I've always wanted to be a general manager for some professional team. I know I won't have any high level basketball experience, so what can I do to become one? What major do I need to study in? Anybody know?
30 NBA Teams 32 NFL Teams 31 MLB Teams 30 NHL Teams = 123 Major Sport GM Positions My suggestion would be (Plan A) take the Mark Cuban route and get a check for $2 Billion dollars, buy a team, and name yourself GM (if that is not against league rules). Plan B, code-named "John Kerry", marry a woman worth $500+ million, buy a team, name yourself GM.
The General Manager for the minor league baseball team I worked for had a masters degree in Sports Business (his undergrad degree was in communications). While in college, I believe he worked in the sports public information department at his school along with some other things and did some intern type things. He bounced around to bigger and bigger colleges with paying jobs (I believe the highest was University of Michigan) in various roles before moving on to pro sports. Of course the pro sport was working for the Sacramento Surge where he was Assistant GM (and he did get a nice championship ring for that) before coming to the very small baseball team where I worked. That was really his peak, though, as he's an associate athletic director at Cal-Riverside, last I heard. It seems having a grounding in finance and management is important, but taking advantage of the college sports scene on the business end (i.e. ticket sales, marketing, public information, etc) is quite helpful. Francis Fan's plan is probably much easier and more likely to be successful.
Nearly every GM who didn't come into his position due to a former playing career, coaching or ownership went to an elite school and came out with a business related degree, usually an MBA. Also, as has been mentioned, they tend to have experience working their way up from internship positions or happen to have a particularly priviliged network in the business already (Theo Epstein).
So there is a very small chance to become a GM for a NBA team huh. Seems like this guy you just mentioned has so much experience and many degrees, but ended up working for a minor league baseball team.
I guess to show bi-partisanship (sp?) I could also say that plan C is to have your father be President of the United States and have money in oil and be a managing partner in a pro baseball team.
You thought it would be easy to become GM of a NBA team...or even a pro team? I wouldn't say MrPaige's guy had a lot of education, given masters is a higher education, but there are teachers in my community college and even in my old high school that has their doctorites. Remember there are only 30 NBA teams, do you think that you are one of the 30 best of the world's 6 billionand you can get other people to believe that? I guess you can say that statistcally it is more likely that you'll play for a team than be a GM.
If you want it, you can have it, but it won't be easy. I will guarantee that if you put in the effort you'll get where you want to go. Because somebody somewhere is going to recognize it and put you in a position where you can succeed.
Sorry. I was asleep when this happened: I think I got it. How 'bout this? How 'bout this? We trade Jim Leyritz and Bernie Williams, for Barry Bonds, huh? Whadda ya think? That way you have Griffey and Bonds, in the same outfield! Now you got a team! Ha ha ha.
A lot less people want to be NBA GM's than NBA players though . I plan on making a killing doing this in the Middle East. Sports are still blooming here, and very few people have this kind of experience, that kind of education. People are JUST beginning to look at sports teams as businesses - focusing on merchandising, signing players for publicity, etc... Right now, the individual countries are too small, but it seems there will be some kind of superleague now that teams are spending buckets of cash bringing in major soccer players - there are teams in Qatar that can make a run at a UEFA cup spot if given the chance to qualify. That's the equivalent of a basketball team in Europe spending more on players than NBA teams, hence drawing NBA-calibre players to their teams and eventually making that team as good as some NBA teams.
No. I know it's going to be considerably harder than getting an average job, but I'm 18 and I already attended college for 2 years. I set my goals on being a pharmacist, so I'm going to UT at Austin next year, hoping to make it into their 2nd ranked program. I probably could have made it into UT's Business School w/ Honors. Well, I'm thinking about getting a Finance degree along with a math minor. Then I'm willing to get an MBA. I think John Weisbrod had a masters degree at Harvard. So if I have the following, would I at least have a good chance of landing some sort of job? Pharm D Degree at UT Austin Finance Degree at UT Austin w/ Honors Math Minor MBA at a Top 10 Grad School
John Weisbrod was also a pro hockey player (I think) and like MrPaige said that his guy worked in sports for years. It seems to me that the education is qualifies you for the job, but its all the x-factors that gets you the job ...such as who you know...who you are..what you are (I think you understand what I mean by that) ....
You can have a great education, but you can't get anything if you don't have some connections to get into that business.
And one can often get connections by just sending some letters, making a bunch of calls and otherwise networking. I know when I was interested in going in to sports media relations, I talked to the Colorado Rockies MR guy and the Dallas Mavericks MR guy. Both were more than willing to talk about their jobs and give me some advice. I didn't go to them seeking jobs. I just talked about the business and wanting to get into it. The Mavs guy ended up telling me to apply for an unpaid internship in the MR department. I didn't end up getting it, but if I had had a good academic background (I half-assed it through school, gradewise), I'm pretty sure I would've made it. And once inside like that, an internship can lead to something bigger. At the very least, you get some level of contacts. Even if you never get to be a General Manager, there are plenty of cool jobs in sports that can be quite rewarding.
I like this one too: GEORGE: Nobody's hiring now. The market's terrible. JERRY: So what are you gonna do? GEORGE: I like sports. I could do something in sports. JERRY: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. In what capacity? GEORGE: You know, like the general manager of a baseball team or something. JERRY: Yeah. Well, that - that could be tough to get. GEORGE: Well, it doesn't even have to be the general manager. Maybe I could be like, an announcer. Like a caller man. You know how I always make those interesting comments during the game. JERRY: Yeah. Yeah. You make good comments. GEORGE: What about that? JERRY: Well, they tend to give those jobs to ex-ballplayers and people that are, you know, in broadcasting. GEORGE: Well, that's really not fair.
