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Develop a strategy for a sports-industry challenge in this 2-week academy for high school students at UCLA Anderson.
Rated 4.1 out of 5 for classroom experience by students who took this course in 2026.
Course Description
A fan’s decision to watch, attend, subscribe, or buy has a business behind it. Look at the choices that keep people connected to sports.
In this course you will examine teams, leagues, athletes, venues, media, and live experiences, and explore how business decisions change with technology and audience behavior.
Cases and simulations connect sports economics with strategy, finance, marketing, media rights, sponsorship, operations, and analytics. Map who is involved and where revenue comes from, then evaluate ideas for engaging fans. Data and technology open up new choices, as do the growth of global and women’s sports and name, image, and likeness opportunities and tradeoffs. Los Angeles gives discussions of teams, venues, media businesses, and upcoming global sporting events a local setting.
With your team, identify a sports-business challenge and develop a practical response. Define the audience and problem, use relevant business concepts to support your recommendation, and decide how success could be measured. Present your proposal and answer questions about feasibility and impact. The work asks you to connect what fans value with decisions an organization can make.
This two-week full-day high school academy takes place at UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, California. The program is developed by UCLA Anderson and offered in partnership with Summer Discovery. The academy is available to residential and commuter students.
What You Will Do
• Map the stakeholders and revenue sources behind a sports organization
• Analyze cases involving teams, leagues, athletes, media, and venues
• Evaluate fan-engagement, sponsorship, and marketing strategies
• Examine how analytics and technology influence sports-business decisions
• Compare growth opportunities in global and women’s sports
• Develop and present a team solution to a sports-industry challenge
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Analyze a sports organization using strategy, marketing, and financial concepts
• Evaluate how technology, media, and audience behavior shape the industry
• Present an evidence-based response to a sports-business challenge
You’ll leave with your team’s capstone presentation and a certificate of completion.
Why Sports Business Skills Matter
Sports business turns the energy around teams and athletes into a complex set of decisions about audiences, revenue, media, technology, and operations. Mapping those relationships helps students see why a strong idea must work for fans, partners, organizations, and the people who deliver the experience.
Analyzing cases and weighing evidence build practical judgment. Students learn to identify a business problem, compare possible responses, explain tradeoffs, and define how success would be measured. Those abilities transfer to school projects, team leadership, presentations, and future study wherever students need to connect strategy with real audience behavior.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
If you follow sports and wonder how the business works, this academy lets you look behind the game. Marketing, finance, media, analytics, technology, and entrepreneurship all shape the decisions you’ll explore. Cases and quantitative questions lead into a team proposal, where you’ll support a recommendation with evidence and explain why it could work.
Students must demonstrate academic achievement with mostly A and/or B grades in high school courses. A school transcript is required.
Recommended by More Than 4 out of 5 Students
Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 UCLA high school program.
Your Summer at UCLA Anderson School of Management
UCLA Anderson’s Sports Business Academy places students in Los Angeles, home to major professional and collegiate teams, prominent venues, media companies, sponsors, and a year-round sports economy. Led by UCLA Anderson, the academy connects strategy, revenue, fan engagement, operations, and leadership to a city where sports function as both competition and business.
Students work through case studies, simulations, workshops, team projects, and a capstone while developing practical skills in analysis, communication, and presentation. Residential life and activities extend the student experience beyond the classroom. Students live alongside peers, gain independence, and leave with a clearer understanding of the decisions behind the games and whether sports management, marketing, media, analytics, or business may fit their future study or career interests.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive