Scott Tainsky has been appointed as the new Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Academic Operations for the David B. Falk College of Sport at Syracuse University. Tainsky, who began his role on July 1, brings experience from Wayne State University, where he served as professor of management and Director of Sport and Entertainment Management. He has received awards for innovative teaching and research from the Mike Ilitch School of Business and is currently editor in chief of the Journal of Sport Management.
Tainsky’s research focuses on decisions made by sports managers and their impact on organizational performance and fan well-being. He has co-authored over 50 journal articles and was named a North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) Research Fellow in 2015.
“Scott’s research interests–economics of sports leagues and teams, player performance analytics, and corporate social responsibility in national and international sports leagues–align perfectly with our vision for creating the nation’s premier College of Sport,” said Falk College Dean Jeremy Jordan. The Falk College of Sport, launched July 1, is the first standalone college on a high-research activity campus (R1) to focus on sport through a holistic academic lens.
Tainsky explained that his interest in sport research developed from a blend of personal experiences with sports growing up and an environment influenced by his father’s career in medical research. “My curiosity about the world and trying to incorporate that into my daily life. Being able to better the community that I’m a part of is ingrained by the fact that I grew up in a house where my father (Dr. Michael Tainsky) was a researcher—in his case he was trying to cure cancer and improve people’s lives that way.
Mine was much more social. As a social scientist, I have noticed the way sport can be such a valuable part of people’s lives. My first memory was watching Big East basketball, and I liked math. I try to bring those two worlds together to create the best social experiences for the greatest number of people possible.”
He emphasized how sport serves as an elective but central part of many lives: “The intellectual side of that is no one has to do sport; it’s an elective part of our lives. Since so many are choosing to spend so much of our attention on this leisure activity, it’s an incredible opportunity to see what people truly value. At the same time, we can provide leadership in utilizing that to help create the most good in the community.”
A theme throughout Tainsky’s work is measuring positive externalities generated by sporting events—benefits experienced by individuals or businesses not directly involved with organizing games. For example, recent research with Adrian Simion analyzed how local hotels benefit from increased occupancy during home football games without changing their practices: “It happens because there’s so much excitement around sport; so much interest in being a part of that experience.” Tainsky also pointed out similar effects related to television viewership when Syracuse basketball performs well.
Regarding Falk College’s future, Tainsky praised its interdisciplinary approach: “Falk College and Syracuse University have recognized that there are four legs of the stool, and you can’t get any balance unless all four of them are functioning and working together. You can’t create athletes and have competition at the highest level without understanding the exercise science portion and the nutrition portion of sport. You can’t produce teams and individuals functioning at their highest level without sport management and sport analytics. You can’t appreciate the whole of it unless all those pieces are talking with one another…and there is not one other place that’s doing what’s happening right now at Falk College.”
Tainsky concluded by noting his enthusiasm for joining Falk College: “What drew me to Falk College was this vision of what can be if we bring together these disciplines that are often times separated and siloed. It’s such a welcome idea that I expect us to be doing incredible things quickly because of all the support I’m seeing and all of the buy-in for what we’re doing from so many different, important pieces of this puzzle.”
