On Feb. 8, the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s Center for MEMES sponsored The Game Day Sports Case Competition, Anderson’s first sports case competition for MBA and JD students.
Launched by the UCLA Anderson Center for MEMES (Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment and Sports) and the Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova University, this competition encourages greater collaboration between MBA and JD students.“Often in business, problems are not solved in isolated analysis,” said Moorad. “It is my hope that this interdisciplinary competition can help prepare students to think creatively, stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones, and arrive at more complete, lasting solutions.”
The Game Day Sports Case Competition at UCLA Anderson is the first sports case competition that brings together MBA and JD students to take a multi-disciplinary approach to analyzing, presenting and negotiating solutions to real-world business problems. Partcipating teams competed for $10,000 in prize money.
Event judges included Andrew Brandt, NFL business analyst for ESPN; Eric Johnson, executive vice president of multimedia sales for ESPN; Gillian Zucker, Auto Club Speedway president; Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment; and Irwin Raij, partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and co-chair of the firm’s Sports Industry Team. All five participated in the opening panel, moderated by Brandt, on the business of sports and current trends impacting the industry.
First place went to Team 13 from Harvard Business School, with second and third places going to Team 10 from University of Pennsylvania and Team 7 from UCLA Anderson, respectively. Other schools participating in the event were Chapman University, Emory University, Loyola Marymount University, Marquette University, Northwestern University, Pepperdine University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and Villanova University.
