Associate Dean's Welcome
With more than 15 years of working in the sports industry and nearly a decade of teaching, mentoring, and career counseling, people often ask me what it takes to work in this arena. I tell them that three things sum it all up: passion, teamwork, and dedication.
Many of the qualities embodied by a great athlete are also embodied by a successful graduate student: focus, perseverance, and goal orientation. Georgetown has the unique resources to provide you with an interactive learning experience that will expand your skill set and enable you to graduate already connected to the industry. Our faculty is here to help you take your passion for this experience and convert it into a career that will have meaning for you and impact in the industry.
This is an exciting, transformative time in the sports industry. Beyond the bottom line of a $200 billion marketplace are a spirited atmosphere and international reach that make sports universal on a global scale. However, these allegiances are constantly being tested by an era of unprecedented choices for its elusive consumers and fans—thus creating new opportunities to make a difference in the sports industry.
At Georgetown, we are keenly focused on creative approaches to these new challenges facing sports industry education today. My role here is to nurture that mind-set throughout our program and support the passion for learning and leadership that comes from our students, faculty, and partners.
We look forward to helping you become an innovative contributor to the sports industry.
Sincerely,
Matt Winkler
Associate Dean
Master of Professional Studies in Sports Industry Management
Matt Winkler’s Bio
The faculty of the Master of Professional Studies degree program in Sports Industry Management is led by Associate Dean Matt Winkler, who has created opportunities to connect enterprising students with the sports industry for more than a decade. He is one of an elite group of sports educators with 15+ years as a sports executive, 10+ years as a teacher and mentor, and 5+ years of experience running a national sports career conference.
Through his leadership, he works to make his experiences working in the NCAA, NHL, WNBA, MLS, the Olympics, and the World Cup relevant for students. In addition to his expertise as a professor and mentor, he developed the national sports career conference— the Sports Events Marketing Experience (SEME), which he has co-managed for five years and expanded to include events in Washington, DC; Los Angeles; and Chicago.
Winkler held front office positions in professional sports with the Washington Capitals, Washington Mystics and DC United. In the NCAA he was an Assistant Athletics Director and Sports Information Director at George Mason University, American University and Lehigh University. On the consulting and international level, he was an event media operations consultant with U.S. Soccer, U.S.A. Gymnastics, USA Football, as well as the NCAA Championships in Men’s Basketball and Men’ Soccer and the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia.
His industry experience includes sales, management, consulting, marketing, and public relations. He earned an MA in public communications from American University and a bachelor’s degree from Curry College. He also has the Accredited in Public Relations strategic certification from the Public Relations Society of America.
