University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point - Professors Kit Kiefer and Elizabeth Taylor

Professors Kit Kiefer and Elizabeth Taylor join BizTalk with SCORE to introduce the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point’s new Sport Business program—the only program of its kind at an AACSB-accredited public university in the Upper Midwest— and explore the careers, strategy and economics behind the game.

Resources Mentioned:

• UW-Stevens Point Sport Business program: https://www.uwsp.edu/academics/programs/sport-business/
• SCORE Northeast Wisconsin: score.org/wi/northeast-wisconsin

Thank You to Our Sponsors

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Transcript

BizTalk Welcome

WHBY: Score Northeast Wisconsin and WHBY are pleased to bring you BizTalk, a chance for you to hear from entrepreneurs and professionals as they share their experiences. From starting to sustaining growth, learn the skills needed for your business to be successful. If you miss anything, you can catch the BizTalk podcast at score.org/northeastwisconsin.

And now, from the Miron Construction Studio, it's BizTalk on WHBY. 

Rick Sense: Good morning, and welcome to BizTalk with Score. This month, we're doing a special series tracking the commercial landscape of sports and recreation, and, my guest host, co-host today, Adam, Klawitter. Is it Klawitter? It is 

Adam Klawitter: Klawitter.

People, people call it clam chowder, but, I mean, it, it's fine. 

Rick Sense: All right, so listeners, it's Adam Klawitter, and Adam and I, uh, are gonna be talking with some folks, and I'm gonna let Adam introduce the, our guests in just a moment. But I'm Rick Sense, and you're listening to BizTalk with Score. 

Sports Economy Boom

Rick Sense: And again, we're really excited about our subject matter this month, as we're spending some time talking through, the whole world of commercial, landscape of sports and recreation, as I mentioned before.

You, did you know that Americans now spend a staggering $1.5 trillion annually on sports and the outdoors? If you wanna put that in perspective, look at what we spend on our other hobbies. Live performances, you know, comedy clubs, things like that, we spend $30 billion on that. Going to movies and watching streaming and TV, it's 150 billion.

Reading, an 150 billion. Museums and horos- histor- museums and historical sites, 200 billion. It's amazing the amount of money that we spend on our entertainment. But this represents a, you know, not just a massive historical shift, it, it, over the past five decades, it's, it's really becoming even more pronounced as we go further in our society.

If you look at what the average family income, has increased by seven and a half times over the past 50 years, and an inordinate amount of that is being spent on recreation, and that spending has surged by more than 50 times. Today, the industry contributes more to the US economy than traditional pillars like agriculture, mining, and utilities.

So throughout this month, we will speak with the innovators and executives leading this high-growth sector to see how they are reshaping the experience for participants and spectators. 

Meet Kit Kiefer

Adam Klawitter: And we have a really awesome program today with Professor Kit Kiefer and Elizabeth Taylor, and, uh, I just wanna introduce the guests a little bit.

So Kit, I had a pleasure of you know, having you as a professor, and you have just such a cool career path writing for New York Times, being at Delta Dental, Berkshire Hathaway worked with some marketing agencies, working with major, sports teams, and you've even written books for Marvel Entertainment.

How did you get into teaching? And, I know you didn't start at the School of Business, so maybe you can just kinda talk about kinda that progression as well. 

Kit Kiefer: Yeah, so I was at Delta Dental, and I felt like I was- at kind of a career dead end, and Delta Dental had a wonderful program that was a 75% tuition reimbursement.

So I went back to grad school. I got my master's in communication. At that same time, I had three small kids, I was writing books for Marvel Entertainment , and I was writing for The New York Times. Liz c- Liz could relate to that, that kind of multitasking, you know? So, at that point, after I got my master's, the School of Communication said, "Hey, we'd love you to t- teach social media and teach a couple other classes," so I did that.

Then I got traded to the School of Business for a couple of printer cartridges and a used lanyard. And from there I started teaching marketing research and gosh, mark- marketing platforms and systems and brand and product management. But my, my background's in sports marketing. And we'll get into that later on.

So it was such a thrill for this program to get started and for me to actually go back to my roots. I ... Liz knows, I couldn't be more pumped for this whole thing to take off, and honestly, I can't wait for August to get done and for, for September to come around so we can start teaching this thing. 

Meet Liz Taylor

Adam Klawitter: Liz, so y- what's really cool is you are actually a UWSP alumni as well.

So, playing volleyball, ran track here. You went to Miami University to get your Master's of Cons- Theology. And then you went to Temple University. So, what is it like to just kinda be back to USP and, you know, being back a- and, and kind of a role of professor now? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. Being back here is really special, uh, for, for me and my whole family.

So my husband's also UWSP grad. He was a student athlete. He was a swimmer. We got married on campus actually, back in 2018. We got married on the front lawn of Old Main. So we are both two incredibly proud alums, and he's actually back. He's the new assistant swim and dive coach at UWSP, so we'll both be working on campus.

And, and what I think is so special is it's not an exaggeration for me to say the folks in the Sentry School and UWSP Athletics are why I'm here today. They afforded me so many opportunities for internships and student work experiences, connected me with the faculty at Miami, and wrote me letters of recommendations to get into both Miami for my master's and then Tennessee for my PhD.

So I'm excited for the opportunity to support our students here at UWSP in that same way. And, and of course, I'm excited to build one of the top sport business programs in, in the country. I'm only a little bit competitive, but, um- ... we will just continue to grow and evolve, and there's so much interest in the program already.

So, I too, Kit, I'm not wishing away summer, just yet, but I'm really excited to get back on campus and, and welcome our first cohort of students. 

Rick Sense: So Kit, you, you laughed when Liz said that she wasn't in the least bit competit- competitive. Do you, do you wanna share anything real quickly before we get into more of a discussion, or you just wanna let that go?

Kit Kiefer: No, sure. So one of the companies that I worked for, I worked for a company called Skybox International, which made trading cards, and one of their spokespeople was Brett Favre. So I had a lot of opportunity, because they were in North Carolina and I was up here in Wisconsin, I had a lot of opportunity to interact with Brett Favre.

And when we would do autograph sessions with Brett Favre, it was always, you know, Drew Bledsoe was the other hot quarterback at that time, and it was always, "Am I signing better than Drew Bledsoe? Am I faster than Drew Bledsoe? Am I signing more neatly than Drew Bledsoe?" You know, Brett Favre was the most competitive person I've ever met.

Liz is a close one, 1B. 

Rick Sense: Okay. All right. 

Sport Business vs Management

Adam Klawitter: Many listeners have heard of, of sports management, but perhaps not the sports business. What's the difference, and how do you kind of compare those as a degree? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Go ahead, Liz. You got this one Yeah, I can jump in here. So, the nuance is, is small, right, in the language between sport business and sport management, but the distinction is actually pretty big from an academic perspective.

So most sport management programs came out of, physical education and kinesiology, so students may have to take courses in anatomy and physiology or exercise science, and those courses are really great and likely challenge students to learn important concepts. But our program is grounded in business, which is the foundation of the sport industry.

So our students are gonna gain an understanding of the financial aspects of sport, sport law and sport marketing, as well as have opportunities to understand sport governance at different levels like amateur sport, college sport, international sport. We also have a series of sport analytics courses and athlete branding, which we're really excited about offering.

We have a course that's gonna be offered in the spring that we're gonna call The Business of Women's Sport, which our other faculty, Dr. Jessica Broham, is gonna teach. So we really are excited to introduce a curriculum that not many institutions across the United States have. Not many programs are housed in an AACSB-accredited business school, so we're excited to have something that's, that's pretty unique, very distinct, and will set students up to have foundational knowledge about the growing sport industry.

I mean, Rick, you said at the beginning, a- all of the money that's going into sport, our students are gonna be able to work across sectors, across contexts, within different sub-disciplines of the sport industry based on their experience, but really have an understanding of the business side of sport, which is at the end of the day, what they're trying to do, win games and make money.

Kit Kiefer: Yeah, and I think it just broadens opportunities, right? Because when you think of Sentry Insurance, one of the benefactors of the Sentry School of Economics, they have a vice president of golf, right? When I was at Delta Dental, I managed the sponsorship relationship with the Milwaukee Brewers.

We're talking about jobs like these, which are fantastic jobs. They're not working for the Green Bay Packers, right? But they're sports adjacent. They get you in the room, and they're a lot of fun, they pay really well, and they give you some tremendous opportunities. So what we're doing is we're expanding that playing field beyond just sport management to all these other opportunities 

Careers Beyond Teams

Adam Klawitter: I think that leads really well into one of the questions I had, which is, like, sports is this really big industry, but there's a lot of things that are- that people do, you know, the careers that people typically think of.

But maybe, like, just, maybe just a little bit more on, like, what some of the, the topics or the, the jobs that people maybe don't even think about or, or that, you know, wouldn't expect that you could lead into from, from this degree. 

Kit Kiefer: Sure. So I spent almost 20 years in the trading card industry. So now, now you see cards selling for millions and millions of dollars, right?

What they're doing is they're employing the logic that a lot of my colleagues and myself actually started back in the, in the mid-1990s. So that's a great career. Licensed products is a great career. Being the sports merchandise buyer for Kohl's is a great career. Once you start kind of getting out of this tunnel vision that you have to work for a sports team or a college, all of a sudden, all kinds of opportunities open up

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah, I think, too, thinking about the rec side of sport, youth sport, travel leagues. I mean, if you think about the number of travel leagues across the country, right? And we're talking huge tournaments bringing in, you know, thousands and thousands of families over the course of the summer for a baseball tournament, a softball tournament, a soccer tournament.

Think about the growth in women's sports. So we see, professional women's soccer, professional women's softball. Now we have professional women's volleyball, multiple leagues. So a huge growth opportunity in working in women's sports. High school sports, I mean, we're prime for that in Stevens Point with the WIA headquarters right down the street from campus.

But most high schools have an, an athletics director or an activities director. So like Kit said, the opportunities, they are so vast, and most students will likely come in with an idea of working for a team, especially coaching. That's probably what a lot of them will first think about is coaching and being in the front office.

But we're excited to show them how many different areas beyond that they'll have the opportunity to work in with a degree in sport business. 

Kit Kiefer: And let's not forget about data analytics in sports either. We also have a data analytics program. But I was just reading today that one of the fastest-growing companies in sport business supplies data, cutting-edge data analytics to club teams and high schools, right?

So the analytics revolution is working its way down the chain, and that's another great opportunity given we have a data analytics major already, is just to wrap that into sports. 

Keeping Curriculum Current

Adam Klawitter: I think this is a really great lead into, my next question was actually just about, like, all the, the different changes that are happening with the sports, industry and, you know, you have the name, image, likeness, women's sports, analytics.

Now AI seems to be just, like, every part of everything really. But just, like, kind of some of the changes that you're seeing and maybe how you're kind of thinking about building a curriculum that's gonna stay relevant, just as, you know, students enter the workforce, and just kind of things that they can take along their whole career 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah.

This is a really great question, and I think something that a lot of, especially sport programs, they struggle with because the change in the industry is so quick that we're seeing shifts from especially at the college level with the changes to NIL, with the new pay-for-play model, conference realignment, all of that sort of thing.

But... And this is an area that we really focused on when we were thinking about the curriculum because some things remain largely unchanged, right? So if you're thinking about sport finance, a balance sheet is a balance sheet primarily, right? In sport marketing, the four Ps of marketing are the four Ps of marketing.

How you apply them and what they look like might look different. But what we're excited about is to have that foundation, but then also acknowledge the changes in the industry and think about why we selected some of the courses that we did. So, for example, we have a sports sustainability course that we're gonna be offering this fall.

Sustainability is something that every team and league is thinking about right now, right? Not just how can we decrease waste at the stadium, but if you're thinking about conference realignment, and all of a sudden Cal is flying to the West Coast, or from the West Coast to the East Coast for a Tuesday night women's basketball game on their private jet, how, how does that have an impact on, you know, our climate?

So we have a class that's dedicated toward that. Kit mentioned our data analytics major. We have a series of sport analytics courses because it's so much more than Moneyball. When we first started talking about data analytics and sport analytics, it really was Moneyball, right? But they are using data in so many more ways than we were 10, 15 years ago in sport that our students need to understand just have a basic understanding of data.

What's good data, what's bad data, right? How do you collect it? How do you analyze it? How do you pr- produce, you know, graphics and meaningful charts and things that fans can engage with? So we know that there are gonna be some foundational courses that our students will take into the future, but also allowing for changes and updates not just to the courses, but also within the courses as we account for all of the, the changes and the diversity that exist within the sport industry.

Kit Kiefer: And I'll give you guys the scoop and, and tell me if you've heard this, that Shaquille O'Neal is starting his own basketball league called the Dunk Man League. So Adam knows this. I like to start every class with a little bit of show and tell of like, "Hey, here's what's happening right now in the sports industry."

So for instance, we'd look at Shaq starting the Dunk Man League. How does this change things? Where's the money coming from? Who's got broadcast rights? Who's going to play? How are they going to get paid? Is it going to be a, you know, a team in a city model, or is it going to be kind of this, professional lacrosse league model where you have a certain number of teams that are

that don't really have a home base, and they play in popular venues, you know? So those are the kinds of things that we wanna do, is we wanna stay cutting-edge. You know, we're dedicated to like, "Hey, here's what's happening today. What are the ramifications of that?" 

Rick Sense: All right, we're gonna take our first break.

You're listening to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY, and we will be right back after these messages Welcome back to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY. I'm Rick Sense, and with me today is Adam Klawitter. And Adam is from Stevens Point, and, he's part of the larger area of our SCORE organization. 

SCORE Mentoring Break

Rick Sense: And, and I wanna spend a moment talking about our SCORE organization. SCORE Northeast Wisconsin serves a 30-county area, primarily in Northeast Wisconsin, but also in areas like Stevens Point.

And we have more than 30 volunteers, each an expert in their field, offering entrepreneurs no-cost and confidential mentoring. Those areas of expertise include IT, social media, marketing, cashflow, accounting, strategic planning, workflow, retail, best practices, and many, many others. In order to register for a no-cost confidential mentoring session and/or to learn more about SCORE Northeast Wisconsin, please visit our website at score.org/wi/northeast-wisconsin.

You can learn more about how the SCORE chapter can assist you with starting and/or growing your business, and you can complete an application for a mentoring session. Simply complete the online form and submit it to SCORE. Within a few days, SC- a SCORE mentor will be contacting you to set up a meeting.

Remember, SCORE is no cost and offers experts who can offer assistance in many different areas. To get started, visit our website at score.org/wi/northeast-wisconsin. And to support small business people, SCORE Northeast Wisconsin is always looking for new mentors. If you have experience that you'd like to share with others, we'd love to talk to you.

We welcome volunteers with experience in all aspects of business. Small business owners need your help, and your experience can make a real difference to their success. Go to score.org/wi/northeastwisconsin. Click on the volunteer button and fill out the short application, and we'll get back to you to explain more.

And finally, just a reminder about the BizTalk with SCORE podcast. The BizTalk with SCORE podcast brings the same real-world information and insights from experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders, just like BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY. However, the podcast is available when you are, so listen and subscribe, available on, on most podcatchers and podcast apps.

So, thanks again for joining us on BizTalk. And now back to our show, and I'm gonna turn the show back over to you, Adam. 

Adam Klawitter: All right. 

Internships and Partnerships

Adam Klawitter: So one of my favorite parts of being in the Sentry School was the internships and the partnerships that, the Sentry School has built with community partners and, and organizations.

So, I'd really like to hear about what kind of internships and partnerships, you know, you're thinking about bringing and, and what you're bringing on for the, the sports business degree. And, Kit, maybe we can start with you. 

Kit Kiefer: Sure. So one of my favorite songwriters, a guy named Townes Van Zandt, once said, "If you want good friends, they're going to cost you."

And to that end, we have spent money advertising with Milwaukee Brewers. You go to American Family Field, you'll see our signage. If you go to the Timberland- Rattler Stadium, you'll see our signage. If you go watch a Madison Mallards game or if you watch Forward Madison, you'll see our signage, you'll see our billboards.

We're really looking to foster partnerships with local professional sports teams, area professional sports teams. Because I think that's the linchpin, that's what everybody wants to work for. But, you know, again, we're gonna look beyond that to can we have somebody embedded, with Sentry's golf program?

So they moved their tournament from Hawaii to Torrey Pines in San Diego. You know, can we have one of our students out at Torrey Pines helping coordinate the golf tournament? Those are the kinds of things I know we're looking for. But, you know, Liz, I know you've got a lot more to say about this. 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I think when students come in, they will want those big names, right? So we have really been trying to foster relationships. We're talking right now with folks from the Packers to plan a trip for the fall to take some of our students to see the behind the scenes of what it looks like to work in professional football.

But I think there's a lot of areas that are often overlooked. Working in sport, I say working in sport's sexy. Like, everybody wants to work in sport. It's fun, it's glamorous. There are a few, avenues that I think are not as exposed, so working somewhere like the WIAA or in high school athletics.

I think a lot of folks don't know that Division II and Division III athletic departments have employees beyond coaches. So you could work in marketing and communications at a Division III institution like UWSP. You could work in fundraising or development in a Division III institution like UWSP.

Something that's really been growing is positions related to name, image and likeness, and sport agents, given the recent shifts in college athletics. So the opportunity to be entrepreneurial for folks who wanna work in sport is really at the peak, that it's been in the industry. There are also organizations like Wasserman, which was recently rebranded as The Team, that provide representation and marketing for athletes, brands, and properties.

That's a really, growing area as well. We talked a little bit about youth sport before, so youth sport organizations, opportunities like coaching, refereeing, and team management and organization. Recreation opportunities like the YMCA and Boys & Girls Club. Outdoor, opportunities, outdoor recreation like Tough Mudder different things like that.

I think the best thing about having the internship component like we do at UWSP is it's like a, pick your adventure, right? You wanna work in pro sports? Let's get you hooked up with the Packers or the Brewers. You wanna work in Division I athletics? Let's go down to Madison and create a, a partnership with the UW Madison athletic department.

You wanna work in minor league sports? It's a grind, but it's super, super rewarding, right? So, anything that our students wanna do, we're excited to kinda help foster those, opportunities and relationships to, to try to build out internships and, and work with everyone. My dream is to have a pipeline to the athletic department at UWSP, right?

Like- We are in one of the, I, I wanna say the best, I don't know, people could disagree with that, but the best conference, Division III conference- Oh, yeah ... in the country, right? For sure. So as we think about what can we do to help support the success of our athletics teams and our athletic department, they need more person power, right?

So can we put a, put an intern with each team to do their social media, to, serve as a director of operations, right? Like, we're starting from scratch, and we really get to do anything we want, which is a really exciting place to be. 

Rick Sense: All right. With that, we're gonna take our next break. You're listening to Biz Talk with SCORE on WHBY, and we will be right back after these messages. Welcome back to Biz Talk with SCORE on WHBY. I'm Rick Sense, along with Adam Klaywidard this weekend, and we are having a very interesting conversation with Liz Taylor and Kit Kiefer, and we're talking about University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. You know, we haven't said University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point once this morning.

Probably be good to 

Kit Kiefer: say that, yeah. 

Rick Sense: Yeah, so thought I'd bring that in there. But UW Stevens Point, or UWSP as you've been hearing it all morning, and talking about the interesting business program that's taking place there. It's being developed, and it actually it's executed and out running. And with that, we're gonna go ahead and get back to the conversation, and I'm gonna turn the conversation back over to you, Adam.

Entrepreneurship in Sport

Adam Klawitter: All right, so one of our, a, a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs and, business owners, and so I think it'd be really cool to talk about maybe just some of the opportunities for a student that goes through the program that maybe wants to be an entrepreneur themselves or just any cool stories that you have related you know, to entrepreneurship and, sports business.

Kit Kiefer: Yeah, so, first of all, the, the Sentry School at UWSP is very entrepreneur-focused. I know in my classes there's roughly 20% of students who want to start their own business. We have something called Agency 81 that Adam's familiar with, which is a student-run marketing agency that exists to work with entrepreneurs, particularly student entrepreneurs.

So there's a lot of support services within the Sentry School for people who want to start their own business. And we do have stories of people starting sports-related businesses. Last year, I had someone in my class who started a golf apparel business called Faith Forward, which was golf apparel with Bible verses either under the, the lid of the cap or in the neck of the shirt and had a great business plan.

We helped him craft the business plan. We helped him find suppliers, distributors, so forth, and he's taking off with that. So there's, there's a lot of stories along that line, and, and sport business is no different from any other business when it comes to that entrepreneurial support. 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. I, I think I didn't realize just how entrepreneurial sport was until I attended the Ted Sport Conference last September in Indy.

I was excited to go to the conference and, and network with folks, and I, I imagined that folks, a lot of them are gonna work for professional teams, professional leagues, maybe like an Adidas or a Nike or Under Armour. But what I found is majority of people there own their own business, and the scope of what they did at their business was so vast.

It was incredible. I met a woman who owns a sport philanthropy company, so she works with athletes who are interested in starting their own foundations, And things like that. So she travels around the country, has a network of athletes who she works with. They put on events, raise money, do things like that.

I met another guy who owns a company called Super Quick Question. The idea behind it is that he partners with corporations, so he might partner with, say, like what, where Kit used to work at Delta Dental, or, State Farm Insurance, or Verizon, and the company pays the athletes to answer questions of their customers.

So maybe they pay, someone like, you know, Aaron Rodgers, or Jordan Love, or somebody like that, and then they answer 60 questions in an hour directly to fans. So you hop on, like, a FaceTime call, you get to ask your question, and they... You're having a conversation with your favorite athlete. So just the scope of what you're able to do in the sport industry is so incredible.

I think we also are in a great time for athletes to start their own business now especially- because college athletes can profit off their name, image, and likeness. So, not only can they, create a business, but they can also create a brand that partners with tons of different types of companies, posts on social media, engage in commercials or things like that.

So the opportunity to be entrepreneurial is, is really at its peak, which I think is super exciting, because I know our students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point are really creative. So I'm excited to see what they come up with. 

Kit Kiefer: Right. And you look at areas like sport nutrition You look at areas, like sport training aids.

These are some very fast-growing areas in the, and especially in the area of sport nutrition. You know, the Sentry School is within the School of College of Professional Studies, which also includes a wellness school. So we've got people who are being trained on that segment who can cross over into sport business and come up with a, you know, a sport nutrition product.

So, you know, I- again, the opportunities are just so vast when you think about them. 

Student Pathways and Skills

Rick Sense: So if I'm a student coming to UW-Stevens Point, and I'm just starting out, and I'm- wanna do this major, I wanna work for a, a professional baseball team but don't know exactly what I wanna do, how do you guide... What, h- what's the process to get somebody kind of zeroed in more directly on what they wanna study?

And then secondarily, do they just major in this, or do they pick up other majors to support that maybe choice of path for their work, work future? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the, the first thing is exposure. So one thing that we are really gonna encourage our students to do is get out and volunteer.

So there are so many different opportunities just thinking about working for a professional baseball team, right? You can be on the team side of it. You can be outward-facing, sponsorships, marketing, fan engagement. You can be in the finance side of things. You can... Right? So there are so many different things you can do, so I think the first point of encouragement is just getting out there and trying some things.

Maybe you volunteer at game day, and you're like, "Man, I love engaging with fans." And then there's 10 careers that you could go into down that path. Or maybe you're like- "Hey, I want to work in sport, but I want that, like, more 9:00 to 5:00 feel of a corporate job, and I love numbers." Finance might be the place for you because they typically have the most traditional 9:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday work schedule, but you still get to be in that sport team environment.

So figuring out opportunities through volunteering. Things that they're good at. If you're really creative, marketing, graphic design, those sorts of things in, in a professional team might be the place for you. And then there's absolutely the opportunity to do things like a double major or a major in sport business and a minor in something else.

Because our major will share a lot of core courses with other, business majors, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's accounting, maybe it's finance, that opportunity to do a double major will be pretty seamless for students if they come in knowing, yes, definitely sport business or another major within the Sentry School from the beginning so that they can get started down that path of core courses.

But a lot of trial and error. I think one of the things from a faculty perspective that I think is the most harmful for students is pushing everyone to sales. Because it's typically the easiest way to get your foot in the door because every team, minor league, professional team, is always looking for people in sales because it's a grind.

It's really hard. And if you're good at it, you can climb the ladder pretty quick, but not everyone is good at it. There is no way that I was going to get in a seat and cold call people offering to sell them season tickets. That's just not my personality. I don't want to be hung up on. I don't want to be, like, in this weird confrontation with people.

I don't like awkward silences or small talk. So, I knew that wasn't the place for me. So ensuring that we do take the time, and this is what I'm so excited about to be at UWSP, we'll have the opportunity to get to know our students on that level. We are not going to have large lecture courses. We are going to have small, intimate settings where we can have one-on-one conversations.

We're going to have students two, three, four times during their time on campus to really get to know them and help them find the, the career path that's right for them.

Adam Klawitter: Do you guys have anything that- I, that was great. That, that's... Are, are you gonna be offering for, like, professional development a- and things for maybe some of the adult or you know, in the workforce learners as well? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. This is a great question, and this is something that, our other incoming faculty, Dr.

Jeff Brohem, and I have talked a lot about because I think so often, especially if you think about youth sport, we just throw people in. "Oh, you're a parent of a kid. We need a coach. Go ahead. Go ahead and do it," right? Whether or not you've ever played soccer or baseball or anything before, we just throw you in.

And there are a lot of opportunities for learning, whether it's X's and O's, right, but also the people management. A lot of times coaching and working in sport is just managing people and personalities, understanding communication styles. So we are in the process of putting a proposal together for a sport lab, a sport business lab, and it'll have several pillars.

One of them will be research. One of them will be kind of that, community engagement, and part of that we've talked about doing some, more like, a continuing education type courses. We could also work with organizations like SafeSport, which do education on sexual violence prevention. So we wanna come at this from a very holistic lens.

I'm not gonna pretend to know anything about swimming. I don't. I can barely dog paddle, but I can help you with other aspects of running a business, whether it's the financial side of it, thinking about how much do you charge for lessons or, you know, a coaching salary, that sort of thing. So I think we wanna be super engaged with the community because we are in a great place for youth sport, minor league sport, high school sport, great facilities around our area that I think we can really help grow and develop through collaboration with our program.

Kit Kiefer: And I wanna add on top of this, Liz mentioned sport labs and, and that brings up the fact that we are building a state-of-the-art business school here. Sentry Hall will be opening in fall of 2028, and we'll have a space for that sport lab. We'll have a space for a lot of sport business related, kinds of activities, places for students to gather, places for students to learn and so forth.

So we've got a brand-new building coming on top of the sport business major

Why Choose UWSP

Adam Klawitter: Imagine if a student is accepted to both USP and a larger program, what would you tell them that they would maybe be considering USP versus some of these, established programs and Would they need to be a sports fanta- fanatic to succeed in the field?

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. This is a great, this is a really great question because I think, as you consider where you want to go to school, you have to think about this aspect of it. And I don't know that every student knows that there are some pretty large differences between a teaching institution like UWSP, and, and a larger research-intensive institution like, say, UW-Madison.

So, the experiences afforded to a student at a place like UWSP will be really important for their future. So you'll have internationally known faculty, internationally recognized faculty teaching your courses who would love to write you letters of recommendation, and they'll be able to do so in a way that's tailored toward their engagement with you.

So at a, at a larger institution where you have more lecture-based courses, you might have teaching assistants, you're not actually engaging in the faculty, writing letters of recommendation can be very challenging. And I say this as someone who's spent the last nine years at a teaching institution teaching big classes.

So I'll- so we'll be able to get to know you. We'll be able to write a tailored letter of recommendation for graduate school or a job, whichever path you'd like to go. You'll also have small classes so you can get to know your classmates. So in sport, and our students are going to get annoyed by this, but we're going to keep talking about networking because networking in sport is so important.

You'll often hear it's not what you know, it's who you know, and, and Kit can attest to that, right? But your network starts with the, with the students who are in your class. So you'll get to know them more than just like, "Hey, that's that girl who always wears, you know, the backwards hat," or, "Hey, that's that guy who's on the football team," right?

Like, you'll get to know them, their name, their hometown, what their experiences are, and where they want to go. That's your future network who you can then draw from as you're going through the job search, or maybe you're thinking of pivoting, or you're in marketing for a football team, but you really want to be with an MLB team or something like that.

And the structure of the courses will also allow for real-world application through things like case studies, or consulting-type opportunities. The final thing I say, I'll say before I hand it over to Kit, is the, the internship requirement. So- Yeah ... I'm so excited about the required internship because this is how you get your foot in the door.

This is how you get the real-world hands-on experience before you even graduate. So our students will have the opportunity to do a three to 12-credit internship during their time on campus, and this will be so influential to their time, in the job search, right? Writing their resume, writing their cover letter.

They'll have the experiences. It's not just theoretical. They're not just talking about it in their class. They'll have it 

Kit Kiefer: So the best advice I ever got from someone who was in sport business that I share with my students is, if you wanna work for a sports team, be really good at something else. Be a really good accountant.

Be a really good social media person. So our mission is to create great accountants, great data analytics people, great social media people, and then overlay that with a really rigorous sport business education. You know, I, I mentioned Liz is competitive. I'm competitive too. I want this to be the best program in the Midwest.

I think we have the people to do it, but we also have the mindset to do it. 

Program Buzz and Growth

Adam Klawitter: How has been the response for the program, like as far as, just the interest from students? 

Kit Kiefer: Oh, man, it's been off the charts. The initial goal was to get about 35 dedicated majors. I think, what are we up, over 50? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. 

Kit Kiefer: 54, something like that.

So we've more, you know, we've almost doubled our goal. We have a, you know, the intro to sport business classes are packed. The website hits have been off the charts. Yeah, it's, you know, from my standpoint, it's been great. 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah, and I would agree with that. Any time I tell someone what I'm doing, they're excited to learn more.

They're excited to ask questions, understand how they can engage. So I think, as we get the message out there more, have a full recruiting cycle for students who are coming in fall 2027, we're set for, a really, really bright future. 

Kit Kiefer: Yeah, you know, so many people think of UW-Stevens Point in the broader sense as a school for natural resources.

We want them to be thinking, "Oh yeah, it's that school for sport business and natural resources," but sport business listed first. 

Rick Sense: No competition here whatsoever, folks. 

Kit Kiefer: None. 

Rick Sense: We're gonna take that as our next break stop, and you are listening to BizTalk with SCORE! on WHBY, and we will be right back after these words. Welcome back to Biz Talk with SCORE on WHBY. I am Rick Sense, along with co-host Adam Kleyweder this weekend, and you are listening to a great conversation with Kit Kiefer and Liz Taylor from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's newest, I guess it's the newest.

Is that fair, Kit, Liz? 

Kit Kiefer: Yeah, that's fair. 

Rick Sense: Okay, newest program. And it, it is sports management, sports business. Is that the actual official name? 

Kit Kiefer: No S. Sport Business 

Rick Sense: Sport business. Sport business. Okay. There you go. Sport business. Wanna make sure I'm getting that right. Okay. 

Sponsors and Resources

Rick Sense: And before we get into any more of the conversation, I'm gonna spend just a moment thanking our sponsors.

We'd like to thank the sponsors for their generous support of Biz Talk. Haling & Associates helps small business and individuals not just prepare tax returns, but plan for the future. Haling & Associates, personal connection, positive results. Wherever you are in life or in the life of your business, Johnson Financial Group works to match the banking and wealth services needed to help you complete your mission.

Thank you to the Business News for promoting our program and the bi-weekly business newspaper serving Northeast Wisconsin with the latest business news and topics for the region. We are grateful for the support of Community First Credit Union. At its core, Community First Credit Union is a community of member owners where people work together to improve their financial wellbeing and help one another.

New North, the regional marketing and economic development corporation, is an active supporter of SCORE. The New North facilitates economic growth and helps people in this region live their best lives. Since 1919, Baird has guided families through investment, trust, estate, and tax planning advice. So no matter what the future brings, you can be confident you're ready, because your family is Baird's focus.

So thank, again, thank you to our sponsors. And, and Liz and Kit, I'm gonna direct this question to both of you. Just the general how do people learn more about the program? And I'll start with you, Liz. 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah, so the easiest way is just to visit the UWSP website. So it's www.uwsp.edu, and you can search for the sport business major under the academics tab, and it will list all the majors.

You can scroll down or you can, you know, search it in the search, the search tab to just do sport business. You can also reach out to us via email, so etaylor@uwsp.edu, and we'd love to have you on campus, so reach out if you have any questions. 

Kit Kiefer: I'd also add we're both on LinkedIn, so anyone who's on LinkedIn who wants to connect with us, we'd love to connect with you.

So my last name is spelled K-I-E-F-E-R, first name is K-I-T. Yeah, come find us. Yeah, we'd love to join your network. 

Final Takeaways and Wrap

Adam Klawitter: And as we wrap up this conversation thank you Kit and Liz for a amazing conversation. And, what would be the thing that you'd hope listeners remember, most about the new sports business program after this conversation?

Okay, I'll, Okay, go ahead, Liz. You go 

Elizabeth Taylor: first. You go first, Kit. 

Kit Kiefer: Okay. I want people to toss aside any preconceived notions they may have had about U- the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, whether they thought of it as a natural resources school or just, oh, you know, kind of this four-year school in the middle of the state.

What we're building here is world-class. It's got amazing faculty. It's got tremendous instruction. It's got the backing of, of one of... a Fortune 600 company. We're doing it right here, and we're doing it big time, and students who get in on the ground floor are going to experience that and know that.

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah. I want to echo all that, and I'll keep it, short and sweet. So we're innovative. We're experiential learning based. And we haven't hit on this yet, but we're very affordable in comparison to a lot of institutions of higher education across the country. So we are the bang for your buck that you want if you are going to work in the sport industry.

Rick Sense: So I guess with that point, that you brought up, Liz, with the financial side of things, uh, can you maybe give listeners an idea of, of what that cost is over the course of a four-year program? 

Elizabeth Taylor: That is a really great question. Depending on if you're on campus, living at home, want a meal plan, or you're just paying for tuition, things are going to differ greatly.

Tuition is about $4,500 a semester. And then you add on things like room, residence halls, meal plans, room and board, that sort of thing, it will increase the price. But baseline tuition is about $4,500 a semester. 

Kit Kiefer: Which is a real bargain because the only other, sport business program at an accredited business school in the Midwest is at DePaul University in downtown Chicago, and I guarantee you tuition is not 4,500, and I guarantee you you can live a lot cheaper in Stevens Point than you can in downtown Chicago 

Rick Sense: All right, with the final minute we have with the show here, I always like to ask, Liz, our guests this and, and I guess I'll start with you, Kit.

Are you having fun? 

Kit Kiefer: Oh, God, I'm having, I'm having the time of my life. I'm so excited to come back full circle to something I started doing way back in the 1980s. I couldn't be happier. 

Rick Sense: Liz, what about you? Are you having fun? 

Elizabeth Taylor: Yeah, I talk about sport all day. I don't think there is a better job in, in the world than being a sport business faculty.

Every day is something new. It's something fun. It's, really awesome conversations with students about things that they're really passionate about. 

Rick Sense: All right. I want to thank, both you, Kit and Liz, for joining us. Again, that's Kit Kiefer and Liz Taylor from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's...

Now I'm gonna get it wrong again. Sports Management. No. Yes. I'm sorry. It's what? Sport- 

Kit Kiefer: Sport Business. 

Rick Sense: Sport Business. Why can't I get business? You know, that's something that you might want to work on, is getting people like me to get past that connection of business and, and, What's the name of 

WHBY: this show again?

Rick Sense: Yeah, BizTalk, right? So anyhow, but it's a, it's a really great program, affordable program from what we hear, heard at the end here, and I would encourage listeners to, go ahead and, and learn more about that if you have y- uh, students out there that are interested in pursuing that line of, of education.

So again, you've been listening to BizTalk with SCORE. I want to thank Adam for joining us as co-host this week, and you can join us next week on WHBY, and we look forward to seeing you again, and hearing you again, too. Take care.