Social media in sport management education: Connecting universities and sport industry

Abstract

The rise of social media has reshaped today's society by affectinghow people communicate and build social relationships The sports industry has not been indifferent to these shifts and embraced these communication tools Indeed, social media is an essential management element in the day-to-day routine of sports managers Furthermore, athletes, coaches, clubs, professional leagues, federations, and other sport actors have also adopted the use of social media Therefore, owing to the increasing prevalence and growing role of social media in the sports industry, the mastery of digital skills related to the useof social media is one of the aspects that is most sought after by employers In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has recently boosted these demands as well as having further accelerated the process of digitalization of the sport sector Furthermore, owing to restrictions on citizens' mobility, the pandemic has also pushed distance learning methods (where social media serve as facilitators) to take on a more prominent role in the educational context Nevertheless, there is a lack of comprehensive studies addressing the effectof these tools in the scope of sport management education;in addition, there are few studies that provideguidelines for teachers to incorporate social media into the different areas of the teaching-learning process Thus, this article focuses on the inclusion that social media have in sport management studies and also presents a proposal for the classification and possible application of social media which, owing to their characteristics and educational/labor potential, are considered suitable for introducing them into sport management courses Furthermore, this studyaims to encourage the sport management teaching community to introduce social media into the dynamics of their courses, given their pedagogical value, and the positive effectthey have on student education