Sport sales managers’ perceptions of learning through experiential sales projects

While there has been a considerable amount of research conducted on experiential learning and sport sales, the purpose of this study is to shift the focus from students to current sport sales professionals and examine how experientially learning sales assisted in the sales professionals’ growth, competency, and skill development in the current sales roles they occupy. Employing a stratified purposeful sampling technique, sport sales-related professionals (from a diverse group of sports organizations, including, but not limited to, organizations within the MLB, NBA, XFL, and NASCAR; n = 7) who completed an experiential sales learning project between 2015 and 2022 were invited to give their perceptions of experientially learning sport sales in the form of a focus group. Post-interview inductive thematic analysis was conducted using Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase framework to extract themes. Results highlight three main themes extracted from the participants who engaged in sports sales experiential learning: 1) Initial Perceptions; 2) Project Resultants; and 3) Improvements for Experiential Sales Project, which are further expounded upon and contextualized within the literature. This is the first study to examine sport sales professionals’ perceptions of sport sales experiential learning in sport sales education. By shifting the focus from students to sales managers, the researchers highlight the unique differences that exists when comparing student perceptions in, or shortly after the completion of, an experiential sales project, versus the perceptions of the current sales managers in sport industry. For sport management faculty, important findings such experiential sales project improvements are discussed. For students, practical insight is given to help students overcome the negative feelings associated with sport sales experiential learning, in addition to the benefits of learning sales experientially and the impact it has on professional development, job opportunity, and personal marketability.