The Course aims to train professional profiles that express legal and managerial skills related to the world of sport, in the private sector and in public administrations. In particular, the Course integrates in its training path knowledge and skills especially of a legal, economic and business nature, aimed at understanding and managing the various profiles that come into play, in light of the regulatory context of reference, with regard to professional and amateur sport. The training of the graduate, in addition to aiming to achieve the training objectives of a degree course of legal nature, will specifically allow the acquisition and development of knowledge in the field of sports contracts, sports membership, national and international organization of sport, sports justice, sports market, management of sports clubs, including in the scope of the training offer also teachings relating to other areas, including communication and psychology in sport.
The activation of this degree course fits perfectly within the territorial context of Puglia and Lecce, particularly fertile and lively from a sporting point of view. Considering only amateur clubs, to date there are approximately 5500 sports clubs registered in the CONI public register, of which over 1200 in the province of Lecce alone, belonging to the most diverse sports federations. Therefore, there are tens of thousands of company managers and sports operators in general in the area, most of the time driven by great passion but not supported by adequate training. Within this reference context, the degree course offers an adequate response to the widespread demand for greater professionalism in the sector, proving attractive not only for graduates who want to undertake a legal-managerial career in the world of sport, but also for current sports operators who want to specialize and develop their knowledge and skills in the field.
With regard to the more specifically academic context, it must first be noted that a three-year degree course in Sports Law and Management, activated in the class of legal services, represents a unique event in Southern Italy and in the national panorama. In very rare cases, single-cycle degree courses in Law offer curricula with a sports focus. In reality, however, the educational offer of the three-year degree course is significantly different from that which characterizes a classic five-year degree course in Law, both in terms of the recipients it hopes to reach, and with regard to the content of the individual courses, which aim to provide above all specialist knowledge, purely professionalizing and usable in the sector. Even with regard to the various master's degrees and advanced courses in sports law and/or management existing throughout Italy, the originality of a three-year degree course dedicated to these subjects must be reiterated: first of all, in fact, access to the course is allowed to simple high school graduates, as no higher qualification is required for enrollment; furthermore, the educational offer of a three-year course of study cannot be compared in terms of completeness and depth with a course of study of often much shorter duration.
The course also proves to be innovative with regard to the methods of delivery of teaching. In particular, due to the 'mixed' nature of the Degree Course, part of the teaching activities will be delivered through pre-recorded video lessons and posted on a specific UniSalento e-learning platform. The remaining percentage of the basic and characterizing courses and all other Training Activities will be delivered in conventional mode, in person, possibly with additional online services (streaming recording and subsequent availability on a specific platform).
To this end, please note that all the classrooms available in the Department (about 20) are equipped with a projection screen and audiovisual and sound projection devices, including video projectors and microphones (classrooms 1.0) as well as for streaming video recordings by making small interventions with minimal costs. Furthermore, 5 classrooms (3 in the R2 building and 2 in the R3 building) are equipped with hardware and software for live audio-video recording, with the possibility of managing the direction (classrooms 2.0). The Department is also equipped with an audio-video computer-telematic system suitable for webinars, with the possibility of interacting remotely with the speaker.
This profile allows the course's user base to be expanded, as it allows profitable study for those who, for work or distance reasons, cannot physically attend class. This aspect is even more fundamental considering a double set of reasons: on the one hand, the course represents a unique event at a national level and therefore the e-learning mode would significantly facilitate the enrollment of students from all over Italy; on the other hand, since the training offer is also aimed at those who already work in the sports sector (and not just graduates), distance learning would also allow working students to actually follow the lessons.
The methods of assessing skills for all courses are the conventional ones (in-person exams). However, the Degree Course provides for the suspension of teaching activities in order to allow exemptions to be carried out in order to facilitate the student's preparation for the individual exam.
In terms of employment outcomes (AlmaLaurea data, 2018), within one year of obtaining the degree, over half (51.7%) of graduates in a Degree Course belonging to class L-14 (Legal Services Sciences) work, while many continue their education by enrolling in a Level II Degree Course (33.2%) or by participating in post-graduate training activities (39.5%). These data, however, assume moderate relevance in relation to the Degree Course in Sports Law and Management, given the originality of the course at regional and national level.
Furthermore, the course is also confirmed as innovative within the University's educational offering, and in particular in the teaching of the Department of Legal Sciences, which currently has no three-year degree courses; above all, it fits perfectly within a university context such as that of the University of Salento, which in recent years has increased its sporting vocation with various initiatives, among which the activation of the Degree Course in Motor and Sports Sciences and the advanced course in Sports Management organized by the Department of Economic Sciences stand out. Educational models with respect to which the three-year Course appears complementary and harmoniously integrated.