PES6250 Administration and Management Leadership in Sports
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S1 2026/27PES6250 Overview
- The Education University of Hong Kong
- Semester 1, 2026/27
- Postgraduate, QF Level 6
- Management
- Two individual written tasks
What this course is actually asking you to do
This is a postgraduate course in the Master of Social Sciences programme in Sports Coaching and Management, taught by the Department of Health and Physical Education.
- Assessed by Two individual written tasks and nothing else: a case study report on a real sport organisation worth thirty per cent, and a business proposal for an imaginative sports start-up worth seventy per cent.
- The skill being tested Applying a named administration or management theory to a specific sport organisation and saying what the application would change, rather than describing the theory.
- Hardest step Making the business proposal hold together across management, finance, marketing and law, so that the four sections describe one venture rather than four.
- Where to confirm Minimum lengths, deadlines, the generative AI rule and submission settings are controlled by the course Moodle page.
How PES6250 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Individual Case Study Report | 30% | Individual written report on one sport organization in the context of administration and management, supported by theories and models learnt in class. The Course Outline states not less than 900 words and the Teaching Plan states a minimum of 1,000 words. |
| Individual Business Proposal | 70% | Individual realistic business proposal for an imaginative sports start-up company, including skills of management, finance, marketing and law. The Course Outline states not less than 2100 words and the Teaching Plan states a minimum of 2,300 words. |
The Course Outline lists these two components and they total 100%. There is no examination component in the published structure. Two documents give different minimum lengths for both tasks: the Course Outline states not less than 900 and not less than 2100 words, while the Teaching Plan states minimums of 1,000 and 2,300 words, so writing to the higher figure satisfies either reading. No pass condition, hurdle, attendance requirement or late-submission penalty appears anywhere in the published course materials for this offering, and the Course Outline prints both generative AI options without marking a selection. Confirm the current lengths, the AI rule, the deadlines and the submission settings on the course Moodle page.
Assessment structure
Segment widths reproduce the published percentage weights and total 100%.
Current PES6250 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 15 October 2026 | Individual Case Study Report | Submission deadline of 23:59 stated in the Teaching Plan for this offering. |
| 11 December 2026 | Individual Business Proposal | Submission deadline of 23:59 stated in the Teaching Plan for this offering. |
Dates are as published in the Teaching Plan published for this offering of the course. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What PES6250 covers
Thirteen chapters follow the published teaching sequence from the distinction between sport and general business management through strategy, leadership, governance, finance, marketing, people, law and innovation to major events.
Sports Management as a Distinct Management Field
dual objectives that trade off · an unpredictable contest as the product · competitors as inputs · seven features that separate the two fields02Financial, Ethical and Global Challenges in Sport
revenue instability and the diversification test · corruption, integrity, discrimination and early specialisation · geopolitics and cultural fit · how each family produces the others03Leaders, Managers and the Sources of Power
influencing and enabling against maintaining order · five power bases and where each comes from · the unused lever · ethical stewardship as a role04The Strategic Management Process and Its Tools
five stages from analysis to evaluation · SWOT sorted by origin and effect · six PESTEL headings ranked · five forces in a sector that shares its rivals05Vision, Mission and Strategic Direction
aspiration against operation · four comparison rows · objectives that could be missed · alignment that settles a budget argument06Leadership Theories, Styles and Development
trait, behavioural, contingency and relational · Theory X and Y · Fiedler, situational and Path-Goal · four components of transformational leadership · servant leadership · development programmes07Governance and Accountability in Hong Kong Sport
six audiences and the lever each holds · answerability, judgement and consequence · the governance code deadline · an integrity alliance · what structural reform cannot buy08Financial Management and Revenue Streams in Sport
income grouped by what moves it · sponsorship, broadcasting and event revenue · a cost base that cannot follow the income down · five financial risks09Marketing, Branding and Sponsorship in Sport
a relationship that survives failure · digital reach as attention rather than asset · four layers of what a sponsor buys · choosing an offer against the direction10People, Teams and Communication in Sport
three workforces with different rules · where the volunteer pipeline actually leaks · inclusion as a pipeline question · culture that holds when nobody is watching · choosing a conflict response11Legal Frameworks and Ethical Issues in Sport
the sport's own rules inside the general law · contracts, intellectual property and labour · the contested zone where a livelihood is at stake · why welfare is underfunded12Innovation, Start-ups and Virtual Sport
trend against opportunity · the person inside a friction · complement, gateway or substitute · analytics as a management tool · what accumulates when you are copied13Hosting Major Sporting Events and Building Legacy
a date that cannot move · cost committed before revenue arrives · stakeholders sorted by influence and interest · a funding criterion that changed · legacy that could be missedIts published synopsis treats professional sport as an organisational business and sets out to give students fundamental knowledge and leadership skills across management, finance, marketing, human resources and law as they apply to sports organisations, guiding students through the literature of administration and management and asking them to discuss those theories and models critically in an applied sports business setting.
Both assessed pieces are individual written work, and both reward the same move: fitting a named framework to a specific organisation and showing what the fit implies.
Sports management as a distinct field
The opening chapter sets out what transfers unchanged from general business management and what does not.
Financial sustainability, strategic planning, marketing and sponsorship, and leadership and governance all carry over. Seven features do not, and three of them reverse ordinary reasoning: the objective is dual rather than single, the product is an unpredictable contest outcome rather than a standardised good, and competitors are needed for the business to function rather than eliminated.
Reading a recommendation about a sport organisation means finding which of those rows it depends on.
The pressures the sector operates under
The course sorts the industry's problems into financial, ethical and global families and then makes the point that matters more than the sorting: the families feed each other.
Financial pressure lowers the price of an ethical compromise, and an integrity failure damages trust and reduces sponsor involvement, which returns as a financial problem.
Diversifying income is the named financial remedy, and the test that matters is not how many income lines exist but how many independent things would have to go wrong for the income to fall.
Strategy, direction and the tools that answer different questions
Strategic management runs as a five-stage cycle from analysis through direction, development and implementation to evaluation, and back.
The three scanning tools are not interchangeable. SWOT sorts factors by origin crossed with effect and needs a stated objective to mean anything. PESTEL is a prompt against the blind spot and works only when the six headings are ranked and the immaterial ones recorded as set aside.
The five forces model asks who captures value, and applying it here requires splitting rivalry inside a competition from rivalry between competitions.
Direction then turns the analysis into a vision, a mission and objectives that could be missed.
Leadership, from traits to development
The leadership chapters follow four generations of theory, each relocating where leadership lives: in the person, in what the person does, in the fit between leader and situation, and in what happens between leader and follower.
Theory X and Theory Y, Blake and Mouton's Grid, Fiedler's model, situational leadership and Path-Goal all appear, along with the four components of transformational leadership, the transactional exchange and servant leadership.
The development section is short and important, because the skills those programmes teach are learnable ones, which is the practical reply to trait theory.
Governance, money, people, law and events
The remaining chapters walk the functional areas the business proposal is required to cover.
Governance asks who a sport body answers to and what a reform can buy, using recent Hong Kong cases and the course's own set readings on accountability. Finance separates income by the mechanism that drives it and sets that against a cost base that cannot fall as quickly. Marketing works out what a sponsor is actually buying.
The people chapter treats paid staff, contracted athletes and volunteers as three workforces with different rules. Law draws the boundary between the sport's own rules and the general law. The final chapters cover innovation and virtual sport, and then major events, where every constraint in the course arrives at once.
Choose the framework that answers the question in front of the board
- 3Name the tool for the venue operator's question and say why the other two do not fit.
- 3Name the tool for the district association and scope it to the decision.
- 3State what each analysis must establish for the recommendation to follow.
Key terms
- Dual Objective
- The requirement on a sport organisation to pursue competitive success and financial sustainability at the same time, so that strong performance on one carries no information about the other.
- Competitive Balance
- The condition in which enough participants can plausibly win for the contest to be worth following, which is why measures that strengthen weaker rivals can raise the value of a competition.
- Revenue Diversification
- Building an income base from sources driven by different mechanisms, so that a single adverse event cannot remove most of the income. Counting sources overstates it; independence is the test.
- SWOT Analysis
- A classification of factors by origin crossed with effect: internal strengths and weaknesses against external opportunities and threats, all judged relative to a stated objective.
- PESTEL Analysis
- A six-heading scan of the external environment covering political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors, used as a prompt against the blind spot rather than as a description of the present.
- Porter's Five Forces
- A model of where value is captured in an industry, examining new entrants, buyer power, supplier power, substitutes and rivalry among existing competitors.
- Vision Statement
- A statement of long-term aspiration over roughly three to five years, broad and idealistic in tone, whose function is to make some proposals wrong.
- Mission Statement
- A statement of what an organisation does now, for whom and by what approach, specific and operational in tone, which informs and directs staff and participants.
- Referent Power
- Influence that rests on respect and personal connection rather than on formal position, which is earned by a person and does not transfer with a job title.
- Transformational Leadership
- A leadership approach built on idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and, fourth, individualized consideration, oriented toward change rather than toward maintaining the status quo.
- Servant Leadership
- An approach in which the leader prioritises the needs and growth of team members, promoting empowerment and inclusivity and building trust through ethical and participative practice.
- Path-Goal Theory
- A contingency model in which the leader selects directive, supportive, participative or achievement-oriented behaviour according to what subordinates need and what the environment already supplies.
- Public Reputational Accountability
- A form of accountability resting on an organisation's standing among superiors, supervisory boards, courts, fiscal watchdogs, markets and peers, which operates through what the organisation publishes rather than through a formal sanction.
- Sponsorship Activation
- The campaigns and programmes a sponsor builds on the rights it has bought, which is where the sponsor's return is actually produced and therefore what decides whether a deal renews.
PES6250 FAQ
Is there an exam in this course?
No examination component appears in the published assessment structure. The Course Outline lists two assessment tasks and nothing else: an individual case study report worth thirty per cent and an individual business proposal worth seventy per cent, which together total one hundred.
That changes how the semester should be planned, because the work is two documents built over the term rather than a body of material revised at the end. Confirm the current arrangements on the course Moodle page before planning around this.
How long do the two written tasks have to be?
The University publishes a minimum for each task in two places and the two figures differ. The Course Outline states not less than 900 words for the report and not less than 2100 for the proposal, while the Teaching Plan states minimums of 1,000 and 2,300 words. Neither document overrides the other on its face.
Writing to the higher of the two figures satisfies either reading at no cost, and the current requirement is worth confirming on Moodle before you submit.
What makes a case study report an analysis rather than a description?
Four things, and the first is a boundary: a named organisation, a period, and a decision it actually faced. Then at least two frameworks from the course applied to that decision, with the second one chosen because it can disagree with the first rather than repeat it. Then a paragraph saying where the framework stops being useful for this organisation, which is what the outline means by discussing the models critically.
Then a recommendation addressed to somebody who could act on it.
Which frameworks should the report use?
Whichever two answer the question the organisation faced, and the choice is part of what is being assessed. SWOT answers what can be acted on and whether it helps or harms a stated objective. PESTEL answers what is arriving from outside that was not planned for. The five forces model answers who captures the value.
Pairing a capability tool with a bargaining tool, or an external scan with the direction cascade, produces a second reading that can contradict the first, which is what makes the analysis worth reading.
What does the business proposal have to cover?
The Course Outline asks for a realistic business proposal for an imaginative sports start-up company including skills of management, finance, marketing and law. The hard part is not covering the four areas but making them describe one venture. A common failure is a marketing section aimed at one group and a financial model that assumes a different one, which tells a reader that the sections were written separately.
Is there a hurdle requirement or an attendance requirement?
Neither is stated in the published course materials for this offering. No pass mark, hurdle, attendance threshold or late-submission penalty appears in the Course Outline or the Teaching Plan, so this guide records that the materials are silent rather than asserting that no such rule exists.
The course Moodle page and the University's own regulations are where any such requirement would be published, and they are worth checking at the start of the term.
Can generative AI be used in the assessed work?
The Course Outline prints both available options under an instruction to select one, and neither is marked as selected in the published document. The text of the permitted option itself states that instructors provide specific instructions, including any restrictions or additional requirements such as acknowledgment or reflective reports, during the first lesson and in the relevant assessment briefs.
Treat the first lesson and the assessment brief as the authority, and do not infer a rule from the outline.
What is the course reading, and is there a textbook?
The Course Outline states that there is no required text and lists recommended readings instead, covering sport management principles, international perspectives on understanding sport management, sport ethics and leadership, strategic human resource management in sport organisations, sport analytics and contemporary sport management.
The course site also carries journal articles used with specific lectures, including work on the accountability of sport organisations, on governance and accountability in international football, and on new directions in sport leadership scholarship.
How to prepare for the assessments
Choose one sport organisation in the first week and carry it through every chapter, answering each chapter's question about it before reading the chapter's own answer. That single habit does most of the work for the case study report, because by the time the report is due you will have a boundary, a decision and evidence rather than a blank page.
Then run the two documents on different clocks: the report is due in the middle of the term and the proposal at the end, so start the proposal the week the report is submitted rather than in the final fortnight, since it carries more than twice the marks and has to hold together across four functional areas.
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