Sport management undergraduate and graduate programs have gained popularity throughout the United States and around the world. Despite this, women are still underrepresented in sport leadership positions. Although women have made it to the highest levels of sport leadership roles, studies suggest that advancement to such roles is more challenging for women than for men. Extant literature examines perceptions of women employed in the sport industry but fails to consider perceptions of prospective employees, specifically women, with career aspirations in sport business. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate sport management students’ perceptions of barriers to women’s success and upward mobility in the sport industry using the Career Pathways Survey. Results suggest that female sport management students perceive barriers to advancement in the sport industry, whereas male students do not perceive that barriers exist for women. Practical implications for the sport management classroom include developing male advocates, gender diversity and inclusion in guest presentations, and intentional internship placement.

No abstract

No abstract

While the growth of esports is undeniable, access, inclusivity, and diversity within this space is reminiscent of U.S. pre-Title IX traditional sport environments. As such, recent calls for the inclusion of esports within the traditional sport management literature have been persuasive. The esports industry is largely male dominated, as women and girls represent a lower proportion of participants, fans, and employees. While the proportions are staggering, the underrepresentation of women and girls in the esports industry has not been fully explored. In order to investigate this underrepresentation, 10 women esports competitors, content creators, and executives advanced our understanding of both the career experiences and career obstacles they encounter including (1) breaking the glass monitor, (2) toxic "geek" masculinity, (3) hostile sport environments, and (4) "mental" (e.g., grit). This investigation utilized a generic, qualitative approach with semistructured interviews and employed an inductive thematic-analysis process to uncover the experiences of women employees in the esports industry. This will serve as the first qualitative study in sport management that examines the career experiences of elite-level women gamers and executives. As such, the major contributions are the identified obstacles that women have faced in their rise to elite level careers within this space.

The eSport industry has seen rapid growth over the previous decade with additional opportunities for participants to compete in competitive and casual environments. As such, the sport industry has taken notice of this increase in popularity and exposure for eSport. A recent call to arms by sport management scholars suggests that the field of sport management needs to broaden research endeavors to include analyses of eSport and eSport spaces. To that end, this investigation serves as one of the first that investigates the playing experiences of eSport participants with a particular focus on the presence of discrimination and hostility in playing environments for men and women competitors. Previous events within the eSport industry, such as the now infamous harassment of female gamers known as Gamergate, suggests that female eSport players may experience discrimination and hostility at higher rates than their male counterparts. Guided by the frameworks of hegemonic masculinity and treatment discrimination, this investigation gauged the experiences of men and women eSport participants with discrimination and hostility in eSport playing environments. Results indicated that female eSport participants reported experiencing instances of treatment discrimination more frequently than their male counterparts, while male participants reported experiencing hostility more frequently. Results aim to assist the eSport industry as well as sport management scholars in guiding new policy to create inclusive spaces for eSport enthusiasts and career hopefuls.