Starting this year, Colorado State University is partnering with the Denver Broncos to provide a new sports management minor for students who are accepted into the program.

Three new courses will be offered to support the new 21-credit minor: Sports Marketing, Foundations of Sport Management and Sport and Society.

Senior Associate Athletics Director Albert Bimper helped the University launch the new minor.

“We have brought on a faculty member, Jay Coakley, he’s teaching the sport and society course – we are excited for him,” Bimper said. “I think he is a legend in the field around sport society. He’s doing the work here in the United States and globally, and he’s a key addition to the program that we have.”

There were over 100 applicants for the minor this semester, 40 of whom were accepted. Last semester, two CSU business majors, Reid Sangster and Jens Aaron, founded the Sport Management Club.

“Reid was actually in a sport management club at his old school, and we were talking about it and decided, ‘Let’s do it and make it happen,'” said Aaron, the vice president. “The club is just a really good way to try to get students involved in the sports management world.”

Since every applicant cannot be accepted into the minor, joining the club is a good opportunity for any student with a sport management passion to get involved.

“This fall we’re going full force,” said Sangster, president of the club. “We’re trying to get guest speakers to come in, we’re planning a trip down to the Pepsi Center to get a private tour and hear from some of the game day production people, some of the marketing people, and sales and whatnot.”

Sangster and Aaron were both admitted into the program that starts this semester.

“I think it helped that we were very involved with the club,” Aaron said. “Dr. Bimper is our adviser, as well as one of the head guys with the minor. If any students are interested in doing sports management, they should look into joining the club, get more involved, and then apply for the minor.”

Bimper expects to see the organization grow after such a large application pool this year. The University will be launching a new application process for next semester.

“The program is definitely going to grow, and we’re excited for it to grow,” Bimper said. “We had a lot of great interest this first year, so we wanted to open it up for more than what we even first thought.”

Classes will meet with guest speakers, both on campus and in Denver, to hear about how the Broncos deal with everyday issues in the National Football League. Several students in the minor will be given the opportunity to take on internships within the Broncos organization.

“It’s more than just internships,” Bimper said. “Those are key, but also the opportunity to have some of their executives come and speak to our students, or we can go down there and hear the way they’re thinking about current issues that they face as an organization.”

Veronica Baas can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @vcbaas.