focus on fewer classes at a time than in a traditional on-campus setting.

By completing this curriculum, you will acquire valuable skills that make you a more qualified job applicant. These skills included, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The ability to maximize brand value for sports organizations.
  • The ability to conduct managerial accounting tasks, including performance evaluations and internal reporting.
  • The ability to analyze market conditioning and make marketing plans accordingly.

With the knowledge and skills you gain in this program, you will be able to pursue many different careers in sports. For example, you might work in human resources, communications, or sales. Likewise, you could pursue a career in operations management or general management. These are just a few options, though.

The graduate application for admission to Grand Canyon University is available online. The requirements for admission are as follows:

  • Have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
  • Have a cumulative undergraduate GPA of 2.8 or higher. You may still be considered for admission with a lower GPA. However, you must submit GMAT or GRE scores with a minimum score of 500 on the GMAT or a combined verbal/quantitative score of 300 on the GRE.
  • Submit official transcripts from every college or university you’ve attended.
  • Provide any other documentation as required by the program.

Liberty University

Online Master of Arts in Sports Management

An out-of-state online option you might consider as an Arizona graduate student in this field is the Master of Arts in Sports Management from Liberty University. This online program is easily accessible and provides you with a flexible option for continuing your education. An additional feature that adds some flexibility to your studies is that this program does not require a thesis.

Furthermore, Liberty University has a generous transfer credit policy—you can transfer up to 18 of the 36 required credits to graduate. This policy is a great option if you’ve already started your studies elsewhere and want to use them to finish your degree at Liberty.

Another distinct feature of this program is its accreditation through the Commission on Sport Management Accreditation (COSMA). With this designation, this program has earned the trust of sports industry professionals. Furthermore, the knowledge and skills you learn in this program align with industry standards and ensure that you put your best foot forward when applying for jobs.

The bulk of your studies are core sports management classes. In fact, 21 of the 36 credits needed to graduate fall into this category of coursework. One such class is Social Issues in Sports Management, which explores the social constructs of sports. You will discuss women and minorities in sports, the socialization aspects of sports, and violence in sports as well.

Another important class for your development as a sports manager is Sports Marketing and Public Relations. This class examines the basic principles of marketing as well as advanced topics like consumer behavior, sponsorship, and public relations. Furthermore, you will discuss promotional strategies and learn effective ways of informing the public about sports-related issues.

The Ethics in Sports course is also central to your development. To be successful as a sports manager, you must understand the legal and ethical components of your job. This course discusses common ethical dilemmas to help you develop a sense of the issues you might face in your future career. These topics range widely, from Title IX issues to drug use among athletes to issues of fair play.

Other core courses examine topics such as:

  • Foundations of Sports Outreach
  • Legal Issues in Sports
  • Economics and Financial Management of Sports
  • Understanding Research in Sports, Recreation, and Tourism

The remaining 9 credits of coursework you need to graduate come in the form of general cognate classes. These classes are electives, so you can choose relevant sports management courses to fulfill this requirement. Choosing three classes of your choice allows you to customize your studies to focus on areas that align with your interests and future career goals.

A six-credit internship is the final piece you must complete to earn this degree. The internship takes place in a sports or recreation management setting that’s approved by the program. Since it’s an online degree, Liberty University will work with you to find an appropriate placement near where you live to minimize your travel requirements.

During the internship, you must complete at least 400 hours of work. The work you complete can be highly varied, from making contributions to the organization’s marketing team, information technology team, or sales team, to name a few. You might also get experience working with athletes, sponsors, or fans.

You must meet the following requirements to be considered for admission:

  • Have a bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited institution.
  • Have a 3.0 undergraduate GPA or higher.
  • Submit official transcripts from every college or university you’ve attended.
  • Submit official English language proficiency test scores if English is not your native language.

How Much Can You Earn With a Sports Management Degree in Arizona?

As of January 2026, sports management professionals in Arizona earn an average annual salary of approximately $112,648. More experienced professionals in Arizona earn well over $110,000 per year.

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