Dr Andrea Geurin is Director of our Institute for Sports Business (ISB) and a key figure in the sport communication and marketing industry. Before joining us in 2019, she served as the Academic Director of Graduate Programmes in the Tisch Institute for Global Sport at New York University and has previously held roles in the sport management programmes at Saint Mary’s College of California, Indiana University, IUPUI, Massey University and Griffith University. 

During her time at Loughborough London, Dr Geurin has served as the Programme Director for the MSc in Sport Marketing and as the Chair of the EDI Committee until 2023. In 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic she took on a one-year role of Acting Director of ISB when then-director James Skinner moved to a short-term role as Associate Dean for Teaching. Serving as the Acting Director for one year gave her a great deal of knowledge and experience about the demands and duties of the role. Now that she is in the position permanently, she looks forward to continuing the legacy built by Professor Skinner and ensuring that ISB remains on the cutting edge of all that is happening in the global sport industry. Dr Geurin plans to maintain key industry partnerships which utilise the strong research skills of ISB staff and allow students to gain hands-on experience through collaborations in their modules and dissertations. One exciting new partnership ISB has developed in 2023 is with AiSCOUT, an artificial intelligence-based platform used by professional football clubs and other sport organisations to identify talent. Several new research projects are expected to emerge from the relationship, and an AiSCOUT lab is being developed to allow students to gain real world experience with data analytics. 

Sports Expo Egypt

Dr Geurin continues to influence the industry and last month, was invited by the Minister of Youth and Sports in Egypt to deliver a keynote at the Sports Expo Egypt. With the Prime Minister of Egypt in attendance, her talk focused on how Egypt can best position itself to host the 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games. She also served on a panel discussion during the conference alongside Egyptian officials and global sport organisation representatives. The talk had a large focus on sustainability and how Egypt would need to show what they’re doing in this area, if they ever wanted to host the Games. Andrea was able to point to the 2012 London Olympics as an example of a Games in which facilities and infrastructure are still used, as evidenced by our London campus. 

“I was very honoured to be invited to present at the Sports Expo Egypt. It was an excellent opportunity to share knowledge, speak alongside several Egyptian and global sport leaders, and learn more about the sport industry in Egypt, which is growing rapidly,” said Andrea.

North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM)

In addition to travelling the globe to represent the university at prestigious events, Dr Geurin was recently awarded the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) Distinguished Research Award. The Distinguished Research Award recognises a scholar’s extraordinary scientific contributions to sport management. Andrea has been a key contributor to the pioneering social media research in sport and adapted previously established methodologies to allow sport scholars to conduct valid and reliable research on social media. As well as being a PhD mentor and serving as an Associate Editor for two academic journals, European Sport Management Quarterly and Managing Sport and Leisure, Andrea has collaborated with 44 different co-authors on academic journal articles, books, and book chapters; further establishing her research and its impact in the industry. The Distinguished Research Award will be presented to her at the upcoming NASSM conference in Montreal, Canada from 31 May – 3 June 2023. 

Current Research

Currently, Dr Geurin is working on a variety of research projects including: 

• Analysis of Olympic athletes’ use of social media during the Tokyo Olympic Games to understand how athletes from eight different nations adhered to the IOC’s Rule 40, their self-presentation styles, how they promoted personal partnerships, and whether they engaged in online activism during the Games (in collaboration with Dr Lauren Burch from Loughborough University London, Dr Natasha Brison from Texas A&M University, Dr Nick Watanabe from the University of South Carolina, and Dr Akira Asada from Texas Tech University). 

• Analysis of social media use and traditional media coverage regarding the International Paralympic Committee’s #WeThe15 campaign (in collaboration with fellow Loughborough University researchers Professor Aaron Smith, Dr Emily Hayday, Dr Lauren Burch and Dr Emma Pullen). 

• Analysing online abuse of Olympic and Paralympic athletes through content analysis of social media posts and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in athlete safeguarding and staff who work directly with athletes who experience such abuse (the project is funded by the International Olympic Committee and is led by Dr Emily Hayday. Other Loughborough researchers working on the project include Professor Aaron Smith and Dr Lauren Burch). 

• Writing the fourth edition of the book “Strategic Sport Communication” along with Drs Paul M Pedersen (Indiana University), Pamela Laucella (IUPUI), and Ted Kian (Oklahoma State University). 

• Writing the third edition of the book “Introduction to Sport Marketing” along with Professors Aaron Smith (Loughborough London), Con Stavros (RMIT University), James Skinner (University of Newcastle), and Dr Lauren Burch (Loughborough London).