I recently returned from the Sports Events & Tourism Association (Sports ETA) Symposium in Las Vegas, where I had the chance to join a panel on enhancing the collegiate event experience.
The session focused on a simple but important question: Your city has won the bid—now what?
What stood out to me throughout the week is how much alignment exists between the work happening on our campuses and the work happening across the sports tourism industry. The same challenges we navigate in athletics – logistics, stakeholder management, student-athlete experience, fan engagement – are central to delivering successful events at the destination level.
At Spelman Johnson, I lead our athletics practice. Historically, that has meant working closely with institutions and conferences to identify leadership talent. But being in the room with professionals from Sports ETA reinforced something I’ve been thinking about more and more:
These worlds are not separate, they’re interconnected.
Sports tourism organizations rely on strong partnerships with athletics leaders to execute events. At the same time, athletics departments benefit from understanding how destinations think about hosting, bidding, and delivering large scale experiences.
There’s also a career conversation here.
For those working in athletics or campus recreation, the sports tourism space represents a natural extension of your skill set. For organizations in the tourism and events space, there’s real value in leaders who understand the nuances of collegiate athletics.
As a firm, we’re thinking intentionally about how to bridge that gap, whether that’s sharing opportunities more broadly, connecting networks, or simply helping people see the possibilities that exist across both spaces.
Attending the Sports ETA Symposium wasn’t just about being in a new room. It was about recognizing that the room is already connected to the work we do every day.
And that’s where things get interesting.