IISM students get ISL ops exposure
- International Institute of Sports Management students got behind-the-scenes access at Mumbai Football Arena, joining a Mumbai City FC match-day stadium tour before the East Bengal game. - The clearest detail is scale: about 110 students toured stands, dressing rooms, the broadcast area and press spaces, while learning operations and ticketing. - It matters because IISM is pitching sports education as job-ready training, tied to real league operations beyond just classroom theory.
Sports management sounds glamorous until you see what actually keeps a match running. Gates have to open on time. Accreditation has to work. Broadcast crews need access. Dressing rooms, media zones, ticketing, and field prep all have to line up without drama. That is the part IISM students got to see up close during a Mumbai City FC match-day learning visit at Mumbai Football Arena. ### What happened here? The concrete event was a stadium tour organized for International Institute of Sports Management students before Mumbai City FC’s match against East Bengal FC. This was not just a fan walk-through. IISM’s March 2025 newsletter describes it as an “exclusive stadium tour” built around match-day preparation, with students moving through the stands, broadcasting room, press conference room, dressing room, and other working areas inside the venue. (iismworld.com) ### Why is that useful? Because sports jobs are usually sold in broad labels — event management, team operations, venue ops, media, logistics. But a stadium is where those labels turn into actual tasks. Students could see how a football venue gets readied for kickoff, how media and broadcast spaces are separated from team areas, and how multiple departments share the same building without getting in each other’s way. That is the difference between “I like sports” and “I understand sports operations.” (iismworld.com) ### What did they actually see? The useful part is the specificity. About 110 IISM students took part. They were shown the stands, broadcasting room, press conference room, and dressing room, then got a look at the wider preparation behind the game — stadium operations, ticket costing, field preparation, sports marketing, and media communication. Basically, they were exposed to the hidden workflow that fans almost never notice unless something breaks. (iismworld.com) ### Why does Mumbai City FC matter here? Mumbai City FC gives the exercise real league context. This is not a classroom simulation or a generic venue walk-through. It happened around an actual Indian football match environment, which means the students were learning inside the rhythms and constraints of a professional club setup. That matters because football clubs and leagues hire for exactly these support functions — not just coaches and players, but operations staff, coordinators, media handlers, and venue teams. (iismworld.com) ### Is this just a one-off college activity? Not really. IISM’s whole pitch is that sports education should be vocational and industry-facing. The institute says its programs are built around sports event management, sports operations, administration, marketing, PR, data, and team or league management, with undergraduate and postgraduate programs run alongside the University of Mumbai and GICED. So this visit fits the larger model — teach the theory, then put students in real sports environments. (iismworld.com) ### Why does this matter beyond football? Because India’s sports job market is broader than cricket, even if cricket still dominates attention and money. IISM’s own 2026 industry explainer makes the point pretty bluntly: leagues beyond the IPL — including the ISL — still create openings in team management, social media, content, and venue operations. The catch is that these jobs usually reward people who already understand how live events function. A stadium tour will not make someone job-ready by itself, but it does help build that operational vocabulary early. (iismworld.com) ### So what is the real takeaway? The news is small, but the signal is clear. Sports education in India is trying to move from lecture-heavy to workflow-heavy. Seeing how a Mumbai City FC match gets assembled — room by room, department by department — is exactly the kind of exposure that turns a sports degree from a credential into a portfolio. ### Bottom line This matters less as a feel-good campus outing and more as a template. If institutes want graduates who can work in leagues, clubs, and venues, they need more learning that happens where the cables, credentials, cameras, and chaos actually are. (iismworld.com 1) (iismworld.com 2)
