In recent years, universities have established numerous classes and courses related to sports management and sports business, leading to the realization of an environment that nurtures sports talent. On the other hand, there are concerns that employment opportunities for students having studied the fields mentioned above, especially at universities in rural areas, are insufficient and that a gap is being formed between the content taught at universities and skills required by the sports industry. On conducting a survey in a prefecture, we found that small-scale organizations with less than 50 employees accounted for more than 80% of all the sports-related organizations and companies. There is a slight upward trend in the employment demand for new graduates fresh out of college. However, there is not an upward trend for hiring new graduates and mid-career workers who have only high school diplomas. In the sports industry in the prefecture the employment environment seems rather harsh when taking into account the recent trend that the number of new recruits has been increasing in private companies throughout the country. In addition, when hiring new graduates, the sports-related organizations in the prefecture have looked for general things like a bright and cheerful personality and good communication skills as a part of the factors it considered to be the properties of sports, and there was little demand for sports-specific knowledge. It seems that companies require people who are well versed in basic business customs and business skills, rather than those with specialized knowledge of sports. Accordingly, there is a need for universities to augment employment opportunities by building connections proactively with sports-related organizations that are conducting business development and make students more competitive by training them in general business customs and business skills. Further, the sports-related companies and organizations within the prefecture need to close the gap between the educational environment and industry.

In this study, data based on resources available for public access were collected from 138 sports universities throughout the country in Japan in order to quantitatively grasp the ways in which curricula are being implemented. The aim of the study was to reveal the characteristics of the existing curriculum organizations in these universities. The results showed that in 25% of the departments, the subjects and courses related to sports did not provide students with the opportunity to learn about sports management as part of the curriculum. Even when sports management was studied, only 25% offered lectures on the subject, clearly indicating that such curricula are not intended for the development of the human resources of those who would become assets in the field. However, in curricula that incorporated the study of sports management, over 70% used lectures and seminars and they most often took the form of a synthesized curriculum, which moves between theory and practice through multiple lectures and seminars. When we looked at the various departments, we realized that multiple lectures and seminars form the core of the curriculum organization for many of them. Nonetheless, we clarified that in the departments of economics and management, lectures on subjects related to economics and management are compulsory. In curriculum organization, the relevance of one subject in relation to others must be taken into consideration. Moreover, the relationship between lectures （theory） and seminars （practice） is of great significance. Therefore, a future task would be to analyze what individual classroom practice involves and to examine the links between the various classes.

An interview survey was conducted to ascertain the kind of management talent sought by a professional sports club. In order to conduct the survey, one club was selected from each of the J1, J2, and J3 groups in the 2014 season. Semi-structured interviews were conducted based on: 1. skills and qualifications required for work, 2. organization and work content of the club, 3. growth process of the club management, and 4. human resource development policy of the club. The results show a division in the abilities required to run a professional sports club, ranging from requiring highly versatile abilities such as worker fundamentals, drive, and job compatibility to specific abilities tailored to the business of a professional sports club. The foundation of a professional sports club's business is entertainment. Therefore, skills in communication to entertain people and in gaming business management are required. In addition, as sponsorship of local companies is a key focus for management, the ability to demonstrate communication that generates empathy and responsive management is essential. Clubs that are recognized as public assets of a community tend to build business models that utilize volunteers. Strategic communication to promote spontaneity was identified as an important strength to effectively manage this business model.

In this study, we introduce a rubric that includes items for evaluating skills and abilities required within professional sports clubs, as part of the Project Based Learning (PBL) for sport management education. The purpose of this study was to discuss effective ways of utilizing rubrics and to identify points for improvement during the process of introducing the training, thus accumulating findings that could contribute to better PBL. Four points were identified from the results. First, including rubrics enabled the sharing of the desired learning goals, making it easier to reconcile cognitive differences between teachers and students. Second, it helped rectify diffuse selection criteria for student evaluation scales and clarify differences in the explicitly written content between each scale level of a rubric, which is why the adoption of a 5-stage evaluation is desirable. Third, it was found that teacher intervention is required in designing PBL and in determining the division of roles among students, especially in terms of eliminating differences in the opportunities students have to acquire skills. Finally, post-training reflection accompanied with written descriptive work, going beyond the mere selection of scale levels, is useful.

This study focused on highly sustainable comprehensive community sports clubs that collaborate with local stakeholders on regional problems, and clarified their processes for producing sports products and developing club management that led to the creation of products that helped solve regional problems. Interviews were conducted with four individuals: managers and experienced former club advisors of Clubs A and B that met the "sustainable club" criteria. An analysis was conducted by employing Kinoshita's M-GTA (modified grounded theory approach) . This helped design a model diagram to demonstrate the process of creating sport products: a) specific to integrated clubs and b) for solving regional problems; and to show how the clubs involved themselves in the community based on their size and development stage. It was found that the highly sustainable clubs overcame the resource-constraining environment by not only creating a friendly community through sports but also by leveraging the community of club members with high social capital. This study also suggests that a new market can be developed by shifting the perspective from simply promoting exercise and sports to focusing on community living issues and trying to solve them through sports. These results may contribute to the management knowledge (=innovation) that helps community sports clubs solve regional problems (=sociality) and be profitable (=business) at the same time.