If you teach high school business courses, you know that sports and entertainment marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular topics among students today. High schoolers love this topic, which makes it all the more important that you have exciting and engaging course material to teach it to them.
But where can you find the right sports and entertainment marketing lessons for your classroom? What curriculum options are out there to fit your needs? How do you ensure the materials you choose won’t bore your students to tears?
As a business education curriculum developer, we’ve heard all of these questions and more from teachers looking to teach this subject in the most engaging way they can.
In this article, you’ll discover five of the best sports and entertainment marketing lesson plans out there:
- Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing
- Sports & Entertainment Marketing from the Tech Twins
- Sports and Entertainment Marketing, 5th Edition
- Mr. Kennell’s Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons
- Marketing Resources from Sports Career Consulting
By the end of this article, you’ll have better insight into each of these resources, and will be able to choose the best ones to fit your course and teaching style.
1. Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing
TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) is a digital marketplace where you can buy, sell, and share thousands of educational resources to teach any age range, from pre-K to adult education.
One provider on TpT is Lessons for Marketing and Entrepreneurship, which offers a curriculum resource called Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing.
What Sports and Entertainment Marketing Topics Are Included?
Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing is comprised of PowerPoint slides meant to introduce students to the basic concepts surrounding this area of marketing.
Altogether, there are about 70 slides that make up this resource, divided across 8 sections:
- What is a Market?
- What is Marketing?
- The History of Sports Marketing
- What is the Marketing Concept?
- The Seven Functions of Marketing
- The Target Market
- The Four P’s of Marketing
- Channels of Distribution
Included along with the slides are links to videos and articles to engage business students, an outline to provide structure for their notes, and a Kahoot game to help them review.
If you’re looking for a summative assessment at the end of this unit, you can also pay a little extra for access to a 50 question test to ensure students have retained the information they learned.
How Much Do These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Cost?
Most of the material for Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing costs only $6.50 on TpT. This includes the PowerPoint slides, videos, articles, and more.
If you want the summative test to go along with your material, it will cost an additional $3.00, bringing the total up to $9.50 for the complete package.
Who Are These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Intended For?
Foundations of Sports & Entertainment Marketing is designed for high school courses--particularly for the 11th grade. Just as well, the material included is intended more to cover a single unit rather than an entire course, and should likely be used to supplement your existing curriculum.
If you teach a high school marketing course and want to include a unit on sports and entertainment marketing, these lessons would probably be a good fit for you.
2. Sports & Entertainment Marketing from the Tech Twins
The Tech Twins are another prominent vendor on Teachers Pay Teachers. They specialize in providing course material that teaches both business concepts and how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom or workplace.
They offer two products focused on sports and entertainment marketing: a semester-long course and an activities and projects bundle.
What Sports and Entertainment Marketing Topics Are Included?
The semester-long course offered by the Tech Twins is robust and comprehensive, covering basic marketing concepts as well as specialized skills in sports and entertainment marketing.
This resource is comprised of 549 pages of material, and covers subjects like:
- Sports & Entertainment Marketing Basics
- Functions of Marketing in Sports and Entertainment Industry
- Social & Digital Marketing in Sports and Entertainment Industry
- Events, Sponsors & Fans (Event Triangle)
- Profit, Economics, Pricing, Revenue,& Risks
- The Marketing & Promotion Plan
Also included are marketing projects, unit plans, PowerPoint slides, assessments, and more--really everything you need to teach a complete course on sports and entertainment marketing.
Alternatively, you could purchase the activities and projects bundle from the Tech Twins.
This bundle includes 22 activities and projects that focus on developing sports and entertainment marketing skills. It places more of a focus on engaging students with hands-on assignments, and would likely serve better as a supplement to a larger business course.
How Much Do These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Cost?
The semester-long course from the Tech Twins is a bit pricey, with a list price of $217 on their TpT page. For the depth of material you’ll be receiving, however, many teachers find this to be worth the price.
The activities and projects bundle, on the other hand, only costs about $60, which may be preferable for teachers who need only assignments for their students to complete.
One important thing to note is that the semester-long course actually includes all of the content from the activities and projects bundle. In other words, if you’re going to buy the course, don’t also buy the bundle, since you’ll receive redundant material.
Who Are These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Intended For?
The Tech Twins list the semester-long course as a good fit for everyone from grades 6-12 and even up into adult education. The activities and projects bundle has a similar age range, but also includes 5th graders as an appropriate audience.
Altogether, if you’re looking for a complete sports and entertainment marketing curriculum to fill your entire course, then the semester-long course from the Tech Twins would be a good choice for you.
On the other hand, if you only need hands-on, engaging assignments to supplement an existing curriculum, then the activities and projects bundle would probably be a better fit.
3. Sports and Entertainment Marketing, 5th Edition
Sports and Entertainment Marketing, 5th Edition is a foundational textbook that introduces students to marketing industry skills and concepts. It focuses this skills training through the lens of sports and entertainment examples in order to give students an interesting, relatable experience.
Author: Ken Kaser and Dotty B. Oelkers
Publisher: Cengage 2022
What Sports and Entertainment Marketing Topics Are Included?
Sports and Entertainment Marketing, 5th Edition covers many of the basics of sports and entertainment marketing with its content. It is divided into 15 chapters, each of which cover a different sports and entertainment marketing topic. Some of these chapters include:
- What Is Sports and Entertainment Marketing?
- Sports and Entertainment Means Business
- Marketing-Information Management
- Sports and Entertainment Promotion
- The Marketing Game Plan
- Business Ownership and Leadership
- Scoring a Career
As the chapters progress, the lesson plans move from basic marketing concepts to more specialized skills that will help students break into the industry and begin careers.
Some of this skills work includes analyzing the roles of marketing influencer and social media companies, planning product endorsements, creating a marketing portfolio, preparing and presenting group projects, and more. All of this serves to give students a well-rounded marketing education.
How Much Does This Sports and Entertainment Marketing Textbook Cost?
You can find specific pricing information for Sports and Entertainment Marketing, 5th Edition on Cengage’s website. The price varies by format:
- Hardcover editions cost $73.95.
- eBook versions cost $34.49.
- Online Homework Platforms that include access to the eBook start at $39.95.
Who Is This Sports and Entertainment Marketing Textbook Intended For?
There’s a reason textbooks have stuck around as long as they have: they’re a reliable source of information that can be used to teach a comprehensive, in-depth course. However, there are some drawbacks to using textbooks--namely, the material within doesn’t engage students as well as other resources do.
If you need a solid, well-rounded curriculum to teach a full sports and entertainment marketing course, then this textbook would probably be a good option for you. However, if you’re looking for more engaging material, textbooks usually aren’t the best choice.
4. Mr. Kennell’s Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons
Mr. Kennell is a business teacher in Kane County, Illinois, where he teaches classes on personal finance, business management, computer science, and more.
His website, Mr. Kennell’s Classroom, contains much of the course material he uses to teach his classes. His Sports and Entertainment Marketing course is particularly useful to teachers looking for solid resources they can employ in their own classrooms.
What Sports and Entertainment Marketing Topics Are Included?
Mr. Kennell’s resources are diverse and reliable, and include classroom PowerPoints, assignments, and supplemental videos and games. Mr. Kennell divides the resources on this page into five units:
- Marketing Concepts
- Marketing College Athletes & Amateur Sports
- Marketing Sports & Entertainment
- Promotions & Public Relations
- Sponsorships & Endorsements
Each of these units comes with presentations, assignments, and engaging activities to further students’ understanding. There is also a final project wherein students work in teams of four to successfully market their own sports franchise.
An important note, however, is that many of the quizzes and exams on Mr. Kennell’s website are unavailable to the public, which means you’ll have to create your own assessments if you decide to use his course material.
How Much Do These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Cost?
All of the material on Mr. Kennell’s website is free, which is a major benefit to using it if you want a quick activity or presentation.
Who Are These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Intended For?
Mr. Kennell teaches high school classes, which means most of the resources on his website will have been designed for that space.
Another point to keep in mind is that this is Mr. Kennell’s personal material. That means it’s tried and true, but also that there won’t be groups of specialists working to ensure the material is up to date or relevant. Like with most free resources, you’re likely to find dead links or outdated videos among the resources here.
Altogether, however, if you’re looking for solid lessons or free supplemental materials to support your existing course, then Mr. Kennell’s Classroom is a good place to start.
5. Marketing Resources from Sports Career Consulting
Sports Career Consulting (SCC) is an organization dedicated to granting students the knowledge they need to successfully pursue careers in the sports and entertainment industry. They accomplish this by partnering with teachers to provide them with the right course material to successfully teach this topic in their classrooms.
SCC offers both free supplemental marketing resources and a paid, subscription-based curriculum to help teachers with their sports and entertainment marketing course.
What Sports and Entertainment Marketing Topics Are Included?
SCC’s free resources are meant to supplement an existing sports and entertainment marketing course. They consist of relevant lesson plans, weekly current event articles, and even a digital textbook that teachers can download for free. Specific examples of their lesson plans include:
- Michael Jordan, Inc: Branding & Endorsement
- Minor League Baseball in Crisis: Understanding the Business of Pro Sports
- Lesson Plan: Understanding Sponsorship (NASCAR)
- Product Placement Lesson Plan: Product Placement (Seeing Stranger Things)
- COVID-19 Lesson Plan #1: Industry Impact
Each of these lesson plans comes with an activity packet, a PowerPoint presentation, and a lesson guide to help the teacher piece it all together.
Alternatively, you could seek out the full sports and entertainment marketing curriculum offered by SCC. This curriculum is designed to be used both independently and as a supplement for an existing marketing or business course.
Though there isn’t much information available on the structure of this curriculum, the specific course materials within the package include:
- Digital Textbook: The Business of Sports and Entertainment
- Student Workbook and Notes Guide
- SEM Case Studies
- PowerPoint Slides
- SEM Projects
Also included are various games, activities, assignments, and exams to ensure your students are retaining information and mastering the skills they should be.
How Much Do These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Cost?
The supplemental resources available on SCC’s website are free and can be downloaded at any time.
The paid curriculum, on the other hand, costs $599 for a subscription. For more information on pricing specifics, you should reach out to SCC directly on their website.
Who Are These Sports and Entertainment Marketing Lessons Intended For?
Depending on your needs, either the free resources on SCC’s website or the full curriculum might be the right choice for you.
If you’re looking for quick, free lesson plans and articles to pad out your course, then the supplemental resources on SCC’s website will likely serve you well.
On the other hand, if you need a complete curriculum to teach your sports and entertainment marketing course, paying for an SCC subscription to access their curriculum is another option to consider.
Teach Sports and Entertainment Marketing with a Comprehensive Curriculum
In the article, you’ve learned about some of the best lesson plans to teach entertainment and sports marketing to your students. When you choose suitable materials for your students, they’ll be excited to learn these subjects and pursue careers in the industry.
But sometimes, you need more than a few lesson plans to teach sports and entertainment marketing. In that case, consider the Sports and Entertainment Marketing course from iCEV.
The course covers all aspects of the industry, including publicity, sponsorship, endorsements, licensing, branding, event marketing, and promotions.
Plus, it’s part of iCEV’s comprehensive CTE curriculum, so you can teach marketing alongside other business subjects like entrepreneurship, accounting, and professional communications.
Wondering if iCEV is right for you? Visit the Sports and Entertainment marketing course page to learn more.
