NCS4 Hosts Sports Management Training Session for Chinese Group
Thu, 04/04/2013 - 08:31am | By: Alison Crumpton, NCS4
The National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) at The University of Southern Mississippi recently hosted a training session for 14 individuals from China on March 23-25 in New York City.
The delegation consisted of venue managers from key facilities in China. NCS4 Director Lou Marciani, and Mark Zhang, a subject matter expert from Delaware State University, taught courses in Sport Facility Management.
Training topics included: the history and future of sport and public assembly, facility safety, financing and budget, marketing and sales and facility systems, operations and maintenance.
The group had the opportunity to observe and evaluate the National Basketball Association Headquarters, Barclays Center, and Madison Square Garden, among other venues.
“The on-site learning experience at some of the most famous facilities in the United States has been very beneficial to us,” said Ping Xiong vice president of Guangzhou GET Culture and Entertainment Ltd. “We are looking forward to further collaboration with our colleagues in United States with assistance from NCS4.”
During the fall of 2011, NCS4 established a Memorandum of Understanding with the China Sport Venue Association, seeking to establish a mutually beneficial relationship committed to joint program education, research, workshops and sharing of best practices at sports venues to enhance the quality of sport venue management.
“This is the first time in which we have activated the MOU, and it was most definitely a successful training session,” said Marciani. “This opportunity is an important step toward enhancing the quality of management of sports venues both nationally and internationally.”
Established in 2006, The National Center for Spectator Sports and Security specifically focuses on research, education, and outreach in sport event security, providing an interdisciplinary academic environment to further increase sport security awareness, improve sport security policies and procedures and enhance emergency responses through evacuation, recovery operations and crowd management training.
For more information about NCS4, visit www.ncs4.com.