A lot of people find that turning a passion into a job can be daunting. One of the biggest problems to this is realizing that your passion can turn sour if it becomes a job. Your hobbies are enjoyable because you can indulge in them when you’re relaxing and enjoying yourself. If they suddenly become something that your income depends on, then you might find yourself hating it after a couple of weeks. As such, people usually take extreme caution when they try to turn a passion into a job.
But when it comes to something general such as sports, it’s possible to turn your love for it into a job without ruining what you love about it. This is because sports is a huge industry full of unique job opportunities. You’ll likely be able to find a job that is detached enough from your true sporting passion yet lucrative enough to turn into a full business. You might even find that you can turn it into a freelance career, enabling you to start your own self-employed venture into the sporting industry.
So in this post, we’re going to talk about some of the most common ways for someone to turn a love for sports into a full career. There are going to be lots of different options in this article so we’ve split them into three different categories; online focused, retail focused and professional sporting careers.
Online focused ideas
Online focused sporting jobs are all about using the internet to create business opportunities. Since the internet is so huge and varied, it requires you to be extremely creative if you want to turn your passion into a job opportunity.
Let’s start with one of the most basic options for an online-focused sporting job; blogging. Blogging is a universal business opportunity that exists for virtually every industry. As a sports blogger, you’ll be able to choose virtually any topic you enjoy and focus on turning it into a lucrative blog. You generally have three different ideas for sports blogging:
- Becoming a personality and blogging about recent games and results
- Reviewing things such as sportswear and workout equipment
- Analyzing games, offering tips and tricks for specific sports, and generally being a helpful source of information for a particular sport.
These three are the most basic options when it comes to blogging as a career. It helps to establish yourself on social media if you want to become a personality or get your content noticed. While the most common platform to use is Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can also be a great way to help grow your online career in sports.
As another option, you could actually create YouTube videos for different types of content. For example, you might have expertise in exercising and working out, so you could create workout videos that teach you how to maintain a good posture during specific exercises. You could also react to different kinds of sporting videos, or you could create videos that talk about things happening in the sports world.
The pattern here is that you’re going to be creating some kind of content. The content is usually either going to entertain or educate your audience, so you should pick the option that you feel you’re better at. However, making money with this can be difficult as you’re mostly relying on your personality or sponsorships for money.
As you can see, making money online from a passion for sports can be lucrative, but you need to be creative if you want to take advantage of all the different methods of income. You can’t rely on just a single source of income if you’re going to become a content creator. Even if you want to start coaching people online, you’ll still need to create some form of content that will help draw more people in to learn from you. It’s all about building a personal brand for yourself.
Retail focused ideas
Retail is a huge section of the market that gives you plenty of opportunities to start and grow a business. In most cases, the retail sector is great for selling all kinds of products. You could start a sportswear store, a store dedicated to sporting accessories and products or even a store for specific sporting goods. For instance, skateboard stores are extremely popular in certain parts of the country and are a great place for you to build a community to encourage younger children to get involved and pick it up as a sport.
However, retail can also mean starting up a service business like a sports bar. A sports bar is a great place for you to show the latest games and build a community around. You can attract regular customers who are just looking for a drink and some food, or you can focus your efforts on creating a sports bar that is designed for a specific club, team or sport. There are countless options here and it’s down to your imagination. There are plenty of different ways to sell products to sporting fans while also injecting a bit of your own personality into the mix.
But if you simply want a small store to sell sporting products, you can start off as a hobby store, a club store for a specific team or even a sports clothing store. You can diversify your product lineup by adding unique items such as MagnetStreet football schedule magnets, and you can make a name for yourself as a local specialist for a specific team or sport. There are lots of ways to tweak the idea of a retail-focused sporting business.
Even if you focus on retail ideas, you should remember that most retail businesses these days also have an online division that allows them to sell their products over the internet as well. Luckily, setting up an eCommerce store is fairly simple and can be done regardless of your level of experience in web development. With that said, make sure you don’t neglect the fact that you can also sell your products online. This will help maximize your exposure and profits, leading to a successful business based on your passion for sports.
Professional ideas
Lastly, we have the route of going pro. This doesn’t have to mean becoming a professional player, but the option is always there if you’re dedicated enough. While many athletes start young, there are plenty of sports that are more suitable for older people. Even if you don’t want to compete, you can still become a coach for a smaller team and make a name for yourself in the industry. You could even buy your way into managing a team if you have enough support.
But going pro doesn’t always mean getting directly involved with the playing side of things. There are plenty of professionals that absolutely love sports but would prefer not to actually play. Instead, they might help their favourite team or sport in other ways such as developing websites, becoming an official source of information and news or even commentating a sport. There are lots of different ways for someone to get involved in the world of professional sports and it all depends on the type of sport and position that you want to get involved with.
We highly suggest that you take a look around for different opportunities and try to make use of any current skills that you might already have. For example, if you’re a charismatic and analytical person then you might find success in commentating your favourite sports. If you find yourself to be a great coach, then it might be worth looking for teams that are searching for a mentor to assist them.
However, it’s worth mentioning that a sports commentator will typically require you to have a degree in broadcasting, journalism or communications. However, most modern businesses are fairly lenient when it comes to these requirements. That’s why many sporting companies might be more interested in your portfolio and prior experience as opposed to your degree or qualifications. As such, if you want an active role such as a commentator then you may want to search for opportunities to get your name out there.
Some final words
Turning a love for sports into a full-time career isn’t the most difficult thing to achieve, but it’s certainly something that takes a lot of consideration given that there are so many options to pick from. Depending on where you see yourself in a couple of years, it’s a good idea to sit down and evaluate your options before you decide to settle on something. Turning your passion into something profitable always comes with risks, but if you’re willing to invest yourself into the process then you’ll find that it’s easier to achieve than you think. Just make sure you’re realistic with your expectations and don’t quit your day job for something that may or may not work!