HBS To Instruct NFL Members

Picture a National Football League (NFL) training camp. Now combine that image with one of a classroom at Harvard Business School (HBS).

It may seem an unlikely marriage, but come this April, professional sports will tackle the business world, when 35 NFL players are slated to participate in an intensive workshop at HBS about how to make the transition from football to a business career.

The program aims to teach the football players some of the skills necessary for starting a new, post-athletics career in investment, entrepreneurship or on the boards of other companies, according to W. Carl Kester, senior associate dean and chairman of the MBA Program at HBS.

Kester said that this will be a chance for NFL players to get the training necessary to put their “personal capital” and business ideas into action.

And according to NFL spokesman Dan Masonson, this program will give the players a chance to test the waters of a different career.

“A lot of it is for players to see if they are interested in business and to gain a better and deeper understanding of what it is to be in the business field.” Masonson said.

Players within the NFL brought up the idea, Kester said, and approached the nation’s top business schools to gauge interest in such a program.

HBS and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School were chosen as the first sites. Wharton also plans to admit 35 players.

Kester said that the admissions process has not been finalized, so he could not say exactly which NFL members will make up the class.

“We just got all the details buttoned up a week ago,” Kester said.

HBS itself will not oversee the admissions process, though Kester said that it was giving the NFL “guidance.”

An NFL.com article reported that admissions personnel would give “priority based upon years of NFL experience and business background.”

But Kester said that HBS suggested the criteria be based on interest shown in pursuing a serious career after retiring as a player.

The HBS program will be divided into two three-day sessions. The first of these will teach techniques of financial management, taxes, and “legal and organizational structure,” according to Kester.

In this session, the players will devise a independent assignment, which they will research over the next four to five weeks.

The second module, beginning in May, will focus on general management skills, decision-making, and marketing. And it will focus on applying these ideas to the plans the players have devised, Kester said.

Their business plans will then be discussed in workshops. Players with common interests and HBS faculty will work together on finding ways to implement them.

Kester said that the program would be “very hands on.”

“Our aim is not for the players to absorb a few basics, but to instill in them a knowledge of business that will help them with a larger plan,” Kester added.

This is the first program that HBS has sponsored in conjunction with a professional sports organization.

Masonson said NFL players have responded enthusiastically to the idea of the HBS and Wharton workshops and that he expects all 70 spots to be filled.