It’s no secret that the country is in a recession. It’s also no secret that the country is in an economic crisis. It’s actually so well known, that both Presidential candidates have admitted it, and voters will be deciding who they think can fix the problem the best. This not an ideal situation for the country. The situation has had an adverse effect on the current job market. What’s unknown is if the current economic situation will effect jobs in the sports world, most notably The National Basketball Association.
A good way to understand job opportunities in the NBA, is to look at the actual numbers of jobs for NBA teams. In an article by Newsok.com in August of 2008, a breakdown of available jobs in the NBA was outlined. As Mike Baldwin article reports:
-Basketball operations (Jobs 20 to 25 employees)
-Sales (Jobs 12-20)
-Marketing (Jobs 10-12)
-Broadcasting (Jobs 6-10)
– Guest relations,suite services (Jobs 4-8)
-Season-ticket retention (Jobs 3-5)
-Ticket operations (Jobs 3-4)
-Merchandising (Jobs 4-7)
-Events and entertainment (Jobs 6-10)
-Community relations (Jobs 4-6)
-Public relations (Jobs 3-5)
-Business development (Jobs 6-10)
-Business operations (Jobs 2-5)
-Information technology (Jobs 2-4)
-Human resources (Jobs 2-3)
-Finance Jobs (3-5)
As Baldwin’s articles shows, there are roughly 90-140 jobs for each team’s front office. This is a very, very good number and should be a great thing for job seekers to hear. The large number of positions in each front office allows for a great deal of openings for entry level job applicants.
While the large number of jobs for each front office is a good thing, another recent article indicates some bad news about jobs in the NBA. The league’s commissioner, David Stern, reports that nearly a total of 80 or 9 percent of jobs will be cut. As he states, “We made the decision some months ago that the economy was going to be a bit wobbly so we began a belt-tightening.” He added, “My guess is that by the time we tip off in a week or so, we will be down modestly in season tickets… We think we’ll be up in revenue, but I just can’t say for sure whether we’ll be up or down in attendance because it’s just so touch and go, because sports tickets are very disposable income. So we’re not going to see a huge impact, but I dare say we will see some impact.”
It’s clear that Stern accepts that the economic situation is affect the leagues jobs, but overall he is not worried about the it affecting the league long term. My advice to job seekers is about the same. The current job market is affected, but given the large number of jobs (90-140) for each team (x 30 teams), a large number (2700-4200) of job openings are still available across the league. The only curve-ball I could see thrown into the mix would be a lack of improvement to the economic situation over the next four years of the presidency. That could, in turn have a long term negative impact on the league.