David Carter
Executive Director, Sports Business Institute
USC Marshall School of Business
Given the centrality of Southern California to the international sports industry, “there is no more appropriate place to undertake an initiative such as this,” claims David M. Carter.
The initiative he refers to is USC’s Sports Business Institute, which was launched in October 2005.
As its founding director, Carter heads what is believed to be the country’s first all-encompassing sports-business center at a premier academic institution.
Based in the USC Marshall School of Business, the institute sponsors scholarly research and executive education programs as well as seminars and symposia for industry participants and stakeholders.
“USC Marshall is uniquely positioned,” Carter says, “to dominate the growing field of sports business.”
And Carter is uniquely qualified to make that call. He has written three books about the sports-business industry: You Can’t Play the Game If You Don’t Know the Rules (1994), Keeping Score (1996) and On the Ball: What You Can Learn about Business from America’s Sports Leaders (2003), co-authored with ESPN’s Darren Rovell. The current sports-business commentator for American Public Radio’s “Marketplace Morning Report,” Carter is a graduate of the USC Marshall School and has served on its faculty since 1994.
As a sports-business consultant specializing in strategic marketing, Carter and his firm, the Sports Business Group, have consulted for corporations, organizations, sports and entertainment venues, law firms, municipalities and individual athletes.