4 Ways That You Can Build Your Career Around Your Love of Sport

Sport is a subject that is elevated to a passion for a great number of people, something that is obvious just by looking at its sheer popularity. That’s just when looking at the sport as an umbrella term. You can see this in even greater effect when looking at individual sports and the amount of money that is brought in by those industries.

If you’re someone who can relate to this and feels a similar passion, you might be wondering how you can play sports a more important part of your life – perhaps through revolving your career around it. There are many directions that you could take if this is something that you’re interested in, each pertaining to different skills, so there may well be a path best-suited to you.

Sports Journalism

If what you love about sport is the sense of discussion and analysis that surrounds every game and team decision, this is the exact kind of career that you might find yourself in love with. Not only does this give you a platform where you can really get into these kinds of details, but it also might give you access to people in the industry through being able to interview relevant players, managers, or whoever you want to include in the discussion. With the prevalence of the internet and the various platforms provided by this piece of technology, there are so many avenues for you to place your thoughts. This includes social media, with certain platforms, such as Twitter, allowing you to attempt to open discussions with people who are in the industry.

If this does sound like a career path that you would be interested in, you might not know the best place to start, so having some suggestions can help you out here. Sports journalism colleges can give you a good foundation from which to begin, giving you a qualification that can help you break into the industry and valuable experience and knowledge that will put you in a much stronger position.

Playing the Sport

This is likely the option that takes the mantle of being the ‘ideal’ scenario, but that might also mean that it’s the least realistic. That’s not to say that there’s no way that it could happen, though, but since many sports tend to feature players who peak in their relative youth, it might be a window of opportunity that you’ve found you’ve missed. This may well be disheartening, but there are plenty of ways that you can still partake in the game through playing it with your friends or joining local clubs or hobbyist groups. This might not be the same thing as forming a career around the game, but it means you can still retain your hobby while keeping it separate from your job, which might be a blessing in disguise.

If you have kids that are part of some sort of sports team through the community or their school, you might see an opportunity to put your passion and skills to the test by helping to coach the team or get involved in some other way. This might not be on quite the scale that you imagined, but it could still help you to push your passion towards something more professional. However, if you do follow this path, it’s important to remember the age of the teams you’ll be working with and to treat it more lightheartedly than you might feel about the professional sport, as the important thing here will be that they’re having fun.

A Job at the Venues

Maybe you’re less concerned with getting a job that is actually a part of the industry and more about doing something that can get you closer to the professional sport that you love so much. In this case, getting a job that sees you working at the stadiums or venues might achieve just that while also providing you with an opportunity to perhaps get discounted tickets when you want to watch live events. While this option might not sound as glamorous as some of the other routes that have been suggested, you might find it easier to get into if you’re lacking on the end of qualifications or opportunities that were presented to you when you were younger.

Additionally, this might fit in with the career path that you were currently following anyway. For example, if you find yourself working in the business of security, this could simply be a step forward in the greater scheme of things rather than the ultimate destination of your dream career. That might help you to see it as a job that you can simply enjoy spending time with, rather than worrying about what it means for the grander scheme of your trajectory and ambitions.

Simply Keep it as a Hobby

As mentioned earlier, there are benefits to keeping your hobbies and career distinct. If you’re finding that you’re having no luck with breaking into the sports industry as a career, you might feel a sense of despair and hopelessness. There’s really no need to; however, it might feel as though you’ve expended all of your options, but in reality, there is still so much that you can do. Chasing your dream career while being able to come home to a hobby that has nothing to do with said careers can help you to actually still enjoy this hobby, instead of growing sick of it due to over-exposure and the stress it could cause you.

Having free time on the weekends when you’re away from your responsibilities is a time when you can get back to what you love about sport, from the discussions and analysis to playing games with your friends and family. Further down the line, when your career has gotten to a comfortable point, you might find that there are more obvious and manageable ways to turn your career in a sports-related direction, but until then, it might do you well to focus on your other interests to help you find a career that you can thrive in and be happy with.