Sarah Napoli: Shaping the Next Generation of Sports Business Leaders with Professor
In this episode of the MVP Interactive Podcast, host James Giglio sits down with Professor Sarah Napoli, Assistant Clinical Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. With a rare blend of academic insight and over a decade of hands-on experience with the Philadelphia Phillies, Sarah brings a powerful and practical perspective to the evolving world of sports business education.
From the Field to the Classroom
Sarah’s journey began as a multi-sport kid whose passion took her to Ithaca College, where she studied sport management and played field hockey. That path eventually led to internships—one of which launched an 11-year stint with the Phillies, culminating with a World Series win, a championship parade, and career-shaping experience in premium sales and relationship development.
Her transition to academia came gradually: first as an adjunct, then as a full-time faculty member at Drexel, where she now designs curriculum, leads experiential learning, and mentors the next generation of sports professionals.
Teaching Sports Business in a Changing World
One of the core themes of the conversation is Sarah’s belief in the power of soft skills—communication, curiosity, initiative, and relationship building—skills she argues are more valuable than ever in a highly competitive industry where technical knowledge can be taught, but drive cannot.
At Drexel, Sarah and her colleagues are responding to this rapidly shifting landscape with:
- A business-first curriculum that sits inside the LeBow College of Business
- Courses in emerging areas such as NIL education and AI in sports
- A robust industry advisory board that ensures students are learning what employers actually need
- Drexel’s signature co-op program, giving students 18 months of real-world experience before graduation
The Value of Experience, Exposure & Networking
Sarah emphasizes that industry exposure matters—and students hear this not only from textbooks, but from the dozens of real-world leaders she brings into her classroom. (James reflects on his own experience guest-lecturing and the meaningful student engagement that came from it.)
From her perspective, standing out in sports begins with understanding why you want to work in the industry, what strengths you bring, and—equally important—what you need to develop. She stresses the importance of thoughtful networking, following up, and taking initiative…skills that often separate hired candidates from hopeful applicants.
What’s Most Rewarding
For Sarah, nothing compares to hearing from former students who land positions with teams like the Sixers, Flyers, or MLB clubs. Being a small part of their journey—and sometimes a long-term mentor—is what she considers the most meaningful aspect of her work.
Watch the Video
Highlights
00:01 Sarah’s Path into Sports Business
01:06 Discovering Sport Management at Ithaca
02:10 Internships that Launched Her Phillies Career
04:23 Inside the 2008 World Series Experience
05:23 Essential Skills for Future Sports Professionals
07:33 Teaching Sales and Relationship Building
08:51 Real-World Learning Through Industry Guests
11:26 Trends Shaping Modern Sports Business Education
14:39 Preparing Students for the Future of Sports
16:14 The Power of Drexel’s Co-op Experience
19:03 How Students Can Stand Out in a Competitive Field
23:42 Sarah’s Most Rewarding Career Moments
About Sarah Napoli
Assistant Clinical Professor, Sport Business
Sarah Napoli is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the department of Sport Business at Drexel University LeBow College of Business. She possesses over nine years of teaching experience and 11 years of sport industry experience, working for the Philadelphia Phillies. During Professor Napoli’s time with the Phillies, she was part of a franchise record 257 sellout games, helped to faciliate more than 10 postseason events, over a dozen concerts, and a Winter Classic ice hockey contest. Professor Napoli’s day-to-day responsibilities included maintaining relationships with the Phillies’ corporate suite clients, collaborating with various departments to plan client events, and planning upcoming promotional dates for fans. Now in her second year as a full-time faculty member, Professor Napoli works closely with Sport Business students to support their goals of obtaining experience in the industry.
Education: Ithaca College, Bachelor of Science in Sport Management, 2007 Drexel University, Master of Science in Sport Management, 2013
Areas of Expertise
- General Business
- Sales Promotions
- Marketing Strategy and Management
- Social Impact
- Event Management
- Career Management
- Behavioral Science/Org Behavior
Awards
2024 Excellence in Teaching (Drexel University)
Podcast Transcript
James Giglio (00:01.473)
Welcome back to the next episode of the MVP interactive podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Sarah Napoli. I should say professor Sarah Napoli, who is an assistant clinical professor at Drexel University’s Laveau College of Business, where she teaches and develops curriculum in the field of sports business with a strong background in both academia and industry, giving her time at the Philadelphia Phillies. Her teaching emphasizes experiential learning, industry engagement, and the development of critical skills for future leaders.
Sarah Napoli (00:10.03)
you
James Giglio (00:31.231)
I can attest to this personally as I was a grateful guest at her classes. I presented at two classes and so I really enjoyed that time. So Sarah, thanks so much for joining us.
Sarah Napoli (00:42.456)
Thank you for having me. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
James Giglio (00:46.059)
Awesome, awesome. Well, as your bio mentioned, you have a really unique skill set, especially in the world of sports business, given your history with the Philadelphia Phillies. And so could you walk us through maybe your career path, even pre-gating the Phillies and kind of navigate us to how you landed here at Drexel?
Sarah Napoli (01:06.83)
Absolutely. So I guess you could start thinking about when did my love of sports happen, right? And just like a lot of kids, I always played a lot of different sports growing up. And then as I got into high school, when you start thinking about colleges, the major of sport business, sport management was just emerging, just starting to become a little bit more mainstream.
So I thought, oh, all right, well, why can’t I turn my love of playing sports into working for sports? So again, when I was looking at colleges, there weren’t a lot of schools that had a sport management degree, but I ended up choosing Ithaca College in upstate New York. And I played field hockey there and I majored in sport management. So that sort of set me on the path of learning more about the business of sports.
When I was at Ithaca, was able to complete two internships. One was at Villanova in their, you know, sport business office. So I got to see behind the scenes of how large division one organization is run. And then for my second internship, I worked for the Phillies, ended up turning that into an 11 year career. I worked in sales in the sales office. So I was the manager of sweet sales and services. Really in a nutshell, that job is about relationship building.
And we will talk a lot about that during this episode, I’m sure. When I was with the Phillies, I decided to go to Drexel to obtain my master’s degree in sport management. And after I finished that degree, I started teaching. I was an adjunct instructor at a couple different area schools. And I realized, oh, I actually like the teaching part. And let’s see what we can do with this. So I ended up leaving the Phillies in 2017 because I had started a family.
but I continued teaching part-time. And then in 2021, I was able to obtain a full-time faculty position at Drexel. I’m really, yeah, it’s great. I’m really thankful that Drexel valued my industry experience because I think that’s so valuable in how I can try to help students with their career goals.
James Giglio (03:09.909)
wonderful so
James Giglio (03:23.221)
Yeah, for sure. And in my limited exposure to sports management programs, I have noticed a trend where the curriculum may just be adjunct professors at this point, where there may not be a full curriculum. And it’s former attorneys or sports agents where you don’t see many real life practical professors that actually lived in the sports world. So I think that really
makes a huge difference in terms of your students’ kind test to that.
Sarah Napoli (03:54.786)
For sure, it’s certainly helpful in terms of connecting with students. And at Drexel, we have a good mixture. We have a good mixture of professors who have studied areas of sports, sport business, and people who still work in the industry and are teaching part-time. So it’s a good mixture.
James Giglio (04:16.158)
Yeah. And so I just have to ask during your tenure with the Phillies, was this during the World Series era as well?
Sarah Napoli (04:23.608)
yes, it was. Yes, it was. My first full season with the Phillies was 2007. they made it. Right. Yeah. They made it to the postseason and were promptly swept by the Colorado Rockies. So then you start the season in 2008 and we all know what happened then. So I am what, 24 years old and I’m on a parade float.
James Giglio (04:31.453)
my goodness, you were right there.
Sarah Napoli (04:49.368)
part of the ring ceremony and I’m like, this is what working in sports is like. This is great.
James Giglio (04:53.409)
Yeah, right. Talk about beginner’s luck, right? my goodness. Well, that’s awesome. That’s a great experience. I’m sure your students love hearing about that as well. But back to the sports management and business programs that, as you mentioned, are increasingly popular and becoming more more ubiquitous throughout education. From your perspective, what skills and experiences do you think are most crucial for students looking to break into the sports industry?
Sarah Napoli (04:58.178)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Napoli (05:23.52)
Yeah, that’s a really good question. You know, the I’ll back up a little bit and talk specifically about Drexel. The thing I like about our program is that it’s housed within our school of business. So back in the day, back when I was working toward my undergrad degree, a lot of sport management, sport business programs were housed within like health sciences or kinesiology. And it was sort of like
because we just didn’t know where to put the sport business department. But now we’ve evolved and we give our students a really strong business core, a really strong business foundation. Then we build the sport classes into the curriculum second year, third year. So I really like that approach. Now, when we’re thinking about the skills that are needed, yes, of course you have to have an understanding of what makes sport marketing different than traditional marketing.
You have to understand sport law, sport econ, right? All those different disciplines. But what I really think about in terms of skills would be what people might call soft skills, or you could call them people skills, right? The relationship building, the ability to carry a conversation with somebody, the ability to take the initiative to go above and beyond what is asked. I think those skills are so important. So.
In addition to the textbook stuff, I always try to make sure I’m building in those soft skills so that students can practice them in class.
James Giglio (06:55.945)
And that’s great and I didn’t realize your time with the Phillies you were in sales and as a fellow salesperson I think that is despite what maybe stereotypes think of you know others think of sales and what that entails I think it is a immensely crucial skill set to have that not everyone is necessarily good at that can certainly you know learn and train to practice to be good but
How much do you think that experience, do you influence your students to really get comfortable with asking questions, asking hard questions, rejection, things of that nature, everything that kind of comes in the wholesale cycle?
Sarah Napoli (07:33.356)
Yeah, I really try to debunk the stereotypes or the myths of salespeople, right? Again, I try to think about it as, all right, how can we find a solution that’s beneficial to both parties, right? How can we make this a true partnership? And I approach that the same way in my classes, right? I tell my students, like, I’m on the same team as you, we’re all working toward the same goal.
James Giglio (07:39.349)
Yeah.
Sarah Napoli (08:03.542)
My goal is to help you make those connections from what you’re learning in the classroom to the real world, to whatever part of the industry you want to work in. So really, when you think about the different experiences students have, I always tell them that all experiences are valuable because you’re going to find out if you like something, you’re going to find out if you don’t like something, and that’s going to help you narrow down which part of the industry might be best for you.
James Giglio (08:31.293)
so critically important. That actually is a good segue into other guests that you bring into your classroom. Again, as I mentioned, I’ve had just an amazing experience both times with presenting to your class, but what have you found to be some of the more valuable real-world industry leaders into your classroom and what was the response of the students?
Sarah Napoli (08:51.65)
Yeah, well, first of all, I do want to thank you for joining two of my classes. You covered leadership. You talked about the importance of servant leadership in my grad level class, and that was really helpful. And then in the sport marketing class, the students read your book, right? And I really liked how the advice in your book brought our traditional textbook to life. So I’m always trying to find ways to supplement
James Giglio (08:55.074)
Cool.
Sarah Napoli (09:20.994)
like traditional academic materials with materials that might resonate with the students a bit more. So that’s my approach there. The other thing I think about is that my students would probably listen to industry professionals a little bit more than they might listen to their professor. So when they’re sort of reiterating things that I’ve said to them, I like that because then they
they stick in their brains a little bit more. Yeah.
James Giglio (09:53.067)
Yeah, and I’d imagine it brings a level of not that there would be any question of your background or experience, but I’d imagine it really propels you as a real leader in the space to bring all of these different leaders into the classroom because I’m sure, as I mentioned, right, a lot of these professors that are in this sports management may have not had the practical experience, which then may not in turn create the network that you have. So I’m sure your students really appreciate.
Sarah Napoli (10:22.542)
Right. And I mean, to be very transparent, I left the Phillies in 2017, right? The sport business industry has shifted and evolved a ton since then. So it’s up to me to make sure I’m staying current on certain trends, but also to maintain my network of industry professionals to make sure that I can continue to have a really strong group of individuals who are willing to speak to students.
James Giglio (10:50.229)
Yeah, yeah. Well, you mentioned industry trends, right? And so from a classroom vantage point, I’d imagine even from, you know, this is something that I discussed in your classroom and even in the book that in 2012, how much the world looked different in sports than it does now. And even from a fan experience standpoint, but talk to us a little bit about what you’ve seen over last seven, eight years in terms of the classroom vantage point and the biggest trends that are shifting, whether it’s in the business curriculum, media rights.
of course, NIL has emerged on the scene as a massive sea change in the sports industry. So we’d to hear a little bit more about that.
Sarah Napoli (11:26.156)
Yeah, sure. So something that we do within the sport business department is we maintain an advisory board. So we have a group of 10 to 15 individuals who are industry professionals, and we meet with them on a quarterly basis to make sure that they’re providing input on keeping our curriculum current, providing experiential learning opportunities, and maybe even
like one-on-one mentorship. So that advisory board is really helpful for us in asking them like, what classes should we be offering? What trends do students need to know about so that they can, you know, be relevant when they graduate? So, two.
James Giglio (12:12.865)
That’s fantastic. that unique to Drexel or do you see that across the board in the sports management curriculum?
Sarah Napoli (12:20.118)
I think a lot of sport management departments do have some version of an advisory board. I know within Drexel, within our business school, a lot of the different disciplines also have an advisory board set up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really helpful.
James Giglio (12:34.453)
great to know. That’s great to know. And so I guess that, yeah, sorry, sorry to get you up there. But I guess that kind of leads into the next question. And I do apologize for this because, you know, I debated asking because, you know, I’m being on the other side of these interviews sometimes people always ask about the future and technology and things of that nature. It’s really a frustrating question sometimes. But I do feel like it is appropriate because we, in our tenure,
albeit a decade or less, we’ve seen so much change. Where do you see sports business programs evolving over the next maybe five or 10 years?
Sarah Napoli (13:11.116)
Yeah. So there’s a lot of different directions we could take this in. What we’re doing currently is we are offering an NIL education class. We piloted that last year and we hope to be able to continue that, right? Because you think about the constantly changing college sports landscape. Who knows where that will end up? So we have to do our best to try to stay current on what’s happening there.
And then the other thing that we’ve been able to do is think about a class related to AI in sport. How is generative AI going to help people on the sport side, on the athlete side of things, but then also behind the scenes in the front office? So that’s just two areas that we’ve already started to uncover. But then if we’re thinking more broadly in the next
five to 10 years, that’s actually a very good question because for those who don’t know Drexel is undergoing what we’re calling an academic transformation. We are transitioning from the quarter system. We have 10 week classes every quarter right now. We’re transitioning to a more traditional semester system. So what we’re thinking about in the business school is the students who are graduating in 2032.
James Giglio (14:20.449)
Interesting.
Sarah Napoli (14:39.758)
What skills should they possess when they walk in graduation at Drexel? I guess you could take that in a lot of different directions. Are we thinking about global sport? Are we thinking about how the big four leagues in the US are constantly trying to figure out how to become more global brands? That’s one way you could take it. You could think about sustainability in sport and how are we going to
teach the students more about the responsibility we have in terms of sustainability. That kind of feeds into like a societal impact conversation as well. And then again Drexel emphasizes experiential learning in all different forms. So how can we further encourage students to study abroad, take part in a global immersion program? Those are the things that we’re thinking about when we consider
who we want our 2032 graduates to be.
James Giglio (15:42.178)
I I mean, my gosh, my heart dropped because I was a 16 year old daughter and we’re like early in this process, I’m like, wait a second, I think she may fall within that range. but here’s a question that, you know, given the new, you know, sort of a semester based curriculum, and would you say there’s more opportunity on experiential learning opportunities, whether that’s internships or.
field trips even given that you know it’s so seasonal compared to how you guys currently run it where if it’s every 10 week it’s a 10 week sprint like it could be in middle of a season or something along those lines.
Sarah Napoli (16:14.947)
Yeah.
There are pros and cons to sort of fitting in with the rest of the college world, I guess you could say, where yes, there would be more opportunities for traditional summer internships for our students. Now, we will remain a cooperative education institution. I can briefly explain what that means. With our students, most of them come to Drexel and they stay for five years.
But within that five years, they complete three six-month internships. So when they graduate from Drexel, they already have 18 months of work experience. And that will not change. Our students will still work two or three internships during their time in school.
James Giglio (17:08.281)
And I can actually attest to that. We are currently a part of the Drexel co-op and we’ve hired some developers to intern for us and we’re very proud to see them grow and one is actually working for EA Sports now. So that was very cool.
Sarah Napoli (17:20.59)
Nice. Good, good. So you’ve had a good experience with the Drexel Co-op program. That’s good. Yeah.
James Giglio (17:26.305)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he was a rock star.
Sarah Napoli (17:30.478)
That’s great. Yeah. So we’re, maintaining that. And then, you know, the hope would be that we still maintain all of the relationships with our current co-op employers. The, the timing of the co-ops just might shift a little bit.
James Giglio (17:45.824)
And you you touched on this a little bit beforehand with, you know, how you educate your students and really key on what real life experience or skill sets are valuable. But what advice would you most often give about building their career and standing out in such a very competitive industry? I remember not too long ago, a member of the National Sports Forum community, I think, attending for years.
I remember, I think it may have been back in 17 or 18 in Las Vegas, and it happened to be running along the same time in the same hotel as Major League Baseball’s intern hiring session. And what I learned about the demand of the requirement, the scrutiny and the requirements is to be come to work for an MLB organization or the league itself and…
you maybe not the most competitive pay because of the competitive interest, you know, I can imagine that’s pretty daunting even though, because, I who doesn’t love sports? I it’s a little, you know, slanted, but yeah, so what do you really suggest to your students to kind of really stand out?
Sarah Napoli (19:03.02)
Yeah, there’s a bunch of things I think about and a bunch of pieces of advice I might give to somebody who’s interested. You have to sort of ask yourself, why do you want to work in sports? And is it because you want to hang out with the athletes? You want to meet the players? If that’s your answer, you might need to rethink that a little bit, right? Because that might, you might, you know, find yourself in an elevator with an athlete once.
a year, right? But that should not be the reason why you want to work in sports. So I think we start there, right? What’s the reason why? And then you think about, right, well, what is your current skill set? What are your strengths? And how can you use those to figure out what part of the industry might be best for you? But then also, like, what are your areas of opportunity? What do you need to strengthen in order to have a full skill set to be a really desirable candidate?
So that’s one piece of it. But then as an example, right, James, you came to campus and you spoke with students. How many of those students then connected with you on LinkedIn or sent you a note to say thank you or this piece of your talk really resonated with me? If they didn’t do that, then that’s a missed opportunity for sure. So the networking piece, the relationship building piece, I know people always say network, but.
James Giglio (20:14.977)
Yeah
Sarah Napoli (20:29.366)
I really try to give my students concrete examples of that and action items that they should follow up on in order to differentiate themselves from everybody else who wants to work in the industry.
James Giglio (20:40.021)
Yeah, that’s invaluable advice for sure. One in which I wish I received much earlier in my life, but a lot of my education has been brought on real life experiences. So it’s great that you’re giving your students a head start. And what you had said earlier, I can’t remember the team or an interview I saw, but I think.
you know, a sports professional or an executive who said, you know, during their interview question, you know, why do want to work here? And the answer is, well, I love the team. That’s usually puts you in the, you know, the category that you may not be the best fit because, you know, I guess passion is important, but you don’t want to be, you know, just a starry eyed not being able to your job just because you’re overwhelmed.
the organization you work with. And even on our end, think it’s funny. think I’m quite honestly the only sports fan in my business and building technology as this is anecdotal, but it’s hysterical. One of our creative designer and programmer, we were building a football experience and he’s like, hey, so after they scored the home run, what should we do in the game? It’s like, I just thought it was amazing. So I get a kick out of that stuff, but you know, it’s.
Sarah Napoli (21:45.518)
man.
James Giglio (21:52.32)
You know, it’s, but it didn’t interfere with their work, right? So it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be, you know, so overwhelmed on the fan base or the fandom into being a marketing professional or sales professional because it really will transcend a sport. And you see that in sports, right? As big as a market it is, at least from my experience, it’s a very small network of individuals and you can kind of try.
where professionals go from team to team or league to league and it’s all over the board. really, being passionate to the team really has no correlation to your professional interest.
Sarah Napoli (22:28.11)
Right. No, and to go off of that, was just reading the Sports Business Journal just put out a whole publication about their women leaders in sports. It’s called Game Changers. And they interviewed each of these women to say, what do you look for in a new hire? And time and again, I kept reading people who are curious, right? Curiosity. And then a bunch of times there were women who said,
I can teach you the technical things. I can teach you the terminology, right, of a sport, but I can’t teach you some of those intrinsic skills, right? Those, the ability to take the initiative, the ability to be really curious and ask a lot of questions. So yeah, the terms and all the etiquette, whatever it is, that’s teachable, but the other stuff is a little bit harder.
James Giglio (23:25.505)
Well, Sarah, this has been such an amazing interview so far, before we wrap up, want to talk, and you touched on this a little bit earlier, but if you were to reflect on your personal and professional career, what do you think has been the most rewarding moment for you, whether that’s being hired by the affiliates that are now teaching, what does that look like for you?
Sarah Napoli (23:42.956)
Right. I probably shouldn’t say, right, winning a World Series. That’s bad. And it’s not. Like, to be very honest, that’s not the most rewarding part of it. Yeah, it was fun. But now in my current role, I’m very passionate about helping my students, you know, find their way in the sport industry. So if I have a student who has recently graduated,
And they reach out to me and they say, Hey, Sarah, I just got a job offer with the Sixers with the Flyers, whoever it might be. And they say, thank you for that. Or if they post on LinkedIn that I just accepted this job offer. And they, you know, give me a little shout out in the LinkedIn comment. It makes me feel really good that I had a small part, right? I played a small role in helping them achieve their career dreams. So.
quite honestly, that’s very much the most rewarding part of my job.
James Giglio (24:43.573)
You know, that’s really interesting. And again, as I mentioned, because I’m early in this process of looking at colleges for my daughter and looking at what she likes, but we’re watching these interviews. And there was a professor that said, I think what most students miss out on is the concept is you can connect with one professor and maintain a relationship with that professor throughout your collegiate and professional life. That makes a huge difference. So it sounds like you’re really
embedded in that and that’s a great philosophy to have. So I’m grateful that I did not do that as a college student, that’s for sure. So it’s really great advice and I’m happy that you really deployed that as philosophy.
Sarah Napoli (25:27.256)
Yeah, I’ve had professors from my undergrad days that I’ve stayed in touch with who have helped me. So I certainly want to emulate those people who have helped me and pay it forward.
James Giglio (25:40.128)
Yeah. Well, Sarah, I’m sure there’s going to be a ton of students that catch this interview and really drive an interest to Drexel. Hopefully help with admissions and continue to grow the sports management curriculum. Wherever you’re comfortable, where can and how can individuals find you?
Sarah Napoli (26:00.098)
Right, so I’ve mentioned LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time on that platform. You can certainly find me there. You can Google Sarah Napoli Drexel University. You’d find me there. My email address is included on the Drexel website and I’d be happy to connect with anybody who reaches out.
James Giglio (26:18.402)
That’s fantastic. And Sarah can’t thank you enough. This was an amazing discussion. And everyone listening, thanks again for joining in on the MVP Interactive podcast. Until next time.
Sarah Napoli (26:28.792)
Thanks, James.
