Kit McConnell
Head of Rugby World Cup for the International Rugby Board
Master of Management (First Class Honours)
Massey University 1996
Kit McConnell A bit About kit
Kicking balls
Even if you’d rather poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick than watch a rugby game, you can’t deny how exciting it was to have one of the biggest sporting events the world has ever seen held in New Zealand.
And it’s a Kiwi who’s at the helm of the Rugby World Cup, internationally.
It’s not every day that you score your first job at the most prestigious company in your chosen field. But that’s pretty much what Kit McConnell did, winning a scholarship, and then a job, with the Olympic Committee in Switzerland while still studying sports management at Massey.
He went on to tackle two of the world’s other huge sporting events, coming back DownUnder to work on the Sydney Olympics. Today he’s head honcho in the International Rugby Board’s (IRB) Rugby World Cup office.
Kicking balls
Even if you'd rather poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick than watch a rugby game, you can't deny how exciting it was to have one of the biggest sporting events the world has ever seen held in New Zealand.
And it's a Kiwi who's at the helm of the Rugby World Cup, internationally.
It's not every day that you score your first job at the most prestigious company in your chosen field. But that's pretty much what Kit McConnell did, winning a scholarship, and then a job, with the Olympic Committee in Switzerland while still studying sports management at Massey.
He went on to tackle two of the world's other huge sporting events, coming back DownUnder to work on the Sydney Olympics. Today he's head honcho in the International Rugby Board's (IRB) Rugby World Cup office.
Kit McConnell
Head of Rugby World Cup for the International Rugby Board
Master of Management (First Class Honours)
Massey University 1996
About sports management
The 1990s brought us many things. The Internet, genetic engineering, Friends, bootleg pants, the Backstreet Boys and the professional era of rugby.
The dawn of professional sport created rugby, and many other sports, as an industry. An industry that is characterised by extensive television coverage, commercial sponsorship and stars.
Despite its popularity, not many of us actually play rugby. It is played by 11 per cent of adult men in New Zealand (making it our fifth most popular sport for males) and a small number of women also play. But the support for rugby is huge.
That’s where you come in. Regardless of whether you play sport, are good at it, or simply enjoy sitting on the couch watching lots of really fit people do really energetic things while you sit with your mates eating crisps, there are heaps of opportunities in the sport management area (well, you do have to get up off the couch, and eating too many crisps isn’t a great idea).
Whether it’s rugby or other sports, or more general sports administration, with the dawn of the professional era, has come a greater need for people interested in sport, who have good, strong management skills.
You can find out more about the history of New Zealand sport and rugby on the Te Ara Encyclopaedia.
How you can do it too
You don’t have to be able to catch, kick or bounce a ball to get into the field of sports management.
It’s of course useful to have a passion for sport, and you probably do. But you don’t have to be an elite athlete.
If you do happen to be an athlete wanting to get into sports management, you can continue your sporting career while studying sports management, or other courses. Business Studies is a popular option.
Massey is renowned for its flexibility – really useful when you are an international athlete with training and event pressures.
When you emerge from your studies, the range of jobs open to you will be huge. You can help manage,sports teams or associations, help encourage others to play sport, go into professional coaching, or use your particular skills in say, marketing, or finance, to help sports clubs, businesses or local and regional government agencies promote sport better.
Why Massey?
The NZ Academy of Sport named Massey’s Academy of Sport the first athlete-friendly university in New Zealand and we attract heaps of New Zealand’s elite athletes.
If you are more interested in sports management itself, you’ll study towards a Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS) with a major in Sports Management. This is a three-year degree. In your first year you’ll study the good, solid basics of business – finance, marketing and economics. You’ll then get to take on sports-related papers in-between continuing general business papers. Sports papers include things like sport management and coaching, facility and event management and the social context of sport.
Or you could choose to do the BSport and Exercise with a major in Management and Coaching. This difference is one is packaged around business and the other around sport.
Otherwise you could do a more general management major in your BBS, which will still give you brilliant skills to transfer across to a huge range of industries.
As well as high academic standards, Massey also work closely with the sporting community and leading national sport organisations, and offer specific ‘practicum’ (um, this means practical!) papers. That means that you’ll get a really practical useful qualification that will help you get a job.