Let’s Fulfill your Destiny

Christian Martin is a USF alumni and he runs his own company — Christian Martin + Associates.

Christian Martin + Associates specializes in adaptation and optimization solutions for sports businesses and sports technology teams looking to outperform the competition and take control of their destiny in today’s world.

Make sure to connect with Christian and follow his company on our platform — www.sportinglobal.com

Thank you for taking the time, Christian!

Can you share a bit about your academic and professional experience?

Sure. I received my Bachelor’s degree in International Business with a Minor in Spanish from the University of San Diego and my Master’s in Sport Management from the University of San Francisco. I have worked in business operations and management for over a decade with sports start-up businesses including Columbus Cyclery, Street Soccer USA, and Urban Soccer Park. I have also had professional engagements with the San Francisco Deltas, Pro-am Beach Soccer, Copa America 2016 Host Committee, Super Bowl 50 Host Committee and several smaller clients. I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Professional Scrum Master (PSM) with expertise in several operational disciplines such as agile product development, kanban, lean six-sigma, lean start-up, and scrum. Most recently, I advise businesses as a strategic business consultant and agility coach to make sure business leaders are performing and leading their teams and projects most effectively.

What was it about the sports that made you wanna be part of this amazing industry?

I have loved sports all my life (I played basketball, soccer, golf, and lacrosse growing up) and have valued the many principles that sports teach us in our lives. For example, sports teach teamwork and that we must all figure out how to work together to achieve a mutual goal. This means learning how to overcome our differences, influence and motivate each other, learn from one another, and build trust. Secondly, since sports are competitive, it forces players to continually develop themselves to perform at a higher level. I have constantly sought to develop my abilities and learn in order to perform better. These teachings, combined with the spectacle of sports and how it brings people together, make working in the sports industry really exciting.

As a University of San Francisco (USF) Sport Management alumni, how important has the master program been towards your success in the industry?

The Sport Management program was my foot in the door in the industry. The USF Sport Management program is very well networked and has built a strong, positive reputation for itself. I had minimal success networking in sports prior to joining the Sport Management Program, but afterward, I found getting introduced and connected to sports professionals to be much easier and my network expanded quickly because of that. Furthermore, the instructors are phenomenal mentors and I stay in touch with the faculty regularly.

You are currently running a consultancy firm. What are your key responsibilities and tasks?

My key responsibilities and tasks are providing value to my clients and to potential clients. This can take place in several forms such as advising on a project, providing insights and ideas that they may not be aware of, and even making introductions to others in my network that may be beneficial to them or helping them to adopt new technologies. I see my job as to make my clients lives easier and to help them produce better results. When this is accomplished, there is nothing more satisfying. Beyond that, I spend my time either communicating with clients or potential clients, developing marketing materials and coaching materials, or educating myself through books, industry events, online courses, etc. When I am doing my job right, I am getting good feedback from my clients, getting referrals for new business, and enjoying every second of it.

In this challenging time, the sport industry is still on hold. What do you miss the most about the sport industry?

This is a challenging time for the sports industry indeed due to COVID-19. I feel really sorrowful for those sports professionals who have lost their jobs, had their hours significantly cut, or had some other unfortunate impact. I know for one of my clients, for example, he cannot continue to tour the Guatemalan and Honduran Pro Soccer teams in the United States since large gatherings have been outlawed until we find a vaccine or get a better hold of this pandemic. However, despite all the hardships we are facing in the industry, I do see tremendous opportunities for the sports industry. For example, not having live events is forcing sports properties and technological service providers to collaborate more fiercely to develop solutions that will provide fans with even more immersive content than they have seen in the past. The University of San Francisco, for example, is hosting a live videoconference this week with Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors and is allowing alumni and students to listen in and speak to the athlete face to face. That is super cool! Most of us will never get the opportunity to stand even 12 feet from Stephen Curry, and now with technology, he is made more accessible to fans to where they can see his face up close and ask him a question. This is just one example from my week, but we are going to see a lot more innovation in fan experience and in other areas of sport, which will give sports an awesome upgrade.

What key skill sets do you need to become a sports-tech consultant?

First off, I think you need to have an established network in both sports and technology. After that, you need to be up to date with what is happening in both industries and see where their paths are converging to find opportunities and prepare for them. With these established foundations, it then requires developing the skillset and knowledge to resolve client pain points or help clients make the most of the opportunities coming out from this convergence. For myself, I have spent a lot of time developing my skillset on how to implement highly adaptable systems using agility frameworks within a company’s operations to maximize the throughput my clients can achieve within different organizational departments. For example, when it comes to developing a digital sports platform, implementing systems that provide continuous feedback and deliver new working versions of software in short increments allows my business clients to get to market faster, reduces risk, and instills higher quality in the product. All of these are extremely valuable benefits for my clients and they want to keep working with me due to my expertise in these areas.

What tips do you have for students trying to get their foot in the door?

For students trying to get their foot in the door, network and don’t give up. It can take a while to build a few solid connections, but have those connections introduce you to others and then ask for introductions from the next people. Aim for a few a week, after a year, you should have some sort of footing in the industry that can start to get you somewhere. It is probably best to know what area of sport you would like to work into so that you can specifically reach out to those people and network there. For example, do you want to work in college athletics, pro-sports, start-ups? In stadium operations, digital marketing, hospitality? There are tons of different areas within sport and you will be most effective in your networking journey if you know where you are trying to get to.