Football, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse – Colorado has it all.

“Colorado is a ‘hotbed’ of sports – from professional to minor league to college,” said Cory Hilliard, CU-Boulder Buffs’ associate athletic director, Business Operations, and adjunct instructor in the CU Denver Business School.

For the past two years, Hilliard has taught a graduate-level course: Finance in the Sports and Entertainment Industries (BUSN 6860). It’s part of the curriculum in theBusiness School’s Sports and Entertainment certificate program. New for spring 2015, enrollment was expanded to include undergraduate students in the cross-listed course Managing Sports Finance (MGMT 4950).

Business is the name of the game

“This course addresses the finance and business side of these industries and is designed for students interested in pursuing careers in sports and entertainment business,” Hilliard said.

Prerequisites for enrollment include completion of courses in accounting, statistics, finance and economics. Students should be familiar with business practices including revenue and expense accounting, cash flow and measuring risk and return.

Voices of experience

As the person managing finances for the CU Buffs for the past seven years, Hilliard brings his own business expertise to this class. He earned his MBA in Business Administration at the University of North Dakota while working in the athletic department.

For this class, Hilliard schedules speakers such as executives from AEG, a leading presenter of sports and entertainment events. Another speaker is the chief financial officer/vice president of Kroenke Sports, which is the company that owns Denver’s Pepsi Center, Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Rapids and Colorado Mammoth. Also on the schedule are Christie Austin, former treasurer for the U.S. Golf Association, and Bill Jensen, former CEO of Intrawest, who took his company through an IPO (initial public offering). Jensen will be speaking about that and the potential for a Denver Winter Olympics bid.“The professionals who come to talk to the class offer students practical advice based on their experience,” Hilliard said. “Some are (our) former athletes who’ve gone on to business careers in sports industries. Our speakers talk about their career paths – some are very grassroots; some have worked their way up from entry level. They try to give a realistic window into sports, not the glitz and glamour.”

Making connections

The guest speakers also always encourage students, Hilliard said. They hand out business cards and tell students to call them.

“Our contacts at Kroenke have been really great,” Hilliard said. “We’ve even been able to take the class to the Pepsi Center to meet with top executives prior to a game.”

Students study the finances of facilities management and personnel costs, Hilliard said. “In the class we’ll break down expenses and revenue. We look at the dollars and cents of a real fan experience at the venue. After this, they’ll never look at a game the same way.”

Students who’ve taken the class already are working in the field. Here are some of the jobs they’ve landed:

• Ticket sales, VIP sales/customer relations, community relations and guest relations for organizations including the Nuggets, Avs, Rapids, Broncos, and Rockies
• Olympic Committee Operations
• Athletics programs at several universities in ticket sales, coaching, community relations and marketing
• AEGLive and other music promoters in marketing and operations
• Marketing for HBO in New York