A Sports Director, otherwise known as The Director of Sports, usually works with the Sports administration for a University or Organization. Whether it’s working for a professional sports organization or a high school, the majority of the responsibilities of a Sports Director remain the same. The Sports Director’s purpose is to oversee the facility management, human resources, funding and, policy adherence of a sports organization in compliance with certain rules and regulations.
If you’re considering a career path that will lead you to become a Sports Director, consider the following duties and responsibilities that come with the job.
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Organization and Administration
A Sports Director’s key duties include overseeing the entire athletic department of an organization. This means everything from scheduling games to overseeing coaching staff and organizing practices. The Sports Director is technically an administrative position, but that doesn’t mean a director spends all of his time behind a desk. Much of the job revolves around observing coaches and working with athletic teams to ensure they follow guidelines and meet certain requirements, and even travelling with teams.
Marketing
A sports director has to spend a lot of time marketing and promoting individual athletes, the entire team, and events through social media and other platforms. Sports Directors work with individual team players or solitary athletes to ensure that players receive the best training, motivation, and competition or career opportunities. The job of a Sports Director requires him to spend a lot of time at a desk, arranging and coordinating the activities, events, or appearances of his athletes while they’re competing or travelling from one venue to another. A Sports Director makes appearances at news interviews and works majorly towards brand development.
Facility Supervision
A sports director is essentially responsible for the usage and safety of the sports facility. Depending on the facility, there may be certain rules regarding dress code and usage that a Sports Director must enforce. When several teams are playing several kinds of sports in the facility, a sports director is responsible for scheduling in to ensure each team gets equal practice and play time.
Communication
A Sports Director needs to possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Knowledge of trends in the sport or activity, and the aptitude to deal with differing attitudes, personalities, and goals of team management and players, are also important for a Sports Director, who makes sure that his player has ample opportunity to work with his coaches or trainers to prepare for events or competitions. The sports director may act as a liaison when it comes to misunderstandings or disputes between player and manager, or players and organizations. He is expected to travel around and network with people related to his field by witnessing all the major sporting events.
Hiring and Management
The Sports Director is essentially the head of the Sports Department of an institution, making him in charge of human resources for sports. This can entail the hiring of new coaching staff, but also working with the coaching staff to ensure their continued satisfaction when it comes to their jobs. A Sports Director is authorised to reprimand coaching and administrative staff should the need arise. The Sports Director may also be called in to coach on occasion or may be assigned a team as part of his duties.
Training
As a Sports Director, one will be responsible for maintaining adequate training schedules for the athlete he represents. He has to make sure he has the access to facilities and equipment for both local and distant competitions and help maintain and ensure professional standards and patterns of expected behaviour from his athletes at home and away games or events. He will be responsible for the hiring and training of team support personnel including coaches, trainers and other support personnel such as medical professionals, therapists or training specialists.
Funding and Budget
Sports programs for schools and organizations are typically expensive to run. Not only do you have all of the gear and uniforms to pay for, but you’ll also need to pay for transportation and costs for facility upkeep. It is the duty of a Sports Director to oversee the budget and allocate money as he sees fit.
He’ll need to have a keen eye for accounting to ensure that funds are split up according to need and sport and that there’s money left in the budget to fund the Sports Department.
Team Building
The Sports Director will be partially or completely responsible for recruiting and signing/admitting new players into his team, doing his best to create deals that make not only the player or athlete happy but management or organizational leadership as well. He’ll work in conjunction with team coaches and athletic scouts to recruit the most talented players or athletes that he can.
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Abilash Rathnakaran, INDIAN Team Manager for kickboxing,Director of Sports, Vels University, has had a proficient presence in the sports field, spearheading several events with the state and central governments. In this process, he has associated himself with different sports federations of India, which includes the Senior National Volleyball Championship in 2016, Asian Bodybuilding Championship in 2017, Mr India Senior Bodybuilding & Best Physique in 2018 and Paralympic Nationals Games in 2019. His life, driven by his untrammelled passion for sports, is coupled with the goal of leading the way for aspiring sportspersons and enthusiasts. He would be enriching the viewers of the Asian Herald with his insights, as our Special Sports Correspondent.