Sports business & experiential learning
Sport as a teaching environment, not a novelty
Sport gives management education something rare: public decisions, immediate consequences, contested governance and stakeholders who all believe they are right. Roger has used it as a teaching and research setting for more than two decades, and it is where his experiential method was first built.
The work
Teaching, research and product development
- Sports-business teaching across undergraduate and MBA provision, including the Football Industries MBA at the University of Liverpool
- Development of the Management Game as an experiential assessment based on decision-making simulations at a professional football club
- Published research on sport and international development, sport CSR, governance and football-club business models
- Co-editor of Sport and International Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Sport and International Relations (Routledge, 2004)
- Founding Partner of Praxis Sports College, developing experiential executive-education products with football-industry and higher-education partners
Method
From football club to executive classroom
The Management Game began as a three-day module built on decision-making simulations at a professional football club, designed to place MBA participants inside daily operational and strategic decisions rather than describing them from outside. The format worked because the decisions were real, interdependent and immediately consequential.
That design logic now travels beyond sport. The same structure of teams in the executive seat, incomplete information, rounds of consequence, a board-style defence and a debrief on reasoning is what underpins Roger’s simulation and CEO-simulation work across sectors.
“Roger built a unique experience, designed to hand the students with a special insight behind the scenes of daily operations of a football club. A year later, I came across same situations working for a football club.”
Praxis Sports College
Current initiative
Praxis Sports College is a commercial executive-education venture co-founded by Roger with senior football-industry and higher-education partners. It is developing The Management Game / CEO Simulation and related experiential products for universities, executive education and corporate clients; Roger contributes to market development, partnerships, product design and international outreach.
Placeholder: A public Praxis Sports College website link and partner list can be added here once available.
Research
Published work in this field
Roger’s research record covers sport and international development, CSR through sport, governance and football-club business models, with a widely cited body of journal work and two edited collections.
Recommendations
Feedback on the sports-business teaching
Refers to his sports-management teaching and the clarity with which industry material was communicated.
Notes strong communication and support during the sports-business elements of the course.
Recalls MBA leadership and the Management Game simulation run at Norwich City Football Club, alongside expertise in higher-education management.
Items marked quoted verbatim are taken word-for-word from documented course-evaluation reports. Items marked summary of a recommendation summarise published LinkedIn recommendations rather than quoting them; the full wording is available on Roger’s LinkedIn profile and can be substituted verbatim once approved by each recommender.
Discuss a simulation or sports-business programme
Suitable for MBA and executive cohorts, leadership development groups and sports-sector organisations.