ENJOYING A SPECIAL MOMENT: Calisia Gregoire poses with her recognition award and certificate at the iconic Joan Antoni Samaranch Olympic and Sport Museum in Barcelona for her graduation ceremony.
For many of us, sports is about the skillful footwork of our favourite midfielder, wearing the emblazoned t-shirts of our winning club, or looking in awe at the atmosphere and massive crowds of supporters inside the architectural and engineering marvels of modern stadiums. Sport, however, is more than that. It is a business.
Various estimates put the value of the global sport industry at $400 to $500 billion in 2024. A 2017 policy brief from The UWI titled “Value and Benefits of the Sport Industry” said that “sports is ranked among the top mainstream activities of the economy”.
If there’s one person at UWI St Augustine that knows sports’ true business potential, it is Ms Calisia Gregoire. She is the coordinator of the FIFA/CIES International Programme in Sports Management within the campus’s Department of Management Studies. Sports, she says, is full of “new possibilities and boundless opportunities”.
Late last year, she showed her own capabilities of leaping nimbly for and grasping opportunities, not only completing a very competitive advanced degree at the Johan Cruyff Institute in Spain, but also being selected as valedictorian for the graduating class and receiving the Academic Record Recognition Award for her outstanding performance.
“It was a wonderful experience from start to finish,” she says of the 13-month experience at Johan Cruyff, where she completed the Master’s in Sport Business Online (Specialisation in Sport Management).
Founded by the famed Dutch footballer, the institute operates in Amsterdam, Mexico, Peru, Stockholm, and Barcelona (where Ms Gregoire did her degree virtually). They describe themselves as “an educational institution aimed at educating athletes, and sport and business professionals in the field of sport management”.
“I was looking for a programme that didn’t entail research. This one was more project based,” she said of her reasoning for choosing Johan Cruyff. “They focussed on courses that are trending now in the industry, things like esports, digital marketing, and fan engagement.”
UWI/FIFA/CIES is a Postgraduate Diploma and Master of Science programme in Sports Management that gives students a comprehensive education in many facets of the industry — marketing, communication, finance, law, events management, and facilities management.
Most people know the acronym for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the world governing body of football and some of its variants. CIES stands for Centre International d'Etude du Sport (International Centre for Sports Studies) a Swiss research and education centre that partners with FIFA on the postgrad programme.
Ms Gregoire believes Trinidad and Tobago is ready for a more professional approach to sports management: “Many of the people taking part in the industry locally are volunteers. For example, parents who start working with clubs. There is very little qualified training in sports management.”
However, she says, things are changing as “many people are applying for sports management programmes and getting into the theoretical aspects of managing these organisations”.
In some ways, Ms Gregoire’s own journey to sports management mirrors the path she describes. Although she took part in netball, tennis, and swimming as a youth, she doesn’t consider herself an athlete. However, she does love sports, and has had an interest in how massive sporting events like the Olympics were managed.
“I started my career in the sports world volunteering extensively over the years,” she said in her valedictorian speech to the graduating class. “Volunteering opened several doors for me, but mostly it provided me with understanding the elements and dynamics of sports from the backend.”
The impetus for this was doing the UWI/FIFA/CIES postgraduate diploma, beginning as a student of the programme she would eventually coordinate.
“After that, I started to volunteer a lot,” she explains. “I got into beach soccer, a sport I knew nothing about, coordinating an annual Tobago soccer beach event.”
Today, Ms Gregoire has made a name for herself through her involvement in several sporting activities and events. She is a match commissioner for the Trinidad and Tobago Premier Football League, and was a lead coordinator for the 2024 Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens Tournament, a team liaison officer for the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup West Indies and USA 2024, and on and on.
Impressively, she was able to balance her work at UWI St Augustine, sporting activities (dedicating three weeks to work at the Commonwealth Youth Games), and her studies at Johan Cruyff, where she was top of the class. How did she do it?
“Planning, prioritising what is important, working hard,” she says. “I am a competitive person and a bit of a perfectionist. When I say I am competitive, I also compete with myself.”
She is also a very spiritual person: “I believe that we are given talents and we have to give back. I am utilising what I have to the best of my abilities.”
Currently, Ms Gregoire is back on campus for the second semester. She enjoyed a well-deserved holiday, spending two weeks in Spain, first in Madrid and then in Barcelona for the graduation ceremony. As for her next steps in the field of sports management, she hasn’t decided yet.
“Now that I have the master’s degree and all this experience in sporting events,” she says, “let’s see how it can be used to go further in other opportunities in this field that I love.”
For more information on The UWI/FIFA/CIES Postgraduate Diploma and Master of Science in Sports Management, visit https://sta.uwi.edu/FSS/DMS/sports-management-msc-and-pg-dip.
