It is an excellent time for students to acquire valuable learning opportunities, as more businesses in the sports industry are now willing to onboard apprentices, says Dr Nayana Nimkar

In spite of the fact that the effect of the Coronavirus has been very unfavourable to numerous businesses and organisations, it has opened the window to significant learning opportunities for students in sports management and communications programs.

Here’s how:

The pandemic and the subsequent lockdown had affected businesses all over the globe across nearly all industries. If we talk specifically about the sports industry, we witnessed continuous cancellation or postponement of major sporting events — from football to cricket, rugby, ice hockey, basketball, and even Olympics & Paralympics (now to begin in July, 2021).

While some sporting events and related businesses have resumed their operations and services, the need to reduce the operating costs is still looming. Consequently, the kind of job opportunities and compensation trends in sports industry have also taken a downturn. Although this is a tough situation for experienced workers, it can turn out to be an excellent time for students to acquire valuable learning opportunities, as more businesses in the sports industry are now willing to onboard apprentices and interns to take over the roles to fulfil their business goals at minimised costs.

While most internship and learning opportunities with various businesses can be found on the respective company’s website and preferred job portals, it can be hard for students to come face-to-face with these opportunities on their own due to lack of experience and knowledge of where to look. Thus, involvement of administration, academic counseling and placement centers of educational institutes and learning centers can help bridge the gap.

Ideally, the role of institutes and faculty members in this scenario would include:

• Consulting with business personnel to understand their needs, and figure out and communicate ways in which students and freshers could assist.
• Collaborating with businesses and arranging guest-speaking sessions by business personnel or academic counselors to share the opportunities and needs of the said business.
• Guiding students throughout the process in understanding the business processes, workplace policies, applying their literary knowledge in real-word scenarios, and resolving challenges faced - alongside the actual business mentors.
• Creating learning strategies such that all student generated content goes through an initial review round by a faculty member before being passed on and presented to the business mentor. Such strategy would help ease the learning process for the students and would leave little to no room for doubts.

Benefits of developing student learning based on participatory sport:

• It can help students get a first-hand experience of what it is like to work with an actual participatory sport business and add a sense of realism to their learning.
• It can assist students understand the basics and diverse operations involved in creating and handling any task specific to the business.
• It will challenge students to improve their critical thinking skills and think of various ways to attract and retain customers.

The writer is Director, Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences