International Sport Management

Explore sport management on the international level.

International Sport Management, Third Edition, takes a comprehensive look at the organization, governance, business activities, and cross-cultural context of modern sport on an international level. As the sport industry continues its global expansion, the third edition serves as an invaluable guide for students whose careers will require an international understanding of the relationships, influences, and responsibilities in sport management.

With a diverse editorial team and assembly of esteemed contributors from all corners of the globe, this text presents a truly international perspective and multiple viewpoints on the burgeoning subfield of international sport management. Revised and updated to address current issues, each chapter showcases how sport operates in various geopolitical environments and cultures:

• An updated opening chapter introduces readers to emerging sports such as pickleball, bouldering, drone racing, and surfing, reflecting the evolving landscape of international sport and emphasizing the critical competencies—such as personal reflexivity and cultural sensitivity—essential for today’s international sport managers.
• Attention is given to topics affecting sports in North America such as name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation; transgender athletes; labor movements; and mental health.
• A new chapter on the environment addresses the role of sport in promoting sustainability.
• The chapter on Eastern Europe expands its content on Bulgaria, women in sport, and environmental best practices.
• The chapter on the Arab world provides fresh perspectives on Saudi Arabia’s investments in sport and its role in hosting major events.
• The chapter on Oceania focuses on inclusivity, diversity, and sport infrastructure challenges.
• A new chapter on sport for development discusses the use of sport for public health, social inclusion, and economic development.
• A brand-new chapter explores efforts to prevent doping in sport, the ethical and regulatory aspects of international sport, the role of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and integrity and fair play, with an emphasis on the importance of creating frameworks to combat corruption in sport.

International Sport Management, Third Edition, introduces students to the structure of governance in international sport and prepares them to apply management strategies in the business segments of sport marketing, sport media and information technology, sport event management, and sport tourism. Case studies and sidebars apply the concepts to real-world situations and demonstrate the challenges and opportunities that future sport managers will face on a regular basis.

With International Sport Management, both practicing and future sport managers will develop an increased understanding of the range of intercultural competencies necessary for success in the field. Using a framework of strategic and total-quality management, the text allows students to examine global issues from an ethical perspective and uncover solutions to complex challenges that sport managers face. With this approach, readers will learn how to combine business practices with knowledge in international sport to excel in their careers.

Eric MacIntosh, PhD, is a professor of sport management at the University of Ottawa in Canada. MacIntosh researches and teaches on various topics, covering concepts such as organizational culture, leadership, and satisfaction. His principal research interests are the functioning of the organization and how a favorable culture can transmit positively, internally and outwardly into the marketplace.

MacIntosh has worked with many prominent national and international sport organizations. Helping sport leaders make their organizations better for employees and the organization itself continues to drive his work. He is a well-published scholar in leading peer-reviewed journals and is a frequent speaker at management conferences. He is a North American Society for Sport Management research fellow as well as coauthor of the second edition of Organizational Behavior in Sport Management.

Gonzalo A. Bravo, PhD, is a professor of sport management in the School of Sport Sciences at West Virginia University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Since 2025, he has also served as director of the Global Sport and Performance Center within the same school. Bravo holds a master’s degree in sport administration from Pennsylvania State University and a PhD in sport management from Ohio State University. Before entering academia in 2001, he spent 11 years as sport director at Fundación Club Deportivo Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile.

His research focuses on sport policy and governance, organizational behavior in sport, and sport in Latin America. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, authored six books, and delivered more than 120 presentations at academic conferences worldwide. From 2015 to 2018, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Latin American Studies. He completed sabbaticals at the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil (2016) and at the Pan-American and Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile (2023). From 2022 to 2025, he served on the board of directors of the American Kinesiology Association.

Carrie LeCrom, PhD, has served as the executive director of the Center for Sport Leadership (CSL) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) since 2015, holding various roles within the CSL since joining the staff in 2003. In her time at the CSL, the program has been recognized as one of the top 10 sport business programs in the world. LeCrom is passionate about the use of sport for social change and focuses much of her research in this area. She has secured over $2 million in grant funding from sources such as the U.S. Department of State and the NCAA. Since 2007, she has created and coordinated two-way citizen exchanges in sport diplomacy between the United States and Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan. These programs have focused on various social issues specific to each country and community, including health promotion, HIV and AIDS education, gender empowerment, reconciliation, and more.

Building on these programs, LeCrom won a prestigious Fulbright fellowship that took her and her family to South Africa, where they lived for all of 2019. As a Fulbright Scholar, LeCrom piloted and launched an all-girls leadership and gender empowerment soccer program in the rural community of Jamestown, South Africa. Her local host institution, Stellenbosch University, provided support for the program’s continuance upon LeCrom’s departure. She additionally worked with several other organizations involved in sport for development while in South Africa, including Grassroot Soccer, Training4Changes, Roxy Davis Foundation, and Laureus.

LeCrom is the editor of Journal of Sport for Development and is a well-published scholar in some of sport management’s top journals, such as Sport Management Review, the Journal of Sport Management, Sport in Society, and Sport Marketing Quarterly. In 2020 she was selected as a North American Society for Sport Management research fellow and in 2025 was named a Sport Management Education Journal (SMEJ) teaching fellow by the same organization. In 2014, LeCrom was awarded the Ruch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest teaching award given by VCU’s School of Education, and in 2016 she was the Award of Excellence recipient for combined excellence in teaching, research, and service. LeCrom holds degrees from Lynchburg College (BA in business administration and sport management), and VCU (MS in sport leadership; PhD in education).