Accounting
The business behind the game: accounting careers in the wide world of sports
The wide world of sports is a growing sector for accounting students considering a future career path. The intersection of sports and accounting offers accounting professionals a unique and dynamic environment. This article delves into the diverse opportunities within accounting careers in the sports industry, highlighting the roles, responsibilities, requisite skills and profiles of industry professionals such as Kip Elliot from the Minnesota Twins and Beth West from James Moore & Co.
The sports industry’s projected future expansion, over
Accountants’ roles and responsibilities in the sports industry are much like any other, with opportunities internally at sports-related businesses and externally through consulting and compliance services offered by public accounting and consulting firms. Whether through working directly for a sports enterprise or indirectly as a consultant with an accounting firm, accountants play a critical role in the financial management of sports enterprises by analyzing revenue streams, expenses and investment opportunities to optimize financial outcomes for teams, sporting events, or athletes. They utilize financial analysis techniques to assess the performance and profitability of
A unique aspect of sports businesses is how sports businesses exchange talent (players) on transfer markets. The opposite side involves contract management and sports agency. Negotiating contracts and managing the financial aspects of player agreements requires accountants who work closely with legal teams and other sports management professionals to structure contracts and calculate salaries, bonuses and incentives while
Tax planning and compliance are also essential functions for sports entities. Sports businesses often operate across the country and are complex with service, entertainment and retail operations. Accountants develop critical tax planning strategies, prepare tax returns, and ensure compliance with tax laws to manage risks and maximize profits. Accountants are also pivotal in preparing budgets and forecasts for efficient resource allocation. Furthermore, the seasonal nature of the sports industry exacerbates the
Important skills
Accountants entering the sports world need many of the skills required for working with other industries, including a strong understanding of accounting principles and the ability to perform financial analyses and forecasting. Thus, accountants working outside the sports world can feel confident that the skills they learn in school or other accounting jobs will help prepare them for a sports accountant career. They should also be able to interpret financial and operational data, identify trends and interpret results. Like all areas of accounting, attention to detail is a must. Details are essential when dealing with contracts and compliance matters where legal teams are also engaged. Moreover, effective communication is essential when presenting financial information, negotiating contracts or working with stakeholders. Accountants must be able to connect the dots, concisely associate financial results, economic conditions, and business strategy and articulate to individuals with a limited understanding of accounting and finance to help them make informed decisions.
Although most accounting skills are transferable to the sports industry, understanding sports economics would be helpful, so electing educational options targeted at sports could help students adapt to the industry more quickly. Some universities have sports management degrees or minors, and others offer elective courses in sports economics that teach students the economics behind professional sports leagues, player pay, sports financing and more. Adding some sports-specific knowledge to the accounting degree would be helpful to aspiring sports accountants.
Minnesota Twins
Kip Elliott serves as the executive vice president for the Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball team based in Minneapolis. Elliott graduated with a degree in accounting in 1989 and became a CPA. He started his career with the public accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand and worked there from 1989-92. After joining the Twins in 1992, he became controller in 1995, CFO in 1999, senior vice president in 2006, executive vice president in 2012, and was named to his current position in 2016. Elliott is responsible for finance, procurement, technology, ballpark operations, financial reporting and financial relationships with
Elliott credits his accounting education, a CPA background and his time in public accounting for the skills necessary to become a CFO at a professional sports franchise. He stated that it’s essential to understand core accounting and how it affects business. He said the Twins’ business operations are divided into departments by function (e.g., ticket sales, ballpark operations, finance, etc.). The activities of these departments vary, but none of them, Elliott said, are more complex than the engagements he encountered in public accounting. He said the diversity of situations he got to work on as a public accountant is paramount to his ability to problem-solve and make decisions. Elliott highlighted the value of a background in accounting by stating that of the 30-plus CFOs he is in contact with, over 80% are or were CPAs. He recommends accounting students should start in public accounting. “Working for a public accounting firm teaches you so much, and you often work with clients who would be happy to hire you,” he stated. That, in short, is how he got his position with the Twins and made his transition into sports.
What does he enjoy most about his career in the sports business? “The cliché answer (and sincere answer) is the people,” Elliott responded. “I’ve had the good fortune to work with a variety of tremendous individuals who share a passion for the business of sports, in particular, a passion for Major League Baseball. The many personal relationships that I’ve been fortunate enough to have built are what makes the job fulfilling. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty cool product to be a part of. All of us at the Twins are lucky to work in an industry that provides entertainment and social engagement for a myriad of people to experience. The variety of each day continues to make it fun to go to work. Truly, no two days are the same. I get to use my cumulative experience from college to public accounting and my 30-plus years at the Twins to hopefully make the Twins a better organization. There aren’t many places better to go to for a job than a baseball park.”
Sports accountant
Beth West has enjoyed a diverse career as a sports accountant. She has worked in internal accounting operations for a university athletic department and is now a trusted advisor to athletic departments nationwide. West enjoys “combining a personal passion for athletics with accounting and business concepts to result in gratifying work. I enjoy that an educational background in accounting can lead to so many varying career paths, including being able to help organizations in the business arena of sports.”
Like Kip Elliot, she started her career in public accounting. West graduated with a Master of Accounting degree in 2011 after a standout Division I women’s volleyball career. After graduation, she worked in the assurance practice with the CPA firm Ernst & Young. When an opportunity opened for an assistant athletic director for business at her alma mater, West merged her passions for accounting and sports. She eventually rose to senior associate athletic director for business, overseeing the university athletic department’s business and financial operations, including financial management and budgeting, financial reporting, various accounting and human resource processes, and more. West supported the university’s athletic endeavors while ensuring long-term financial sustainability.
Her career has gone full circle. She now works as a senior accountant for James Moore & Co., a CPA firm in Gainesville, Florida, that consults with collegiate athletic departments and helps them with their financial operations and compliance. She specializes in helping collegiate athletic departments with agreed-upon procedures over their NCAA financial reports. West leverages her previous experience as the senior associate athletic director for Business. Regardless of the position, she said flexibility, purpose and communication are the three most important skills for working in a sports accounting role. “You may wear a variety of hats within a sports organization, and it is important to remain flexible with the ability to adapt and learn,” she said. West has been able to adapt, learn and leverage her experiences into a great career in both accounting and sports. She recommends that individuals interested in finding job opportunities in the sports world browse
Accounting careers in sports offer a unique opportunity for accountants to blend financial management and passion for athletics, with professionals like Kip Elliot and Beth West exemplifying the diverse opportunities within this field. As the sports industry continues to evolve and grow, the demand for skilled accounting professionals remains high. Aspiring accountants can carve out rewarding careers in this exciting and dynamic sector with the right mix of skills, expertise and dedication.
Senate Republican Leader John Thune said President Donald Trump’s giant fiscal bill is unlikely to repeal the estate tax.
“I’d love to get rid of it,” Thune told reporters Wednesday, adding that senators had considered repealing the tax. “I don’t think it’s probably likely to happen here.”
Thune has been a vocal critic of the 40% estate tax paid by the wealthiest U.S. individuals when they die. The South Dakota Republican has assailed the levy, which he says harms family-owned businesses and farms.
Thune told reporters he anticipates the Senate version of the bill will mirror the House’s plan. The legislation permanently increases the estate tax exemption to $15 million for individuals and $30 million for married couples, with future increases tied to inflation.
Thune’s remarks are a concession that Republicans are constrained by budgetary rules that limit the overall size of the bill. The legislation calls for a renewal of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and includes the president’s campaign promises for no taxes on tips and overtime pay.
The fiscal limitations mean that Republicans are unlikely to pass all their tax priorities, despite controlling Congress and the White House.
The estate tax affects only a small segment of taxpayers, but has gained political significance with Republicans branding it a “death tax” and saying it inhibits farmers and other small business owners from passing on their assets to their children. In 2022, 3,170 estates — less than 0.1% of Americans — paid estate tax at death, according to Internal Revenue Service data.
Current estate tax rules mean that an individual’s estate can pass up to $13.99 million tax-free on to their heirs, or twice that for a couple. The top tax rate is 40% on assets, though many billionaires and other wealthy people have long exploited legal loopholes to avoid paying it.
Service over the phone and at Taxpayer Assistance Centers and safety at TACs are among the issues still in need of improvement by the Internal Revenue Service, according to the latest report to Congress from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
TIGTA’s
Among the findings:
1. Toll-free lines. Similar to the 2023 season, expectations were for the IRS to provide an average level of service of 85%, reduce the average caller wait to five minutes or less and provide nearly all callers with the ability to take advantage of a callback option. For the 2024 season, the IRS reported an average level of service of 87.6% and an average wait time of 3.4 minutes.
TIGTA said a “limited” sampling of IRS lines showed that previous recommended corrections had not been made: “While IRS records indicated all IRS telephone lines would hear tax scam and identity theft information while on hold, TIGTA observed that some telephone lines still did not have the required tax scam information.” The IRS also had to ask for more time to implement recorded messages in Spanish.
(Read more: “IRS paints a strong picture from 2024.”)
2. TAC “experience.” TIGTA made surprise visits to 85 TACs at the start of the 2024 season, identifying unclear hours of operation, security guards impeding taxpayers’ ability to speak with IRS employees, and inconsistencies with types of assistance being provided.
“We also found that TAC telephone lines provided only basic information regarding TAC addresses,” the inspector general’s report said. Forty of 95 facilitated self-assistance kiosks were not operable, and some had not been working for over a year.
3. Weekend fray. Most TACs are open Monday through Friday and operate by appointment only with walk-in exceptions by appointment. In 2024, the IRS offered face-to-face service without an appointment at some TACs for one Saturday a month.
TIGTA made 33 unannounced visits to TAC Saturday events and found that, “while the IRS took steps to prepare for these events, unanticipated demand created long wait times for taxpayers. Demand was partly driven by a lack of appointments during the week and in-person identity verification requirements,” the result of the IRS response to tax schemes on social media promising large refunds and where the IRS sent notifications to taxpayers requiring them to visit a TAC site for an in-person identity verification.
Many TAC locations were almost completely booked 60 days in advance for appointments, and taxpayers may have relied on Saturdays to get quicker service. The TAC in Atlanta had a line of taxpayers nearly half a mile long that had started forming at 4 a.m. A fight broke out at a TAC in Houston.
“After we alerted the IRS of our safety concerns, they increased security in other locations,” the report reads. “The IRS also canceled 14 Saturday help events (mostly) due to lack of staffing, and sometimes with short notice.”
4. Business as not usual. The IRA designated $4.8 billion for business systems modernization, but after TIGTA sampled IRS legacy systems and requested contracts to track the agency’s spending of IRA funds on such modernization, “the IRS was unable to locate the contracts. In addition, financial controls over IRA BSM spending are ineffective.”
Among the positives in the report:
- TIGTA’s review of IRS oversight of private debt collection companies, which are contracted to collect taxes on cases involving inactive tax receivables, found that “assistors generally adhered to guidelines and provided quality service to taxpayers achieving an overall accuracy rate of 97.8% compliance.”
- As of last October, the IRS had made 234 notices available via online accounts and expected to add 20 notices by the end of December 2024, exceeding its original 90-notice goal. The agency also redesigned 141 notices of its 200-notice goal as of October 2024 and had expected to have 231 notices redesigned by last December. TIGTA found redesigned notices generally shorter, easier to read and with appropriate Quick-Response codes.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
Amid the agency’s turmoil this year, the Internal Revenue Service has some good news from 2024 regarding service and collections.
The agency helped taxpayers on 62.2 million occasions in FY24, up 3.2% over the prior fiscal year, and took in a new high in revenue, according to its latest annual
IRS toll-free customer service lines provided live telephone assistance to almost 20 million callers during the fiscal year, up some 11% from 2023. At Taxpayer Assistance Centers, the agency helped more than 2 million taxpayers in person, an increase of almost 26% over FY2023.
For the first time, revenue collected exceeded $5 trillion ($5.1 trillion), an increase of almost 9% compared to the prior fiscal year total.
The Data Book gives a fiscal year overview of the agency’s operations, including returns received, revenue collected, taxpayer services provided, tax returns examined (audits), efforts to collect unpaid taxes and other details. Among other FY24 highlights, the IRS:
- Launched more digital tools than it had during the previous 20 years. Online offerings saw more than 2 billion electronic taxpayer assistance transactions, 47% more than in FY23. The most popular features were requests for transcripts and Where’s My Refund? Overall, IRS.gov registered nearly 690 million individual visits with 1.7 billion page views.
- Processed more than 266 million returns and other forms from individuals, businesses and tax-exempt organizations; received almost 4.6 billion information returns; and issued close to $553 billion in refunds.
- Closed 505,514 tax return audits, resulting in $29 billion in recommended additional tax.
The net collections — federal taxes that have been reported or assessed but not paid and returns that have not been filed — totaled almost $77.6 billion, an increase of 13.6% compared to FY23. The agency collected more than $16 billion through installment agreements, an increase of more than 12% compared to the prior fiscal year.
The Data Book also covers statistics on Direct File, taxpayer attitude surveys about satisfaction with the IRS and “acceptable” levels of cheating on taxes, and applications for tax-exempt status, among other topics.
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