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College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management

  • Murray Cohn at SEVT

Former NBA executive joins Department of Sport and Entertainment Management as executive in residence

Murray Cohn’s name may not be familiar to the average sports fan, but to those who work in the business side of the industry, he is a legend. The former NBA executive and extremely successful consultant has now joined the University of South Carolina’s Department of Sport and Entertainment Management faculty as an executive in residence.

Cohn is a natural fit for the highly ranked program and is uniquely qualified to be another asset for its students as they launch and build careers. After all, he’s done it many times before.

“I’ve helped the NBA, WNBA, NBA G League, ECHL and many individual teams set all-time ticket sales and group sales records. But I am most proud of the over 2,000 people I have helped place in the sports industry and the more than 150 people that I have mentored in their first role who have gone on to be vice presidents and presidents in our industry,” Cohn says.

Those numbers already include more than 30 University of South Carolina Department of Sport and Entertainment Management students and alumni placed in full-time roles and internships, with many more working with Cohn and rapidly progressing. While new as an official member of the faculty, Cohn is a longtime friend of the program. He has spoken on numerous occasions to classes and at the annual SEVT Conference hosted by the department, and helped students and alumni make connections that led directly to jobs.

Cohn heavily emphasizes a lesson which is simple, but can change everything: sport management is a relationship business.

“If you do good work, you can get a job anywhere. If you don’t, you may not work in the industry again. The word is going to get out fast either way,” Cohn says.

Murray Cohn poses with two students

Cohn is always ready to demonstrate the truth of his words to those willing to make an effort to connect with him. As he was having lunch with current students at the 2023 SEVT Conference, he said aloud that he wanted to swap his chocolate cake for cheesecake, but found no takers. However, student Catherine Coleman was listening. The next day, she brought him a slice of cheesecake, introduced herself, and shared her hopes of landing a summer internship with the Lexington County Blowfish. Cohn was impressed. He connected Coleman with Blowfish GM Tony Baldwin, which led to a summer internship.

“That personal interaction, taking that extra step: that’s how you make an impression,” Cohn says. “Being able to help people with that first internship, the first opportunity, that's my passion. That's why I'm thrilled to be part of the best sport management program in the country.”

Cohn’s own career started with an assist from Bill Sutton, then a professor at Robert Morris University and now also a member of the University of South Carolina Department of Sport and Entertainment Management.

Murray, as Cohn’s professor and mentor, encouraged him to take a job in sales with an indoor soccer team. Again, a relationship started everything.

“I said no, but he said I should do it, and I did. At the end of my junior year I was offered a full-time job. Before my senior year, they made me the director of sales. Before my 21st birthday I was running my own team of five people as a director of sales while going to school at night to finish my degree,” Cohn says.

After that start in indoor soccer, Cohn’s career spanned league after league. He worked in Major League Baseball with the Seattle Mariners. He moved to the NHL and helped the Minnesota North Stars as they moved to Texas to become the Dallas Stars. Shifting to the NBA, he worked for the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic, as well as with the league office. As NBA director of group sales and later vice president of ticket sales, he led the way in increasing group sales revenue across the NBA, WNBA and NBDL. He set league-wide sales records and earned multiple awards. He also served as senior vice president of ticket sales for the Alliance of American Football.

Murray Cohn at SEVT

In 2015, Cohn founded MC Sports Sales Training & Consulting Inc. In that role, he provides strategic business planning, sales training and recruiting services to over 200 sports and entertainment properties. His clients include teams across major leagues such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS, as well as entertainment partners like Feld Entertainment and the Harlem Globetrotters.

Cohn attributes the success of his consulting business to, unsurprisingly, relationships. More than 80% of his clients are led by people he has worked with, trained or mentored in previous roles. Those relationships helped bring him to South Carolina, along with what he saw of the program as an industry leader.

What makes the University of South Carolina Department of Sport and Entertainment Management stand out is the quality of the faculty and the quality of the students,” Cohn says. He cites example after example of students impressing him by going the extra mile: Coleman and the cheesecake, Rosie Spagnuolo finding his home address to send him a handwritten thank you note, Allie hurrying to her car to get a speaker to help when he had technical difficulties with a presentation, and many more.

Cohn’s mentor and now colleague, Bill Sutton, puts it quite simply: “In my opinion, Murray is the best in the world at what he does.” He has now joined an all-star faculty, and an already strong program is even stronger with him on board.


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