Purdue announces new Master of Science in Sport Management program

Jeanne Boyd, executive director of sport management in the Department of Health and Kinesiology, ushered in the new Purdue sport management graduate degree program, which will begin in Fall 2025. (Tim Brouk)

Written by: Tim Brouk, tbrouk@purdue.edu

Few at Purdue University have experienced March Madness like Jeanne Boyd. The executive director of sport management in the Department of Health and Kinesiology (HK) ran the show at the NCAA national office in Indianapolis.

Among her many duties, Boyd oversaw the site selection process, determining the competition venues in each host city, and the logistics for hundreds of student-athletes representing 68 institutions. Once March rolled around, her days were nothing but basketball.

“I traveled almost 200 days year, and leading up to tournament time, our staff worked 80 hours a week. It was crazy fun, but our lives were not our own,” said Boyd, who was the managing director of the Division I men’s basketball championship from 2004-15.

Some of the skills needed to pull off a major sporting event will be implemented into Purdue’s newest venture: ushering in the new sport management graduate program. Housed in HK, the program plans to produce the next generation of sport data analysts, sports information directors, and general managers for professional teams or collegiate athletics departments, among other specializations. Sport management was officially added to the Purdue curriculum March 13, just days before the start of the 2025 NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

The Master of Science in Sport Management will consist of six core courses, four elective courses and six credits (450 hours) of experiential learning through an internship or practicum. The program will have representation at Purdue in Indianapolis too, with courses being taught there and in West Lafayette.

 “There will be countless employment opportunities for our students after graduation,” said Boyd. “If you peek at the staff directory online of any team or athletics program, it’ll give you a sense of the depth and breadth of specializations.”

Purdue sport management core courses will reflect traditional subjects such as business, management and organizational leadership, but the departments of computer science and statistics in the College of Science, among others, will be contributing to the wide array of elective courses students can choose from.

“Our interdisciplinary approach combined with hands-on learning experiences delivered through our industry partners will equip graduates with the skills needed to make meaningful contributions from day one,” Boyd said.

Patrick Tutka joined HK in 2024 as a clinical associate professor. His first duties were helping Boyd build the sport management curriculum. Tutka did the same for Niagara University to tremendous success. There, he graduated more than 50 sport management graduate students, which was a huge number for the small New York university that had only 2,747 undergraduate students in 2023-24 — Tutka’s final year as a Niagara Purple Eagle. There were more than 20 enrolled when he left for Purdue.

Tutka’s passion for interdisciplinary experiential learning made him a good fit for the new Purdue program, and as an HK faculty member, he will ensure sport management students receive the proper know-how of athletic training, kinesiology and biomechanics.

“Traditionally, kinesiology has been the home of sport management because of the fact that many programs grew out of the physical education realm,” Tutka explained. “We have an amazing athletic training program — exercise science, biomechanics, they’re all interconnected in a variety of ways in what we do in sport because if you don’t know how to use your body to the best of your ability, you’re missing out on pieces of the puzzle. We can connect sport people to the biomechanics/exercise and physiology people to get the best benefit they possibly can.

“We want our students to have the best learning experience possible. By leveraging Purdue’s academic strengths and our industry ties, we’re dedicated to providing them with real-world experiences. Not only will this enhance their education, but it’ll prepare our students to become influential leaders.”