A Presentation-Based Course in Sports Economics

Sports economics is a course that confronts a conundrum that can be addressed well with an active learning strategy. Students find a course in sports economics appealing and enter the course with enthusiasm, but expect to spend the term discussing sports, not economics, and often fail to recognize differences between popular press information and economic knowledge. This paper explains how the use of a presentation-based sports economics course can be successful at maintaining student interest while promoting economic analysis. The active learning approach of a presentation-based course is also shown to be consistent with fundamental learning principles that generate successful learning outcomes.