By announcing the new program in January, Neuman said incoming high school seniors and their families have plenty of time to discover UWSP and plan their summer visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is this perpetual cycle \u2013 you\u2019re always looking out almost a year in advance,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bulk of [our] applications come in the fall, and potential students\u2026 typically have at least [the] group of schools they\u2019re considering determined\u2026 They may not know where they\u2019re going in January, February [or] March, but they\u2019re typically not looking to add completely new schools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of his interview with The Business News, Neuman said roughly half of the students who had enrolled in the program for the fall 2026 semester \u201care brand new to UWSP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey had not been admitted for other majors, so it\u2019s a completely new consideration, which is pretty remarkable for this stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the faculty side, Neuman said the Sentry School welcomed two new tenured or tenure-track educators from top sports programs across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to bring people [in] with that expertise to lead our program,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shows we\u2019re diving into this by making big hires of notable researchers and teachers well known nationally in the field, to come and help us get this program moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, prior to recruiting students and faculty, Neuman said the Sentry School and UWSP had to obtain approval from the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe had strong anecdotal evidence, but within the [Universities of Wisconsin], they ask you to do a lot more in terms of formal market research if they\u2019re going to approve a program,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we started that process in the spring of \u201925, and then [there are] a few different steps with the UW Regents for the approval process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neuman said the program was approved by the UW Regents in December 2025 and then again by the \u201cHigher Learning Commission \u2013 a regional university accrediting body\u201d \u2013 in January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he said its approval didn\u2019t happen without some convincing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not a for-profit entity\u2026, [so] if you\u2019re going to put valuable, scarce resources toward something, you need to make sure you\u2019re serving a large enough student population to make it worthwhile,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, I should take my resources and go find a greater student population to serve, [because] that\u2019s the mission of the Universities of Wisconsin System, and we\u2019re not sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of endowments, so we have to make smart choices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neuman said the Sentry School\u2019s AACSB accreditation \u2013 which, according to aacsb.edu<\/a>, is held by just 6% of business schools worldwide \u2013 is a major selling point for the program as it helps graduates secure jobs after completing the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAACSB is huge, because at the end of the day, if [students] decide\u2026 not to go into the sports world, they still have an accredited business degree,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a much nicer backstop, and it\u2019s a much more robust business education than some of the sport management degrees out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and -Parkside already offering sport management programs, Neuman said UWSP also had to demonstrate its major wasn\u2019t redundant within the Universities of Wisconsin System.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe cover not just the management and operation side, but also the finance, the marketing, the analytics side \u2013 your breadth of business content [is] much broader and deeper,\u201d he said. \u201cWe go particularly deep in the marketing analytics and then the management as well. So, that clearly differentiated us from other programs within the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Program scope, professional applicability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than preparing students to adapt a general business degree to sports, Neuman said the program targets the distinct characteristics of the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are a lot of nuances there right now, particularly in terms of college sports, with the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) [policy] changes,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at management, at public relations, brand management and brand development techniques that are [intended more for] actresses or performers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neuman said the program also considers the operations of large sports facilities, which host not only professional teams but local-level organizations as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn the finance side, I look at the mix between public and private stadium financing deals, the economic impact of that and that partnership with construction, public utilities \u2013 all those things that you need to build a new stadium,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like you can never break into the sports world with a regular business or communications degree, but there are some advantages to really focusing [in on] the content.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, Neuman said sports has evolved into a cross-sectional industry rooted not only in player talent, but business, operational management and entertainment as well \u2013 leaving room for a wide breadth of professional opportunities for interested and motivated students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is such a diverse industry,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s the entrepreneurial aspect, the community rec programs, [and] this type of training can prepare you for [jobs like] being a high school athletic director [or] a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Division I athletic director [for] college and high school sports \u2013 there are a lot of occupations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an industry of increasing advertising opportunities, Neuman said UWSP\u2019s sport business major is also applicable in the corporate world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is why this area is a little bit unique,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ll have large organizations who will have partner activation [staff] who will work with sports entities for that partnership because of the visibility the teams bring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neuman said Sentry World, for example, has a chief marketing and golf partnerships position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOther companies will have the same thing, because [they\u2019re] trying to look for specific partners that [their] company can leverage for visibility,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, you can work in the sports industry and still work for an everyday corporation, but it\u2019s because of the partnership opportunities that exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a recent shift toward experiential consumerism \u2013 \u201cparticularly among the younger population\u201d \u2013 Neuman said more and more local leagues are being created to serve the amateur athlete population in conjunction with sports organizations propping up their games with additional entertainment offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of a sudden, there\u2019s a league because people want to be part of that experience,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the event. It\u2019s everything around it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExperiential learning,\u201d Neuman said, is also a point of difference for UWSP and the Sentry School \u2013 helping students prepare for the workforce through \u201cteam-based assignments and exercises\u201d as well as for-credit internships required by its programs\u2019 curricula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the Sentry School has set itself apart, and we\u2019ve been booming,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re up more than 50% in headcount since fall 2019\u2026 A $10 million gift from Sentry Insurance in December 2022 was huge in terms of giving us more resources, but the momentum had started before then. So, in a lot of ways, the gift, the size of it and the willingness of Sentry to tie their reputation to us was really a validation of all of the things we had done for years up to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information, head to uwsp.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Courtesy of The Business News<\/a> \/ Rachel Kroeger<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Program announced in January, first cohort expected on campus in the fall. As athletics across all competition and skill levels continue to permeate culture beyond the court, Kevin Neuman said the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) is tackling sports business education both on and off the field. Following its announcement earlier this year, Neuman \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[612,305,342,343,344],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14025"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14030,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14025\/revisions\/14030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uwsp.edu\/cps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebusinessnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/UWSP-Sports-Biz-Cutline-2-1024x683.jpg\")
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