Research articles

Sport Management Higher Education in Scandinavia

April 2, 2025

B. Skirstad¹, H. Gammelsæter², P.G. Fahlström³ & U. Wagner⁴¹ Norwegian School of Sport Sciences; ² Molde University College, Norway;
³ Linnaeus University, Sweden; ⁴ University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Aim: To describe the development of sport management higher education (HE) in the Scandinavian countries. The article maps the institutions, when the programs started (and dissolved), program level, the amount of sport specific courses (ECTS credits), and internship offers.

Method: The data derive from: (1) the four authors’ personal experience as entrepreneurs of higher education in sport management and their personal study notes (2) brief conversations/contacts with other entrepreneurs of such programs, in 2016 and 2024 respectively (3) archive studies of previous and present program and plans, and (4) literature on sport management higher education (HE) in Scandinavia

Results: Sport management HE in Scandinavia is not a standardized package. Despite commonalities in sporting cultures across Scandinavia, there are differences. Whilst there are strong similarities between Norway and Sweden, Denmark diverges in three respects. First, the Danes never established a national sports university. Second, in contrast to their Scandinavian neighbors, in Denmark Sport management HE suffers from a clear differentiation in HE level between university colleges and universities. Third, in recent years the Danish governments have introduced regulation that restricts the HE institutions’ capacities and recruitment strategies. As a result, in Denmark there is hardly any offer left to study sport management at university level.

Click to download this SMHE article

BERIT SKIRSTAD is an Associate Professor Emerita in sport management at NIH. She developed the study of sport management at NIH, and she started the first program in 1987 and was responsible for the study for more than 20 years. Her research interests have been gender and sport, sport organizations and volunteers at sport events. She was board member from 1996 to 2003, vice-president 2003-2005 and president of the European Sport Management Association (EASM) from 2005-2009. In 2020 she received the Chelladurai Award.

HALLGEIR GAMMELSÆTER, PhD, is a Professor in Social change, Organisation and Management at Molde Specialized University in Logistics, Norway. He teaches courses in management and organization theory, including on the sport management program. The majority of his publications deal with the organization and governance of commercialised sport. He has served in different positions in the European Sport Management Association and is currently assistant editor at its journal (ESMQ).

PG FAHLSTRÖM, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Sport Science at Linnaeus university, Sweden. He teaches coaching sport leadership, talent development and sport management. His publications are focusing sports coaching, leadership in sports, talent development and sport school systems. He was a board member of the European Sport Management Association for ten years including four years as President, 2013-2017.

ULRIK WAGNER, PhD, holds a position as Associate Professor and serves as Head of Section at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS). His research focuses on sport and physical activity in the intersection between business, politics and mass media – often from a perspective of organizational sociology. He teaches courses in qualitative methods at the University of Copenhagen. Before joining NEXS in 2021, he worked at the University of Southern Denmark from 2011 to 2020. He is a member of EASM since 2010.