Banking to sports teams?
I'm a 2nd year analyst in DCM and will be an Associate in a few months. I decided not to go into PE/PC route and currently looking into better WLB & role that I'm actually passionate about. I've always been a sports person, and was wondering if anyone has information on various career paths within sports organizations (i.e. football, basketball, soccer, baseball clubs). I'm guessing it is pretty limited to operations and standard FP&A roles, but any color on comp / day-to-day / WLB / job-security would be super helpful. Thank you in advance!
Based on the highest ranked content on WSO, here are some insights regarding career paths within sports organizations:
Career Opportunities:
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For more detailed insights, you might want to explore specific threads or discussions on WSO related to careers in sports organizations.
Sources: FP&A exit ops?, Q&A: F500 Director of FP&A, Sports Corp Dev / Professional Sports Career Paths, Corporate Finance Q&A with accountingbyday, BJM85, STorIB, and djfiii, Q&A: F500 Director of FP&A
Have heard that sports teams tend to be pretty brutal WLB wise. Maybe not as bad as finance but it’s no walk in the park.
NBA is hiring a Financial analyst
NBA has a GE/PE fund
GE?
Growth equity
Assuming you're in NYC, you have plenty of options. A lot of league offices around Manhattan. Also, Madison Square Garden Company occasionally has interesting roles that come up. Their strategy / analytics team is filled with ex-bankers / consultants / PE + GE, HSW MBA types etc.
Have a few friends who made that move. A mix of working with leagues and with individual teams on analytics / strategy / overall management. Overall, dynamics is somewhat similar to advertising / fashion / architecture, etc where there's SO MUCH demands for these roles that people work crazy hours AND are very poorly paid. Pretty low likelihood that people will make it to those rare partners / MDs / Exec roles that pay a lot, people usually either get fed up or get pushed out before they get there.
This is spot-on from what I understand. You're essentially going to work at a family business. Yeah the New York Giants are technically worth $5B or whatever, but so much of their money goes back to player/coach salaries, CapEx if they own the stadium, etc. that the "operating teams" for these franchises tend to be significantly understaffed + underpaid relative to what you'd expect from an employer of that scale.
Also keep in mind that mobility in this industry is relatively low if you're geographically constrained. Even NY / LA only have 8 pro sports teams each, and in a lot of cases franchises in the same metro have common ownership (e.g. Dolan owns both the Knicks and the Islanders) which limits your exit optionality.
It can be a really sick gig if you get high up enough -- a friend's father is pretty senior with an NFL team and has box seats every game, free tix to other events the venue hosts, a close relationship with the team owners, etc. -- but it's at least a 10+ year journey that requires a bit of luck to get to that level.
Dolan owns the Rangers
Saw some strategy roles posted for MLB on Linkedin that had pretty low base salaries
I turned down a job from Liberty Media (F1, at the time Atlanta Braves, other sports-related assets) out of banking as another reference point. Know a couple people who went from IB to working at sports teams and they've all come back to finance - a lot of what people have already said about these roles often not paying that well, extremely competitive, work life balance not being great, etc.
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